Israel and U.S. in "Crisis"

The dispute that started when Israel approved zoning in a controversial area of Jerusalem during Joe Biden's visit to the region has turned into crisis.

U.S.-Israeli relations have hit a 35-year low over a contentious east Jerusalem building project that threatens to derail peacemaking efforts with the Palestinians, Israel's envoy to Washington was quoted as saying Monday.

Ambassador Michael Oren's remarks clashed with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's assurances that the political turmoil resulting from the settlement
announcement, which the Obama administration slammed as "an insult," was under
control.

"Israel's ties with the United States are in their worst crisis since 1975 ... a crisis of historic proportions," the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper quoted Oren as saying to Israeli diplomats in a phone briefing over the weekend.

This spat has showed just how far relationships have deteriorated. Without taking sides, it's remarkable that such a disagreement would be characterized as a crisis.

Joe Biden was in the region when some yet unnamed bureaucrat in the interior department announced the approval for zoning of new construction of apartment buildings in a contentious part of Jerusalem.

That lead to a public rebuke by Biden. It then lead to a screaming match by phone by Hillary Clinton and her counterpart which was then leaked to the press and hyperanalyzed.

Now, the entire relationship appears on the brink. Yet, unconfirmed reports have the U.S. demanding this of Israel.

They also reported that the U.S. wants Israel to make a significant confidence-building gesture toward the Palestinians. Suggestions included releasing hundreds of Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails; turning over additional areas of the West Bank to Palestinian control; removing some of the roadblocks hampering the movement of Palestinians and goods in the West Bank; and easing the blockade on the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, media reported.

That's a request that Israel is unlikely to accept. Relations between the two nations have been contentious since the U.S. made a pet project out of ending their (Israel's) expansion of settlements. Obama's approval was once down in the single digits in Israel. The Israeli Ambassador is calling this " Worst crisis with US since '75"

Israel’s ambassador to Washington Michael Oren convened Foreign Ministry consuls for an emergency briefing, and told them the crisis between Israel and the US is the worst since 1975, Army Radio reported.

Oren was referring to a crisis that evolved when Israel refused to sign a treaty to withdraw forces from Sinai in 1975.

In an unusual move, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) made a public call on the White House to tone down the rhetoric. The lobby said statements made by senior officials in US President Barack Obama’s administration were “very worrying.”

The comparison in crises is interesting. The last included a war and this includes a zoning approval. That's how far we've come.

New Financial Regulations Announced

Vice President Joe Biden announced new financial regulations for investment advisors on Friday.

The White House said the proposed regulations would allow financial institutions
to give workers advice on investments if they follow one of two rules:

•Advisors are not compensated for steering workers into investment choices that are more profitable for financial institutions.
•The advice is based on an objective computer model that has been certified by an independent expert.

The White House said today that the proposals would affect tens of millions of Americans and will apply to all financial institutions that both provide investment options such as 401(k)s to employers and offer financial advice to employees.

There is definitely something to these regulations. Mutual funds and other investment vehicles often pay varying fees to the investment advisor and there's no question that this corrupts the process.

At the same time, implementing such regulations is not all that easy. This would mean totally overhauling the manner in which mutual funds and other investments are paid. It means that it's no longer worthwhile to be a marketmaker since added fees are a major benefit of being a market maker.

So, while this idea has some benefit, it must be fleshed out properly.

Challenging Bush on Terror is Just Dumb

Politico has a story that says the Obama administration is in a fighting mood.

Any day spent talking terrorism isn’t automatically a good one for the Obama administration, given the Republicans’ traditional edge on the issue among voters.

But debating Dick Cheney on terrorism? The Obama White House says it’s happy to do that anytime, as it did with Sunday’s split-screen standoff between Cheney and Vice President Joe Biden.

The dueling appearances, along with what is a clear administration strategy to play up its newly aggressive approach in Afghanistan, show a White House determined to project a posture of strength on national security and trying to gain the upper
hand with Republicans who wish to portray Obama as weak.

This is the height of political incompetence, in my opinion. Taking on the Bush administration is a total loser for the Obama administration. That's because no one in the Bush administration has anything to lose.

When you attack your opponent two things happen. First, your opponents negatives go up. Second, your negatives go up. The Bush administration won't be running for office. Dick Cheney's approval ratings can go to zero and it won't matter. He's not running for office. His criticisms will be run in a loop against Biden's.

So, think about that. Biden's defense is that they did the same thing the Bush administration did in the Richard Reid case. So, the negatives will go up for the Bush administration's handling of the Richard Reid case. That's not going to help with the approvals of Obama's handling of Farouk.

Democrats think they are winning because a recent WAPO poll gave the Obama administration 56% approval on its handling of the GWOT. Of course, the GWOT is a much broader thing: Iraq, Afghanistan, drones, etc. The public is overwhelmingly against civilian trials for KSM and they are none too happy with the Obama administration's handling of Farouk.

Let's go back to the Dick Morris theory. It doesn't matter how the media presents an issue. All that matters is what issue they are talking about. For the Obama administration anything in relation to the handling of the Farouk case is a total loser for the Obama administration. So, why draw more attention to it by getting into a spat with Cheney.

Biden Vs. Cheney

Just when you thought the Obama administration couldn't sink any lower, Joe Biden comes out with a full frontal assault against former VP Dick Cheney, and Cheney responded in kind. The fireworks started during the week when Biden showed up on Larry King.


Now, you know the administration is struggling when they try and take credit for Iraq. The president will likely not have all the troops out by the end of his first term. Both Biden and Obama were against the surge. Biden wanted to carve up Iraq into three parts. At best, they can be credited for not screwing things up.

Then, on today's show, Joe Biden trotted out the old Daniel Moynahan line about not getting your own facts. It was on.

There's a few things of note here. First, Democrats love to defend Mirandizing Farouk by pointing to Richard Reid. Well, first, Reid was arrested only a couple months after 9/11. The military tribunals hadn't been set up yet. Second, who cares? The same folks that condemn each and every Bush policy are now defending their own by pointing to a Bush policy. That's rich. We probably shouldn't have Mirandized Reid. We certainly better not have done it until we got all we could from him. Whether we did or not, that doesn't justify Mirandizing Farouk after 50 minutes.

Finally, who knew that the best voice against Obama anti terror policies would be Dick Cheney? He's been the single biggest and boldest voice of criticism against Obama's anti terror policies that the opposition has. As for Obama, they continue to think that picking political fights will somehow make people forget that they find many of their policies reprehensible.

Romer Vs. Gross

Christina Romer of the President's Council on Economic Advisors had this startling answer during a Congressional hearing today.

Romer … said Thursday that the $194 billion already spent gave a jolt to the economy that contributed to growth in the second and third quarters of the year. She told a congressional panel that by the middle of next year, the impact of the stimulus will level off. Romer said spending so far has saved or created 600,000 to 1.5 million jobs but warned that unemployment will remain high, above 9.5 percent, through the end of 2010

I found this curious for several reasons and not the least of which is because Daniel Gross, of Slate, said this recently in defense of the stimulus.

