The Elephant in the Room

Hey Charles,

Has it really only been a few months since we were talking about race and Bill Clinton and South Carolina and Jesse Jackson and a certain angry reverend who I expect will be coming soon to a GOP ad near you? Remember West Virginia, where one out of every four (one out of four!) Hillary voters admitted that race played a role in their vote. Did you know that in Jersey, Pennsylvania and Ohio, that number was one in 10! I didn't. If you believe the elephant has left the room, think again. And if you're one of those wanna-be-Jim Carvilles who think Barack needs to lose his cool, don't think that the Obama campaign isn't mindful of the elephant's meandering presence. All of this is an interesting analysis from Time.com.

Not that you'll have time to digest this story. I admit -- just keeping up with the stories we've been posting lately is proving to be quite the challenge. Just when I've made it through the 3,000-word New York Times' story about Sarah Palin's management style, I'm presented with the next investigative piece, which made me wonder whether good print journalism actually sticks these days. Despite the lambasting of the mainstream media, some solid reporting is happening, but how much of it is making a mark? This article from the New York Observer pretty much asks the same question.

I guess we can be comforted by the fact that these stories are out there at all, but why do I feel more like Andrea Mitchell at the GOP convention?



Finally, putting on my Carville/Karl Rove strategery hat for a minute, I think Obama might actually be finding his voice, as Hillary Clinton might say. I thought he summed up McCain's response to the economic "crisis" pretty well yesterday when he said:

“I think it’s good that Senator McCain is celebrating the American worker today. But it would have been nice if over the last twenty-six years that he has been in Washington that he actually stood up for them once in a while. It would’ve been nice if he didn’t vote against the minimum wage nineteen times; or if he didn’t vote to privatize Social Security and hand it over to Wall Street. It would’ve been nice if he had opposed the tax cuts for corporations that have shipped jobs overseas, or the hundreds of billions of dollars in corporate tax giveaways that have helped plunge our country into crippling debt. It would be nice if he had a plan to lower the health care costs of American workers – or get them any health care whatsoever; and would have been nice if he had championed a single plan to make college more affordable.”

Maybe that lunch meeting in NYC with Bill Clinton had an effect. It might not have been a "feel your pain" moment, but it was as pointed (and populist) as I've heard Obama. Of course, all of this just reminds me, where is Bill? He said he was "ready to go" out and fight for Obama. With all of this news about Wall Street, wouldn't it make a lot of political sense to remind people of the economic successes of the 1990s?

Oh, and one more thing. How relieved is Team McCain right now that next week's debate will focus on, yep, international issues? Wouldn't it make sense for the scheduling wizards to flip-flop the first 2 presidential debate topics right about now?

Ryan