I’m on this week’s Deep Background with Austin Bay. Also on the roundtable, Glenn Reynolds, Jennifer Rubin, and James Lileks. Produced my Ed Driscoll, with whom I hope to enjoy at least one more dinner next week in St. Paul.
Our main topic? Sarah Palin, of course.
Sarah Palin — fighter pilot?
VodkaPundit — too hot for TV!
Is it Palin?
She could peel off the PUMAs, and give people a reason to feel good about drilling in ANWR. Just please don’t try to combine those two acronyms.
The word on the street here is that Virginia Congressman Eric Cantor will be McCain’s veep pick.
We’ll find out at 11AM Eastern on Friday.
This week’s PJM Political broadcast is available for your downloading pleasure. The show featured a roundtable on Monday’s scuffle, with Michelle Malkin, Charlie Martin, Intrepid Video Dude Andrew Marcus, myself, and the lovely and talented Ed Driscoll.
It’s official — Barack Obama is the Democratic nominee for the office of President of the United State of America. The only real surprise was this:
Clinton’s call for Obama to be approved by acclamation – midway through the traditional roll call of the states – was the culmination of a painstaking agreement worked out between the two camps to present a unified front, and will cost the Obama campaign twelve million dollars to cover her debts.
There’s a small chance I made up that last bit. But there’s a better chance that I’m being all “fake but accurate.”
Founding Bloggers got together with Vets for Freedom and hijacked the “Bush Legacy” bus, where the lovely hosts were showing an Iraq War snuff film.
Michael freakin’ Totten. Every last word.
Look. Michael does what very few MSM journalists dare to do, and he does it on his own dime and without a guaranteed paycheck at the end of it. What he does is supported by you. It’s what journalism used to be, should be, and could be again.
So when you get to the end of Mike’s latest, click on one of his PayPal links. If you’re broke, click on his comments and tell him “Thank you.” If you’ve got some extra money, throw five or twenty or fifty bucks his way. Or — and this is the best option if you’re willing and able — you can now subscribe to Totten through PayPal. Make a small commitment, and PayPal will automatically bill you ten or twenty or however many dollars a month.
Ten bucks a month from you makes a big difference in what Mike can do and where he can go. I just subscribed, and got so excited about it that I’m begging you to subscribe, too.
And if you don’t or can’t? Then you still owe it to yourself to read his stuff. As in, right the hell now.
Robert Stacy McCain sums up the big speech:
This is very much like what the Democrats did in 1988, when Dukakis essentially ran against Reagan — and got his butt kicked. The problem for Republicans is that the economy now is more like 1992. But still, Bush in 2000 did not campaign against Clinton.
I know I’ve linked Stacy a bunch, but we’ve been hanging out since about 1AM Monday morning. We’ve had some knock-down arguments, but mostly a lot of good conversations and some honest belly laughs.
UPDATE: More from RSM at The American Spectator.
I don’t know how they do it, but the Founding Bloggers guys managed to take all these great shots while — at the same time — shooting video with me at the Procession to the Future march this morning. But however they did it, it’s well worth your time.
BTW these guys are a blast to work with.
UPDATE: Speaking of great guys to work with, Charlie Martin — who took an elbow to the kidney from the guy — says, “Alex Jones is consummate ass.”
What you’ll see below might be the hardest-hitting political ad since “Daisy” in 1964. Of course, this one has the advantage of being true.
Hat tip, Michelle Malkin.
Watch as a snarky little puff piece turns into a shouting match between Alex Jones and… himself, I think. And Michelle Malkin stood her ground against him. Impressive stuff, especially by Gateway Pundit, PJM’s unofficial bodyguard Charlie Martin, and our Intrepid Video Dude Andrew Marcus.
Oh Dear Whomever.
It’s 1 AM nearly, and I’m still up, barely. Got three hours of sleep last night, after picking up Stacy McCain at DIA at Oh Dark Thirty. Then it was wall-to-wall schmoozing, talking, typing, shooting, snarking… oh, just everything. It’s a convention. The only thing our intrepid crew didn’t do was drugs and women who were not our wives.
It’s been that kind of day. I drank more coffee than my thyroid medication allows, and stole more puffs off of cigarettes and cigars than my bride allows. But it’s been nonstop action for 36 hours now, including about six miles in my favorite loafers and two new blisters on my favorite feet.