In other words, nearly eight months after its passage, a large majority of the stimulus has yet to start impacting the economy—as was the plan. And as was also the plan, the most visible parts of the stimulus are only taking effect now and will remain active through 2010. As you drive around town, it's difficult to visualize tax rebates or aid to states—the fast-acting components of the stimulus. But as I drive around my town today, I can see workers laboring at a $4 million, stimulus-backed road project that is just getting started and will run through the spring of 2011.

So, which is it? Is the effect of the stimulus largely already felt as Romer now claims or is the stimulus just gearing up as Gross said?

The stimulus appears to be one of those things that will work at all times but the present. When it was being debated, President Obama said we'd feel the impact right away. Then, at the beginning of the summer, the president said he was disappointed with the pace of implementation and promised to speed up the spending. Then, the unemployment passed 8%, 9%, and 9.5%, and the president started saying it was a plan designed to work over two years.

Now, the unemployment rate is at 9.9% and the administration is saying that most of the impact has already been felt. Of course, Vice President Joe Biden also says the stimulus has worked beyond all expectations. Is that success that will happen next year, has already happened, or will never happen?

The Administration is Turning into Financial Keystone Cops

This weekend Joe Biden had an infamous interview with George Stephnopolis. In the interview, Biden said what is now the subject of hyper analysis and mockery.

The truth is, there was a misreading of just how bad an economy we inherited. Now, that doesn't -- I'm not -- it's now our responsibility. So the second question becomes, did the economic package we put in place, including the Recovery Act, is it the right package given the circumstances we're in? And we believe it is the right package given the circumstances we're in,

Now, the President has responded and he said this.

There’s nothing that we would have done differently. We needed a stimulus and we needed a substantial stimulus.

Of course, we should all ask White House Economic Advisor Laura D'Andrea Tyson if the stimulus was right and proper. Tyson said the stimulus package was smaller than she would have wanted.

We should be planning on a contingency basis for a second round of stimulus," Laura D'Andrea Tyson, a member of the panel advising President Barack Obama on tackling the economic crisis. said on Tuesday.

Addressing a seminar in Singapore, Tyson said she felt the first round of stimulus aimed to prop up the economy had been slightly smaller than she would have liked and that a possible second round should be directed at infrastructure investment.

"The stimulus is performing close to expectations but not in timing," Tyson said, referring to the slow pace at which the first round of stimulus had been spent on the economy.

All of this is a little confusion. It's even more confusing when you consider that the president claimed an economic disaster of biblical proportions if the stimulus didn't pass. How bad is our economy if the president expected an economic apocalypse and was still too rosey? Furthermore, if things aren't improving as the administration would like, why is everyone talking about a second stimulus rather than figuring out ways to spend the first one more quickly?

What's the point of having a second stimulus if the administration still can't figure out how to spend the first one? If the president wouldn't do anything different does this mean he's happy with the economy so far? If he isn't what role does he play in its performance? More importantly, what should we expect going forward? The VP says they misread the economy. The president says he would do nothing different. An economic advisor says we should plan for a second stimulus. So, what exactly is the administration's plan going forward? That, frankly, all depends on who you ask. That should frighten everyone.

It's bad enough that we have an administration's economic policy that is disintegrating in front of us. It's even worse that they can't seem to keep their stories straight. One is happy. One is acknowledging mistakes. Yet, another is proclaiming it's time for more stimulus, while only one tenth has yet been spent.

This administration is turning into the keystone cops of finance. The president could sell the country on economic doom. He could scare everyone into going along with his stimulus. What he can't seem to figure out is how to make the stimulus do anything positive for the economy. Worse than that, the entire administration can't seem to keep its stories straight now that it is all falling apart.

Some Questions for Joe Biden and the Administration

Joe Biden was on Meet The Press this weekend. He was asked about the rosey forecasts that administration put out regarding what the stimulus would do. For instance, the administration predicted that unemployment would reach 9% without the stimulus, and stay below 8% with the stimulus. In response to these predictions, here is what Joe Biden said.

No one realized how bad the economy was. The projections, in fact, turned out to be worse. But we took the mainstream model as to what we thought -- and everyone else thought -- the unemployment rate would be."

"Everyone guessed wrong at the time the estimate was made about what the state of the economy was at the moment this was passed."

Now, let's break this down. The administration misjudged, according to the VP, the intensity of the recession. They thought things weren't nearly as bad as they were. First, when they used the term "catastrophe" over and over in selling the stimulus, just how rosey did they think the economy was?

More importantly though, if the administration underestimated the intensity of the recession then isn't the stimulus entirely not large enough? Isn't Biden really saying that the stimulus isn't nearly enough? If that's the case, isn't it time to table health care to figure out just how much stimulus is necessary?

Isn't the admission by Biden that the administration "guessed wrong" about the intensity of the recession also an admission that the stimulus isn't large enough. After all, the administration didn't merely pull the number $787 billion out of the sky, did they? If it wasn't just a random number, then isn't it wrong? Isn't it too small? How can we be moving onto health care when clearly, the stimulus isn't large enough? Or, am I missing something?

Joe Biden Stimulus Czar: God Help Us All

Joe Biden was just appointed the Stimulus Czar by President Obama.

President Obama has turned to his own vice president to oversee
implementation of the $787 billion economic stimulus package, part of which will be available this week for state Medicaid programs.

Obama announced his decision before the National Governors Association in Washington on Monday, saying Vice President Joe Biden will help ensure the distribution of the money is not just swift, "but also efficient and effective."

"The fact that I'm asking my vice president to personally lead this effort shows how important it is for our country and future to get this right," he said.

Let me put this in perspective. Citizens Against Government Waste, the group that specializes in being a watch dog against wasteful government spending, routinely put Biden in a select group the worst wasteful spenders while he was in Congress. In other words, we will have someone that has a long history of supporting endless amounts of wasteful spending be in charge of making sure that $787 Billion be spent efficiently, without corruption, and without waste. If that isn't the definition of the fox guarding the henhouse, I don't know what is.

There's another way to look at it. The biggest organization that Joe Biden has ever been responsible for before this was the Senate Foreign Relation's Committee. Between staff and other legislators this would be a group of several hundred. Now, with no other experience of leading anything else, he will be responsible for implementing a plan that will involve millions of people and nearly a trillion Dollars worth of spending. I know I feel good about how this will be managed.

President Obama confuses a lifetime in Congress with being a prerequisite for spending other people's money well as opposed to merely being able to spend other people's money. Joe Biden has absolutely no significant qualification to oversee the spending of nearly a trillion Dollars, though to be fair, almost no one does. (which is part of the problem)

The Vice President's Useless Task Force

It appears that Barack Obama has finally assigned a task for his Vice President.

As vice president, Joseph R. Biden Jr. will oversee an Obama administration effort to find ways of building up the ranks of the middle class, that ambiguously defined segment of society with which most Americans identify.

The task force will include four Cabinet members as well as other presidential advisers, the Obama transition team announced yesterday.

The goal is to recommend proposals to ensure the middle class is "no longer being left behind," Biden said. The proposals could include executive orders and legislative plans.

"Our charge is to look at existing and future policies across the board and use a yardstick to measure how they are impacting the working and middle-class families," Biden said in a statement. "Is the number of these families growing? Are they prospering? President-elect Obama and I know the economic health of working families has eroded, and we intend to turn that around."

Now, Dick Cheney, of course, had a task force that became infamous in the Energy Task Force. It is unclear exactly what this task force actually accomplished however there is no shortage of conspiracy theories. Dick Cheney, however, was one of the most powerful Vice Presidents in history. Joe Biden appears to be getting the early line for being one of the least powerful.

This task force is a windown into just how little power President Designate Obama appears to want Biden to have, and it's also a great example of the differences between liberals and conservatives. The article says plenty when it describes the middle class as the "ambiguously defined segment of society". In other words, Biden will be studying a group of people that can't really be defined. The article goes on to say that most people consider themselves middle class. As such, while we can't really define it, we know that almost everyone is in it.

This task force redefines vague, nebulous, and frankly useless. Our government has entitlement programs coming out of every part of its bureaucracy. If the hundreds of billions of Dollars we now spend on entitlements don't strengthen the middle class, what exactly will Biden come up with? In other words, Biden will be running a debating society that will work much like most of academia. They will discuss, debate, and think they are smart, and they will accomplish absolutely nothing of substance.

The larger point though is that this task force is a great microcosm of the differences between conservatives and liberals. A conservative would never dream of such a task force. That's because a conservative doesn't think that the government has any role in "strengthening the middle class". Only a liberal would see such a high minded concept as anything the government should be involved in. A conservative would see "strengthen the middle class" and say, "great, yet another government bureaucracy". A liberal would see "strengthen the middle class" and say "great, another way the government can help". Make no mistake. For all of Obama's supposed pragmatism, this task force is more proof that at his core he is a classic liberal.

Obama's Clinton III: the Absurdity of Change

So far the number of former Clinton staffers on Obama's transition and potential cabinet number just over 30 out of about 50. It appears that folks like Rahm Emanuel, John Podesta, and Joe Biden will be leading the revolution for change. When a Conservative attacks these choices, the most common response is that a staff needs those that know their way around the town and the White House itself.

This defense has some logic to it, except it also opens up another problem for President Obama. He railed against the ways of D.C. for nearly two years. He said that he was going to swoop in and change things. He said that judgment was more important than experience. Then, he appointed a bunch of insiders, full of experience, to execute that change. It's all perfectly logical to appoint people that know their way around. Appointing a bunch of novices would likely lead to disaster while they get their feet wet.

Furthermore, who exactly is Barack Obama supposed to pick? In order to be qualified for such a task as Secretary of State, one needs to have plenty of foreign affairs experience. The same goes for most of the cabinet and other staff.

All of this doesn't necessarily expose the weakness of his picks. Rather it points out the absurdity of running on change. Barack Obama wanted to turn the page on the Clinton administration and then turned it by appointing a bunch of veterans of the very administration he wants to turn the page on. The reason that there is a dichotomy here is because the theme of change is an absurd one. It is one that is ironically recycled every four or eight years when cynicism in the current political cycle becomes ripe for such a theme. Politicians have been running on such theme for years. Then, the realities of the office for which they get elected make effecting change impossible.

If you think about it, all of this should have been entirely predictable. Who exactly was President Obama supposed to fill his staff with if not D.C. insiders? Where else would he find anyone with qualifications for most of the cabinets and staff? Furthermore, it only makes sense to pick Clinton veterans since that was the last Democratic administration and by lasting eight years, there is plenty of talent to choose from. The problem is the utter hypocrisy and cynicism of running on a theme of change knowing full well that the "change" would come with a staff full of D.C. insiders.

The Ad McCain Needs to Make

In light of recent developments, here is an advertisment that McCain needs to put up immediately. Since I cut can't cut and paste videos like I would, please bear with me.

(voice over)

Senator Obama has made a lot of promises this campaign...

$65 billion-a-year health plan $15 billion in green energy spending$85 billion in tax cuts and credits A $25 billion-a-year increase in foreign aid$18 billion a year in education spending $3.5 billion for a national service plan. According to the Hill , Barack Obama's spending proposals could add as much as $1 Trillion in new spending per year.

He's also promised a tax cut to every working middle class family...

How does he plan on paying for all this? He promises to only raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans? How does he define wealthy? First he said it was anyone making $250,000 then $200,000. Fortunately, his surrogates are more truthful than the Senator.
(video should start at 28 seconds in)






(start about 25 seconds in and stop 40)


$250,000?...$200,000?...$150,000?...$120,000?...$70,000? Where will the tax cuts start and the tax increases end? The number gets lower and lower. That's because Senator Obama's plan doesn't add up. In the Senate, Senator Obama has voted 94 times to increase taxes and cut taxes for those making as little as $42,000 per year. Only the wealthiest 5% will get a tax increase, that just doesn't add up.

(John McCain voice over) I'm John McCain and I approved this message.

...

since it's likely you aren't going to see that ad, enjoy another that was desperately in need of eyeballs.

The Ticking Clock Meets the Perfect Storm

There are now five days left until election day and Barack Obama is up by about 6 percentage points. As such, he has a nearly insurmountable lead with little time left. Barack Obama is now in a position to try and run out the clock. Is he about to face a perfect storm of negative campaign news that will jeopardize his election? Let's examine the details.

1) The natural glow of being in the lead.

Most analysts say that at the end of any campaign the race tightens. What they almost never do is explain why. The reason this happens is that the candidate in the lead also receives the bulk of the media attention. Most candidates don't do as well when all the spotlight is on them because each of their policies and proposals is put under a microscope. Once any policy is shown in full view, warts and all, it almost never looks as good as it does when it is presented merely with talking points. As such, Barack Obama, and all his policies, will be put under the proverbial microscope and that will hurt the campaign.

2) Spread the wealth...Socialism...Wealth/Income Redistribution

Ever since Joe the Plumber, exposed Barack Obama's affinity for income redistribution, it has given the McCain campaign a new talking point. Watch any cable news show with McCain or his surrogate and they are on message. McCain and his surrogates will hammer Obama with the "income redistribution" label over and over. As a McCain supporter, this is actually frustrating. Barack Obama hasn't hidden his desire for income redistribution. Had McCain used this line of attack earlier the race would likely look a lot different. That said, in the last days of a campaign it is always important to come up with something new. McCain has a new message while Obama continues to hammer at old themes. Furthermore, the income redistribution attack was given new credence with the release of this audio.



If McCain is wise, he would also make issue of this statement Barack Obama made to the Democratic Socialists of America in Chicago in 1996.