This is what conventions are like, kids. They’re a lot of work and a lot of fun and the adrenaline keeps you going and I’m so glad they only happen every four years. Except that there’s still three more days to go. And then there’s that other convention next week in Minneapolis.
I won’t have time to blog much here at VodkaPundit, so keep checking for my stuff at PajamasMedia.com all week long.
And could someone, somewhere please loan me a nap?
Hey, girls — is that thing a hybrid?
ABC’s Rick Klein accuses DNC host city Denver of having “a police-state atmosphere.”
I love Denver. It’s a gorgeous city set near the foothills of the mountains of the most beautiful state in the Union. And we’ve got protestors threatening to arm themselves with buckets of poo and squirtguns filled with urine. We’ve got Code Pink promising to tie up traffic (and maybe get people killed) by rollerblading through the streets. We’ve got groups coming in with happy fun times names like “Recreate68.”
Don’t like the atmosphere? Then go home, Rick, and take your pals with you. We’re not the bad guys here.
The convention hasn’t even started yet, and already you can smell the hippies desperation — Slate’s Jacob Weisberg argues that racism is the only reason Obama could lose, and that his loss “would be taken for what it would be: sign and symptom of a nation’s historical decline.”
Wow. Who knew?
UPDATE: Maybe it’s the “derisive laughter,” instead.
Give this to R.S. McCain — he’s got to be the only guy in the world who conjures up Hunter S. Thompson when thinking of Joe Biden.
Joe Biden 2008 = Lloyd Bentsen 1988?
That’s what I’m thinking this morning. Each is less elitist, more genuine, and certainly more moderate than the guy at the top of their tickets.
So the question is: Who is McCain’s Dan Quayle?
So it’s Joe Biden. I happen to like Biden. He’s a loudmouth, sure, but that’s not such a bad thing, really. And when he speaks from the hip (from the hip to the forehead being how wide his mouth can open) he can be delightfully and disarmingly charming. Sometimes even infuriatingly so, if you happen to be allies. Biden is as close to a hawk as the Democrats have these days, other than Joe Lieberman — and we know what happened to him. Heck, Biden is one of the few Democrats aware that there are other countries*, and shows some unaffected interest in how they work. “Unaffected” might, in fact, be the first word I’d use to describe the distinguished gentleman from Delaware.
Or maybe it’s all an act. If so, it’s one I like.
Then there are the men and women Obama could have picked, but didn’t.
Hillary Clinton. She and her husband will get their two big nights at the convention, and that’s as close as Obama should ever let either one of them get to his Administration, assuming he wins. Forget foxes and henhouses; bringing that pair in would be like letting velociraptors into the neonatal ICU. Points to Obama for not picking Hill.**
John “Baby Daddy” Edwards. This one is too obvious, like an unzipped fly.
Evan Bayh is popular in Indiana, but probably not enough to swing that state, or even do much to nudge Ohio or Michigan. He’s likable enough, but shares many of Obama’s weaknesses. And he lacks Biden’s gravitas, even if Biden does sometimes deflate his own seriousness with his endearing (to me, anyway) goofiness.
Kansas governor Kathleen Sebelius? She’d have had the advantage of making Obama appear moderate. Otherwise? Ah, no.
Mike Gravel? Ah, no.
I honestly thought Obama would go for Virginia Governor Tim Kaine. If Virginia hasn’t already become a purple state, then choosing Kaine might certainly push it in that direction. Minuses? Pretty much the same as Bayh’s — he’s a lot like Obama, only whiter and more moderate. On the plus side, he is from Virginia, but without Senator Jim Webb’s well-known prickliness. But it seems Obama wanted somebody older.***
Florida governor Charlie Crist? Christ could certainly help pull Florida along, but… oh, wait, he’s a Republican.
Was Biden a good pick? Not really — he doesn’t bring much to the ticket. But he doesn’t really subtract anything, either. And other than Kaine, that might be as good a pick as Obama was going to get this year.
(more…)
I’m jumping the gun here, but I’ll go ahead and coin the word right now…
O’Biden.
UPDATE: Change you can believe in — because it’s been in Washington since 1973 already.
For the first time, Election Projection has McCain in the lead. A very narrow 274-264 lead, but a lead nonetheless.
The map’s two surprises are Colorado and Ohio. Ohio’s state Republican party is in such disarray — and so is the local economy — that I have a hard time seeing Ohio in any color but blue.
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