The first is “human capital development”. By this he meant public education, welfare reform, and a “workforce preparation strategy”. Public education requires equality in funding. It’s not that money is the only solution to public education’s problems but it’s a start toward a solution. The current proposals for welfare reform are intended to eliminate welfare but it’s also true that the status quo is not tenable. A true welfare system would provide for medical care, child care and job training. While Barack Obama did not use this term, it sounded very much like the “social wage” approach used by many social democratic labor parties. By “workforce preparation strategy”, Barack Obama simply meant a coordinated, purposeful program of job training instead of the ad hoc, fragmented approach used by the State of Illinois today.

The state government can also play a role in redistribution, the allocation of wages and jobs. As Barack Obama noted, when someone gets paid $10 million to eliminate 4,000 jobs, the voters in his district know this is an issue of power not economics. The government can use as tools labor law reform, public works and contracts.

This would be the final verdict on Barack Obama's plan to redistribute wealth in America. Income redistribution is overwhelmingly unfavorable in the U.S. A Gallup poll in March showed that it was disapproved by 84-13. McCain is on message and he finally has one that is effectively corroding Obama's support.

3) Joe Biden

The Vice Presidential candidate has become a magnet for gaffes and controversy. It first started with this interview with Diane West.


The Obama campaign already shunned the station that employs West and now it appears they are banning a second station. This sort of contentious attitude toward any media that they don't like is frankly downright chilling.





This became an internet sensation and furthermore it turned West into a bit of a national celebrity for a couple days. By doing so, it attracted attention to not only very un Presidential behavior by Biden but also lingering questions about Obama's Marxist tendencies.

The second controversy came right on the heels of this one with West.



Finally, Biden had this interview...


in which he suggested that Obama would cut taxes to those that make $150,000 and less. Of course, the campaign has insisted it is only those making $200,000 and less. This lends more credence to McCain's contention that Obama is not being totally truthful when he says that his tax cuts will only be for the very wealthy. Since these gaffes, Biden has become incognito. As such, the campaign realizes that Biden is a disaster that needs to be muzzled. That's not a good place to be.

4) Rashid Khalidi

Yet another radical associate of Barack Obama's has emerged in the last weeks of the campaign. Now, Khalidi would be more of an issue if the L.A. Times released a tape in which Barack Obama praises Khalidi at an event, attended by among others Bill Ayers, while others at the same event condemn and spew venom at Israel. Still, one other radical associate of Barack Obama is not a good thing. Khalidi is the radical, now professor, and former spokesperson for the PLO, when that organization was deemed a terrorist group by the United States. Barack Obama was a colleague of Khalidi's at the University of Chicago. It's unclear if only partisans care about this. There is certainly a lot of buzz about this in the right blogosphere, however I don't know how many independents care. They would care a lot more, however, if they saw on tape Barack Obama singing praise to this man at an event in which Israel was demonized.

5) Campaign donation fraud.

This is likely the most important scandal and also the one that will have the least impact. Here is what the Washington Post said.

In September, according to the campaign, $1.8 million in online contributions was flagged, and $353,000 was refunded. Of the contributions flagged because a foreign address or bank account was involved, 94.1 percent were found to be proper. One-tenth of one percent were marked for refund, and 5.77 percent are still being vetted.

But clearly invented names have been used often enough to provoke an outcry from Republican critics. Donors to the Obama campaign using false names such as Doodad Pro and Good Will gave $17,375 through 1,000 separate donations, with no sign that they immediately tripped alarms at the campaign. Of more concern, Cairncross said, are reports that the campaign permitted money from 123 foreign nationals to enter its accounts.

Obama officials said they have identified similar irregularities in the finance records of their Republican rival, Sen. John McCain. "Every campaign faces these challenges -- John McCain's campaign has refunded more than $1.2 million in contributions from
anonymous, excessive and fraudulent contributors -- and we have reviewed and
strengthened our procedures to ensure that the contributions the campaign accepts are appropriate," said Ben LaBolt, an Obama spokesman.

McCain's contributor database shows at least 201 donations from individuals listing themselves as "anonymous" or "anonymous anonymous," according to Obama's
campaign. In one particularly embarrassing episode, the McCain campaign mistakenly sent a fundraising solicitation to the Russian ambassador to the United Nations.

Now, it's unlikely that mos of the public will even know about Senator Obama's troubling lack of oversight of credit card donations. The campaign has removed many safeguards that normally guard against fraud. It accepts pre paid cards, and it has accepted donations from those that clearly have made up names. The campaign says that they have plenty of safeguards on the "back end". That means that they have safeguards to insure that fraudulent donations are caught after they have been received, but they collected $150,000,000 last month alone. Furthermore, how in the world can they spot fraud from a pre paid credit card? Unfortunately, I believe that Barack Obama will take no political hit for this but he should.

There you have it. Five days left and a lead that is nearly insurmountable, but there is also a perfect storm of campaign trouble. An irresistable force meets an immovable object. Which will win? We'll find out on November 4th.

A Tale of Two Campaigns

This interview is becoming a legendary piece of viral. It is also a great microcosm of the way in which the media treats the two campaigns. In it, Senator Biden is visibly rude, condescending and dismissive. The audience can decide if the questions were fair or appropriate however they were no less appropriate than many of the things asked of Governor Palin by the likes of Katie Couric, Charlie Gibson and more recently Drew Griffin.

Now, imagine if Governor Palin had become this visibly rude during an interview. The MSM would have spent the next week analyzing whether she had the temperament to be on the ticket. The Obama campaign has frozen this station out as a result. Now, imagine all the news organizations that the McCain campaign would have frozen out if they had frozen out each one they thought was unfair to them. We would have a freeze out of the New York Times, NBC, and CNN (which sandbagged Governor Palin with a question taken totally out of context from a Byron York piece) just to get started. If the standard were simply tough questions they didn't like (which is apparently the Obama standard) then ABC and CBS would also be frozen out. In fact, if the criteria is something on the level of this interview, it's likely the McCain campaign would only talk to fawning bloggers.

This isn't the first time the Obama campaign has used thuggish and heavy handed tactics against its critics. On more than occasion, his campaign has coordinated efforts to silence his critics on Chicago radio stations. There have been other occasions of less dramatic heavy handed behavior. During the Kentucky primary, the campaign blamed their loss on Foxnews and cryptic and nefarious emails. In fact, the Obama campaign has proclaimed that without Fox News, they would have another three points. No one in the media has bothered to ask where the campaign would be without the rest of the fawning media. Can you imagine the media firestorm if the McCain campaign had proclaimed that they would be tied if only the media coverage were fairer?

Everytime the McCain campaign makes a spectacle of their distaste for the media, that is front page news. Both after the hit piece about John McCain and a lobbyist and after the hit piece on his wife, there was a media firestorm not only over the pieces themselves, but the McCain campaign's reaction. When the McCain campaign cut off the New York Times, that was the talk of the media for about a day. Yet, the MSM barely mentioned that the Obama campaign coordinated two separate efforts so that their supporters would disrupt an interview with Stanley Kurtz. Not only will the media not mention that the Obama campaign has cut off this television station, the media won't even discuss the interview that lead to the station being cut off.

Now, another media outlet has been frozen out for daring to ask questions that made the Vice Presidential candidate uncomfortable. Can you imagine the media firestorm if the McCain campaign pulled a similar move? That would be all they would be talking about. In fact, while this latest episode of thugocracy continues to go unnoticed, the MSM continues to have a field day with the amount of money that Governor Palin spent on clothes. The interview, the aftermath from it, and the media's lack of coverage is yet another microcosm into a media campaign in which the media has decided to stop being a watchdog and decided to become an advocate for one of the two candidates.

Are Gaffes and Scandals Engulfing the Obama Campaign

No doubt if you are a liberal Democrat, you are likely to be planning your agenda for the next two years minimum. Of course, as the campaign heads into the home stretch, the focus is now shifting the spotlight entirely onto the Obama campaign. Just in time, the Obama campaign is creating several bit of headaches for itself that gives their opponents hope that they may still snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.





1) Four words, "spread the wealth around"





These four words have changed the dynamic of the race in the last couple of weeks. It has given the McCain campaign a whole new attack angle in the last couple of weeks. While the Obama camapign continues with their standard attack attempting to link John McCain to George Bush, the McCain campaign has created a whole new angle for itself. They have turned Joe the Plumber into a mini celebrity and turned these four words into a whole new campaign theme. In the last two weeks of any campaign, it is vital that each campaign find a new message. By Obama repeating the same mantra of Bush/McCain they continue hitting old themes. By McCain finding a new voice linking Obama's policies to Socialism they have found a new message.





2) Joe Biden: Barack Obama will be tested.





What Joe Biden said the other day was stunning, revealing, and most of all perplexing. Here is what he said.

And here's the point I want to make. Mark my words. Mark my words. It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy. The world is looking. We're about to elect a brilliant 47-year old senator president of the United States of America. Remember I said it standing here if you don't remember anything else I said. Watch, we're gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy. And he's gonna have to make some really tough - I don't know what the decision's gonna be, but I promise you it will occur. As a student of history and having served with seven presidents, I guarantee you it's gonna happen. I can give you at least four or five scenarios from where it might originate. And he's gonna need help. And the kind of help he's gonna need is, he's gonna need you, not financially to help him, we're gonna need you to use your influence, your influence within the community, to stand with him. Because it's not gonna be apparent initially, it's not gonna be apparent that we're right.

In my opinion, the biggest problem with this statement is that it's perplexing. In other words, no one is really sure what he means when he says that Obama will be "tested" and when he says, "it's not gonna be apparent that we're right". The Obama campaign hasn't really cleared it up. When a statement is unclear and vague, the talking heads take over. What follows is that said statement becomes a regular part of the media's news cycle. If the media spends the next week doing any sort of analysis of this statement it will not only raise doubts about Obama's readiness, but frankly Biden's gravitas. The media has helped the Obama campaign again by doing everything it can to keep this off the front pages but sometimes that boomerangs. That's because stories like this have a way of creeping onto the front pages anyway and when they take a few days to get there they tend to explode once they do. Look at the initial Reverend Wright story as an example. That didn't explode until days after the initial tapes came out but once it did it became an endless loop. This story is starting to creep into the news cycle as well.





3) New Revelations on Bill Ayers.





Over the last week, two new revelations regarding Bill Ayers and Obama's relationship with him have surfaced. First, it has surfaced that Barack Obama wrote a blurb on Bill Ayer's book about the prison system. This is a direct challenge to Obama's assertion that their relationship was merely tangential. Of course, there is a much bigger looming problem here.

That problem is best explained after we look at the second revelation.




In this video, from 2002, Bill Ayers declares himself not only an unrepentent terrorist but a Marxist and an Anarchist. This interview was done days before both Ayers and Obama sat on a panel together. This should put to rest any doubts that Obama didn't know Ayers current beliefs were as radical as the beliefs he once had.

The bigger problem is what is the content of Ayers' book, A Kind and Just Parent, and what sorts of radical ideas does it have for our prison system. Since Barack Obama endorsed the book by giving it his blurb and calling it searing, he, by extension, also endorsed the ideas in the book. Ayers is a radical, a Marxist, and an Anarchist and those are the sorts of ideas that are in this book. What happens when even one enterprising reporter decides to read the book and analyze its contents. Its contents are what Barack Obama sees as the proper vision for our prison system. That will be the most damning portion of this gaffe and it is coming. In fact, it was already examined by Stanley Kurtz long before this latest revelation.

Meanwhile, Obama worked closely with the Illinois Black Legislative Caucus to slow the bill's progress, expressing skepticism about the blended sentencing provisions. While one report speaks of Obama negotiating with Cook County state's attorney Richard Devine for a compromise, there is good reason to believe that Obama's actual aim was to scuttle the entire bill. We have this on the authority of someone who may very well be Michelle Obama herself. Michelle Obama organized a University of Chicago panel about Bill Ayers's crime book in November 1997, just as the battle over the juvenile justice bill was heating up. That panel featured appearances by some of the key figures discussed in Ayers's book, along with Obama himself, who was identified in the press release as "working to block proposed legislation that would throw more juvenile offenders into the adult system." In effect, then, this public event was a joint Obama-Ayers effort to sink the juvenile justice bill-Obama's decision to plug Ayers's book in the Chicago Tribune the following month was part of the same political effort.

The book is no doubt a radical platform for transforming our prison systems and soon the country will know it, and Obama's support for its ideas.

4) ACORN and Obama continue to be linked.

(H/T to Hot Air)

The New York Times has uncovered all sorts of explosive information about ACORN and this information leads directly back to Barack Obama.

The June 18 report, written by Elizabeth Kingsley, a Washington lawyer, spells out her concerns about potentially improper use of charitable dollars for political purposes; money transfers among the affiliates; and potential conflicts created by employees working for multiple affiliates, among other things.

It also offers a different account of the embezzlement of almost $1 million by the brother of Acorn’s founder, Wade Rathke, than the one the organization gave in July, when word of the theft became public. …

Ms. Kingsley’s concerns about the way Acorn affiliates work together could fuel the controversy over Acorn’s voter registration efforts, which are largely underwritten by an affiliated charity, Project Vote. Project Vote hires Acorn to do voter registration work on its behalf, and the two groups say they have registered 1.3 million voters this year.

As a federally tax-exempt charity, Project Vote is subject to prohibitions on partisan political activity. But Acorn, which is a nonprofit membership corporation under Louisiana law, though subject to federal taxation, is not bound by the same restrictions.

This report spells out clearly that Project Vote is nothing more than a front group for Barack Obama. Barack Obama has been working with Project Vote since 1992. Thus, this revelation should put to rest any rebuttal by the Obama campaign that his relationship with ACORN is merely tangential. Finally, two new videos have surfaced raising speculation about not only how much influence groups like ACORN will have in an Obama campaign and just how hard ACORN has been working to elect Obama.


In this video, he makes it clear that groups like ACORN will have a serious advisory role in his administration.

In the second video, Maxine Watters rallies up the troops at an ACORN gathering in support of Barack Obama.




Keep in mind that ACORN takes public funds and thus they aren't supposed to be partisan. As such, we have damning evidence that ACORN is involved in serious criminal wrongdoing, Obama and ACORN have had longstanding connections, and that ACORN is working actively, outside the law, to elect Barack Obama.

Only time will tell if this series of gaffes and scandals will mean anything but make no mistake, this race is not over.

Analyzing What I Now Call the Biden Doctrine

When I said that Senator Biden didn't make any major mistakes in the last debate, I must not have been paying attention to the whopper he pulled regarding Hezbollah, Syria and Lebanon. Here is how Michael Totten described the error.

In Thursday night’s vice presidential debate between Senator Joe Biden and Governor Sarah Palin, Biden said the strangest and most ill-informed thing I have ever heard about Lebanon in my life. “When we kicked — along with France, we kicked Hezbollah out of Lebanon, I said and Barack said, “Move NATO forces in there. Fill the vacuum, because if you don’t know — if you don’t, Hezbollah will control it.” Now what’s happened? Hezbollah is a legitimate part of the government in the country immediately to the north of Israel.”

What on Earth is he talking about? The United States and France may have kicked Hezbollah out of Lebanon in an alternate universe, but nothing even remotely like that ever happened in this one.

Nobody – nobody – has ever kicked Hezbollah out of Lebanon. Not the United States. Not France. Not Israel. And not the Lebanese. Nobody.

So, let's track the number of gaffes in that statement. First, as Totten points out, Hezbollah hasn't been kicked out of Lebanon. Second, if he meant to say Syria, it was the Lebanese largely on their own that kicked out Hezbollah. It's actually impossible to know what Biden meant because Ifill didn't catch the error and neither did Palin. Furthermore, the MSM has pretended as though the error didn't exist.

Since I can't decipher for sure, I will give him the benefit of the doubt and analyze the one that is closest to a semblance of a thought. Let's suppose that he meant to say that the U.S., along with France, kicked out Syria out of Lebanon. Let's also just dismiss the thought that Lebanon did this largely on its own. Let's examine what he said after this.

First, Hezbollah had long ago became a fixture not only in Lebanese government but society. They did this in two ways. First, they created a so called political wing that ran candidates. They have had an active minority in the government for much longer than Syria has been kicked out of Lebanon. Second, and much more importantly, much like Hamas, they have created another wing to their movement that provides basic food and services to the poor in the area in they area they occupy in Southern Lebanon.

Also, UNIFIL has had a peace keeping force in Lebanon since 1978. In fact, this UNIFIL force was supposed to carry out exactly the sort of peace keeping operations that Biden claimed on Thursday that a NATO force should carry out. What exactly did Biden think this mysterious NATO force could do that the UNIFIL force had failed at so miserably? The idea that a bunch of Europeans fighting in a country that they could care less about would be able to quell Hezbollah when Israel, for the better part of 20 years with everything on the line, couldn't accomplish the same goal is patently ridiculous.

Joe Biden is supposed to have gravitas on foreign policy. Barack Obama was supposed to have picked him so that folks wouldn't be concerned about the direction of our foreign policy under a novice President. Yet, not only can't he keep his facts straight in an area of vital importance to our interest, but even once you decipher his incoherent rant, you get a doctrine that is totally void of reality. If Joe Biden thinks that peace can be created in the Middle East through European lead peace keeping forces that take on embedded militaries/political forces/civil servants like Hezbollah, then God help us all as this foreign policy doctrine is implemented.

The Dangerous Demonization of Deregulation

Well, if you listen to any debate, stump speech, or talking point on any political or news show, you know full well politicians on both sides of the aisle are demonizing the concept of deregulation.

Deregulation, a term which gained widespread currency in the period 1970-2000, can be seen as a process by which governments remove, reduce, or simplify restrictions on business and individuals with the intent of encouraging the efficient operation of (private) markets. A practice widely supported by businesses and many economics theorists, it is also heavily criticized by some individuals and groups (especially but not only in the left political spectrum and the anti-globalization
movement) who charge that the removal of regulations can lead to negative outcomes such as removed protections for workers and consumers, ecological damage and anti-competitive practices by large market players unrestrained by politics.

Joe Biden was on last night saying that the "environment of deregulation backed by John McCain" caused this financial meltdown. I, frankly, have no idea what that means but I do know it sounds good and carries an excellent populist message. I also know that I almost never hear any politician point a specific regulation that they think contributed to the crisis or furthermore how that regulation actually contributed to the crisis. A few politicians have isolated the 1999 bank deregulation bill, but most of those have no idea what it did, let alone how it contributed to or created the crisis. If we repeal this bill, your local bank will ONLY be your local bank. You won't be able to get a mutual fund through them or buy insurance through them. Furthermore, your investment advisor you won't be able to offer you a money market account, insurance, or a whole host of other products.

I, for one, am not against regulations en masse. It really depends on what regulations someone proposes. What really scares me about the current environment is that politicians are railing against the concept of deregulation, and yet, none will tell us specifically what regulations they'd like to implement. We'll only find that out later when it is entirely too late.

The irony is that there are few businesses more regulated than mortgages. Everyday folks feel the burden of mortgage regulations everyday. It's regulation, or should I say a plethora of regulation, that causes closing documents to be more than one hundred pages. In fact, ironically enough, it is the hyper pursuit of regulations that make it easier for an unscrupulous mortgage professional to rip off the borrower. That's because it is easier to hide the important document among a stack of one hundred useless ones.

I am not against all mortgage regulations. For instance, here in the state of Illinois we have one regulation that limits the amount a borrower can be charged by all parties to 5.5% of the total loan amount. This is sensible because the scum in my business would charge 25% if they could and there would be plenty of uneducated borrowers that would have no idea just how badly they would be ripped off. That said, this regulation can get dicey when it is coupled with an FHA loan. That's because the federal government sticks their own 1.5% fee on all FHA loans. As such, you are now immediately down to 4%. Now, imagine attempting to do an FHA loan for about 100k when normally closing costs are about $2500. The mortgage broker is now left with crumb after everyone else is through. I have good experience with this as I attempted to do a 70k FHA loan and made about $300 in the process. It's unlikely those that created this 5.5% law knew anything about the way FHA is structured, and they created a hornet's nest for any mortgage professional attempting to do one in Illinois.

That said, this crisis was perpetuated by new sophisticated financial tools like credit default swaps and extremely excessive leverage. Both of which could have been avoided by sensible regulations in both areas. Of course, the players in each field didn't understand the dangerous nature of their own actions, and yet, we are supposed to believe that government would have been in a position to recognize it. Furthermore, regulating swaps and leverage now is pointless. Swaps are nearly non existent and the market has long ago 'regulated" lower, much lower, leverage. In other words, banks don't allow other financial institutions to borrow at such low margin anymore on their own. Regulating is now overkill. The market has created its own regulation.

Finally, and most importantly, demonizing deregulation misses the point of this crisis entirely. The main problem wasn't a spirit of deregulation but rather a spirit of a lack of enforcement of the most basic regulation of all, FRAUD. The heart of the problem is that far too many of these underlying mortgages were done fraudulently. These so called stated loans, sometimes called liar loans, were almost entirely done through fraud. Incomes, assets, and rental incomes were lied about en masse. No new regulation needs to be added to prevent fraud. Fraud must be enforced. Regulations are useless if they aren't enforced. Had fraud been enforced with any sort of vigor we wouldn't have all these toxic loans since the loans were done illegally. They were done illegally so often because the government created an environment in which the fraud was almost entirely overlooked. Rather than a commitment to new regulations, I say let's make a commitment to proper regulations of the ones we already have.

Demonizing a concept during times of economic crisis is popular and it's also dangerous. It's easy to pick on deregulation now. Times are tough, the situation is complex, and so "deregulation" is an easy target. The flip side, in my opinion, is much worse. Regulations make it difficult to conduct business. A far too great zeal for regulations make it impossible to conduct business.

The Dynamics of the Race Remain the Same

I though that Governor Sarah Palin performed rather well last night. Frankly, so did Joe Biden and Gwen Ifill was lot less partisan than I expected. Last night, Governor Palin was much more like the Palin the Conservative base fell in love with. She connected with the people at home a lot more than Biden ever could Biden, for his part, didn't make any of the long winded nonsensical statements that most Conservatives hoped or even assumed he would make. On points I give the debate to Palin. She certainly stopped the bleeding of the McCain campaign. It is even possible he will gain a couple points as a result. He might even gain more. Still, ultimately, I believe the debate will largely prove irrelevant.

The amazing fascination we had with Palin only a few weeks ago has been blitzkrieg ed by the financial crisis currently gripping Wall Street. Had this been four weeks ago, we would today be saying that Palin's performance was a game changer. After several more weeks of media pounding and a couple of bad interviews, she not only met expectations but she beat them. Four weeks ago, that would have been all that mattered. That's because four weeks ago this election was coming dangerously close to a referendum on Sarah Palin. Her fascinating persona was taking over the campaign.

That has all changed, and now even Sarah Palin has taken a back seat to the avalanche coming from Wall Street that most folks fear will affect Main Street. As such, while Palin did well, even fabulously well, but she would have had to have had an unprecedented Herculean effort in order to make this debate a game changer. This continues to still be about the economy. Voters are angry and their anger is centered at the Presidential party a lot more than at the other party.

That said, John McCain still has a chance to make the game changer. Here is how.

1) Challenge the ludicrous notion of 95% tax cuts.

One of the reasons that Barack Obama has taken the lead is because his assertion that he will provide tax cuts to 95% of the people is largely left unchallenged. In fact, Palin didn't directly challenge this notion either last night. The first point needs to be made that about 40% of the people don't pay taxes. You can't give a tax cut to someone that has a tax rate of ZERO. That's not a tax cut but a welfare check. Second, Barack Obama wants to raise the top two tax brackets, the capital gains tax, and the inheritance tax. Those tax increases will affect a lot more than just five percent of the people.

2) Challenge Obama's spending numbers

Barack Obama claims that all of his spending increases are paid for by raising taxes on 5% of the people and ending the war in Iraq. First, even his own estimates have an eighteen month withdrawal on the war in Iraq. Second, he wants to double down on the efforts in Afghanistan. Where is all the savings? Then, he wants to create universal health care, increase education spending, increase foreign aid, increase infrastructure spending, after school education, among a litany of spending increases. Barack Obama has voted for nearly one billion dollars worth of earmarks. Can you imagine the bloated budgets that he and the Democratic Congress will create. He isn't going to be able to pay for all of this by merely raising taxes on the top five percent. The numbers don't add up.

3) Link the bailout, to inflation, to spending.

This bailout will add $700 billion to our debt. Barack Obama is proposing spending increases that could add another trillion in yearly debt. The bailout will already put enormous upward pressure on inflation and downward pressure on the Dollar. Barack Obama's spending proposals WILL, I SAY WILL, explode gas and food prices. What's the point of a thousand Dollar tax cut if food and gas now cost two thousand more? John McCain needs to re emphasize the importance of fiscal responsibility, put into the context of the bailout, and then stress that Barack Obama will lead this country into hyper inflation.

4) Debunk bottom up economic growth

It is absurd to say that taking from one group so that another group has more will grow the economy. It is more absurd to say the wealthy don't need the money they earn. It is even more absurd to say that the money you take from the wealthy wouldn't grow the economy if they kept it. This populist message may have political appeal but it is totally economically brain dead. If it is exposed, so is Obama's entire economic platform. Raising capital gains, income tax, and inheritance tax into a weak economy isn't bottom up economic growth, it's a recipe for a depression.

The Democrat's Abortion Problem

Over the last month or so, three prominent Democrats, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and Nancy Pelosi, have offered answers relating to the abortion question that reveal a significant potential vulnerability for the party on the issue of abortion. At Rick Warren's saddleback forum, in answering a question about when HE THOUGHT that a baby gets human rights, Obama responded like this.

whether you’re looking at it from a theological perspective or a scientific perspective, answering that question with specificity … is above my pay grade.”

Then, in being asked a similar question, Nancy Pelosi responded this way.

would say that as an ardent, practicing Catholic, this is an issue that I have studied for a long time. And what I know is, over the centuries, the doctors of the church have not been able to make that definition. And Senator—St. Augustine said at three months. We don’t know. The point is, is that it shouldn’t have an impact on the woman’s right to choose. Roe v. Wade talks about very clear definitions of when the child—first trimester, certain considerations; second trimester; not so third trimester. I don’t think anybody can tell you when life begins, human life begins. As I say, the Catholic Church for centuries has been discussing this, and there are those who’ve decided…

Finally, again, asked about when life begins, Joe Biden made this response.

They believe in their faith and they believe in human life, and they have differing views as to when life — I’m prepared as a matter of faith to accept that life begins at the moment of conception.”

Then, Biden went on to explain that even though based on his faith he believes life begins at conception, he is still pro abortion because he doesn't want to legislate his faith upon those that don't share it.

Obama's answer was remarkable in its slimy political sort of a way of not answering an uncomfortable question. Pelosi's answer was an outright lie that was challenged and condemned by clergy everywhere. Biden's answer was remarkable in its circular logic.

All three are seasoned politicians. They all know that abortion is always at least a relatively important issue. All of them must know that they can at any time be asked what their view is on when life begins. That's why it is so stunning that each of them answered this question in such a hideous way.

What these answers reveal, to me at least, is a party that takes great pain to understand its side of the abortion debate and takes absolutely no concern to understand the other side at all. In any debate, there are at least two sides. In order to formulate a position properly, one not only needs to understand the positive and negatives of their own position but they must also understand the other side. The position an individual holds must take all of these things into account and be able to outweight the positives of the opposite position with their own.

It's clear that liberals see abortion as a decision only a woman should make and that no one else, not the government or a man, has the right to dictate to her that decision. What is also clear is that the life of the unborn fetus is not only not important enough to sway them from taking that right from a woman, but in fact, it doesn't even play a role in their decision.

Given that the abortion debate has been raging for decades, everyone should be shocked and dismayed that Democrats still can't answer with clarity when life begins. It's as though such a question holds no relevance to the debate. Of course, it is central to the debate. How does a politician take a stand on abortion without first defining in their minds when life begins? The question of when life begins is one that is open for debate and I think people of reasonable minds can disagree while still respecting another position. What most Americans will not accept is obfuscation, lies, and circular logic when answering that question. If one is unwilling or unable to clearly answer when they believe life begins, they can't reasonably take a position on abortion, let alone when that allows it in most cases. What the Democrats have proven over the last month is that they have formulated a position on abortion without being able to answer the central question to it. I believe that is something most Americans will not stand for.

The VP's: Obama Plays Defense, McCain Plays Offense

It's been more than 72 hours since Senator McCain chose Sarah Palin to be his running and one thing is clear, this was an offensive move. The excitement factor on the McCain campaign has been ratcheted up infinitely. What Palin does most is play into McCain's strengths. McCain has been known his entire political career as a politician that shakes up the establishment. He is the outsider always challenging the status quo, of his party and the political establishment at large. That's why it is largely ironic that Barack Obama painted McCain as part of the status quo. McCain is most comfortable in the image of a maverick. That's exactly what Sarah Palin brings back to the ticket. While Barack Obama talked about change and shaking things up, John McCain did exactly that when he chose her.

Obama, on the other hand, chose Joe Biden strictly playing defense. Joe Biden, by most accounts, is a nice man and well liked. He has also run for President and has never garnered even more than 20,000 votes. He has absolutely no national appeal. Furthermore, he has been entrenched in the D.C. establishment for nearly three decades. This is the same D.C. establishment that Obama has been running against. Now, it seems clear why Obama chose him. He was being hurt on the issue of experience and foreign policy gravitas. Biden brings him both, but this is entirely a defensive move.

The thing about politics is that you always want to play offense. That's exactly what McCain did and exactly what Obama didn't do. Let's look at what has happened. McCain has raised nearly 10 million dollars since the announcement. Yesterday, the two of them held a rally in Missouri in front of the biggest crowd of the campaign, about 17 thousand people. More than that, the media has been obsessed with Palin since the announcement. This is across the board from news, analysis, and everywhere in the media from liberal to conservative sources. It has been all Palin all the time since the announcement. Now, compare that to Biden. After he was announced, there was a little media commotion for a day or so and since he has faded into the background.

Now, clearly, Obama used the political philosophy that the VP should do no harm. In a sense, his choice fit the bill. Yet, the choice of Biden is as bland and boring as they come. For a candidate that claims to be ready to shake things up, it certainly isn't the pick to do that. McCain also is trying to claim the mantle of the candidate to shake things up. Since the pick of Palin, that's exactly what has happened in the campaign. Since he picked Palin, it is the McCain campaign that has been playing offense. Playing offense is the key in politics.

Sarah Palin and the Excitement Factor

The worst nightmare for Barack Obama is that his campaign is no longer seen as the exciting one. The crowds he draws will no longer dwarf those of his opponent. His campaign will no longer be seen as historic, exciting or special. The media will no longer see his campaign as the one that is fresh and fascinating. If the next 64 days are the same as the last two, his worst nightmare will have come true, and this is due to one person, Sarah Palin.

Since the announcement that she would be the Vice Presidential candidate, there has been non stop buzz and excitement over her pick. For the last two days, the Obama campaign has faded into the background to the point of being irrelevant. Now, some of this is natural right after a pick and right before a convention, but the reality is that there is a new found fascination with Palin. Does anyone really think that Tim Pawlenty, with all due respect of course, would have receded Obama into the background the way Palin has? In fact, the fascination with Obama is so August 28th. The fascination with his message of hope and change has receded into the background, and a new fascination has taken hold. It is a fascination with a "hockey mom" that hunts, eats moose, and grew from sportscaster, to small town mayor. to whistleblower, to Governor, and now Vice Presidential nominee. The folks and the media simply can't get enough. Heck, it's my third piece about her today.

The debate over the last two days has been whether or not her experience is enough to make her viable. Not surprisingly, the Conservative pundits overwhelmingly think it is, and the liberal pundits think it isn't. That should surprise no one. Frankly, what an individual pundit says is utterly irrelevant in changing the dynamic of the race. What will chang the dynamic is if the next two months are spent treating Sarah Palin as the rock star and not Barack Obama. So far, that is exactly what has happened.

The best example of the changing dynamic is how quickly his speech, hyped beyond belief, became an after thought as soon as Sarah Palin took to the stage in Dayton. Since then, it has been all Palin all the time, with quick cutaways to a natural disaster. What hasn't been talked discussed over the last two days at all is Barack Obama. Sure, he can still pack them in at a rally, but now, so can Sarah Palin...I mean the McCain campaign. At a rally today in Missouri, there was seventeen thousand folks. McCain used to pack one tenth that on his own.

In fact, the only time that Barack Obama is mentioned is in relation to Palin. First, the media hyperanalyzed Bill Burton's (his campaign manager) initial statement playing down her experience. Was it fair? Was it sexist? Then, the media hyperanalyzed his experience compared to hers. Who had more? Who accomplished more?

Let's face it the campaign has a new rock star and that rockstar's name is Sarah Palin. The conservative base loves her. What's not to love? She is social conservative. She has a track record of fiscal responsibility, fighting corruption, and she's even a lifelong member of the NRA. Mooderates love her. What's not to love. She's a former basketball star, beauty pageant star, mother of five, loves to eat moose, who also happens to be a wildly successful politician. Women love her for obvious reasons. Liberals hate her for obvious reasons. What no one can stop doing is talking about her.

They say that the Vice Presidential pick is ultimately fairly irrelevant in deciding Presidential campaigns. They say we vote ultimately for the top of the ticket. They have never met Sarah Palin. Most folks couldn't tell you when any of the Presidential debates are set to occur. Yet, since Friday morning, the date October 2nd is now seared in our collective subconscious, the day of the Vice Presidential debate. Will Biden control the debate? Will Palin be able to stay up with him on national security and foreign policy? Will he look like a bully? The questions are endless and we are all asking them. Never since I have been following politics has a Vice Presidential pick so dramatically changed the dynamic of a race. Politics has a new rock star and that rock star's name is Sarah Palin.

There is still plenty of time between now and the election. If she begins to stumble, begins to gaffe, shows herself to be a lightweight, that glow will fade fast. If she doesn't though, she will become Barack Obama's worst nightmare, a bigger rockstar. If she shows the reality to be anything like the hype she will do one more thing, make John McCain our next President.