Questions

11 Comments

1. 

   Real History Lisa on November 5, 2008 at 1:21 pm

   Actually, the NYT called it a “Decisive Victory.” Indeed.

2. 

   MikeInOhio on November 5, 2008 at 1:43 pm

   I think we’ve just seen the media theme for the next four years. Anything Barack Obama does that is one iota to the left of George W. Bush will be branded as “governing from the left fringe.”

   Damn, Steven.  I’ve got to say…..I am shocked!!!  Absolutely f@#$king SHOCKED about this!!!

3. 

   AP on November 5, 2008 at 1:44 pm

   In many ways, the MSM lost last night, too. Many of them are just as scared of “change” as the most rabid wingnut.

   Honestly, I give A LOT of credit to Joy Behar, Whoopi Goldberg, Dave Letterman, Tina Fey, Stephen Colbert and John Stewart because they, of all people, saw the emperor had no clothes and were unafraid to say he was naked.

   I suspect Obama knows that he did NOT get this far by believing their hype. So for now, I’m just gonna laugh at them while they try to spin their particular meaning out of what has just happened.

   Meanwhile, feast your eyes on this, boys and girls:

   The disclosures are among many revealed in “How He Did It, 2008,” the latest installment in NEWSWEEK’s Special Election Project, which was first published in 1984. As in the previous editions, “How He Did It, 2008” is an inside, behind-the-scenes account of the presidential election produced by a special team of reporters working for more than a year on an embargoed basis and detached from the weekly magazine and Newsweek.com. Everything the project team learns is kept confidential until the day after the polls close.

    Among the other revelations from the special project:

   The Obama campaign was provided with reports from the Secret Service showing a sharp and disturbing increase in threats to Obama in September and early October, at the same time that many crowds at Palin rallies became more frenzied. Michelle Obama was shaken by the vituperative crowds and the hot rhetoric from the GOP candidates. “Why would they try to make people hate us?” Michelle asked a top campaign aide.

   On the Sunday night before the last debate, McCain’s core group of advisers–Steve Schmidt, Rick Davis, adman Fred Davis, strategist Greg Strimple, pollster Bill McInturff and strategy director Sarah Simmons–met to decide whether to tell McCain that the race was effectively over, that he no longer had a chance to win. The consensus in the room was no, not yet, not while he still had “a pulse.”

   The Obama campaign’s New Media experts created a computer program that would allow a “flusher”–the term for a volunteer who rounds up nonvoters on Election Day–to know exactly who had, and had not, voted in real time. They dubbed it Project Houdini, because of the way names disappear off the list instantly once people are identified as they wait in line at their local polling station.

   Palin launched her attack on Obama’s association with William Ayers, the former Weather Underground bomber, before the campaign had finalized a plan to raise the issue. McCain’s advisers were working on a strategy that they hoped to unveil the following week, but McCain had not signed off on it, and top adviser Mark Salter was resisting.

   McCain also was reluctant to use Obama’s incendiary pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, as a campaign issue. The Republican had set firm boundaries: no Jeremiah Wright; no attacking Michelle Obama; no attacking Obama for not serving in the military. McCain balked at an ad using images of children that suggested that Obama might not protect them from terrorism. Schmidt vetoed ads suggesting thatObama was soft on crime (no Willie Hortons). And before word even got to McCain, Schmidt and Salter scuttled a “celebrity” ad of Obama dancing with talk-show host Ellen DeGeneres (the sight of a black man dancing with a lesbian was deemed too provocative).

   Obama was never inclined to choose Sen. Hillary Clinton as his running mate, not so much because she had been his sometime bitter rival on the campaign trail, but because of her husband. Still, as Hillary’s name came up in veep discussions, and Obama’s advisers gave all the reasons why she should be kept off the ticket, Obama would stop and ask, “Are we sure?” He needed to be convinced one more time that the Clintons would do more harm than good. McCain, on the other hand, was relieved to face Sen. Joe Biden as the veep choice, and not Hillary Clinton, whom the McCain camp had truly feared.

   McCain was dumbfounded when Congressman John Lewis, a civil-rights hero, issued a press release comparing the GOP nominee with former Alabama governor George Wallace, a segregationist infamous for stirring racial fears. McCain had devoted a chapter to Lewis in one of his books, “Why Courage Matters,” and had so admired Lewis that he had once taken his children to meet him.

   On the night she officially lost the Democratic nomination, Hillary Clinton enjoyed a long and friendly phone conversation with McCain. Clinton was actually on better terms with McCain than she was with Obama. Clinton and McCain had downed shots together on Senate junkets; they regarded each other as grizzled veterans of the political wars and shared a certain disdain for Obama as flashy and callow.

   At the GOP convention in St. Paul, Palin was completely unfazed by the boys’ club fraternity she had just joined. One night, Steve Schmidt and Mark Salter went to her hotel room to brief her. After a minute, Palin sailed into the room wearing nothing but a towel, with another on her wet hair. She told them to chat with her laconic husband, Todd. “I’ll be just a minute,” she said. (The more “Christian” candidate.)  

   The debates unnerved both candidates. When he was preparing for them during the Democratic primaries, Obama was recorded saying, “I don’t consider this to be a good format for me, which makes me more cautious. I often find myself trapped by the questions and thinking to myself, ‘You know, this is a stupid question, but let me … answer it.’ So when Brian Williams is asking me about what’s a personal thing that you’ve done [that’s green], and I say, you know, ‘Well, I planted a bunch of trees.’ And he says, ‘I’m talking about personal.’ What I’m thinking in my head is, ‘Well, the truth is, Brian, we can’t solve global warming because I f—ing changed light bulbs in my house. It’s because of something collective’.”

   (Emphasis mine.)

   • 

     chocolate ink on November 5, 2008 at 3:53 pm

     …’sailed into the room wearing a towel’…rather confirms my personal belief she plays up the sex angle for herself. Sure she’s unfazed by the ‘boys club’..she thinks she can win them over and if not then stab them in the back.

4. 

   Multisect on November 5, 2008 at 2:19 pm

   Well, Steven, the US has now sunk below 44 other countries in freedom of the press.  Since the advent of Rupert Murdoch and the demise of the fairness doctrine the left is represented by part of one cable news channel, part of one cable comedy channel and a poverty stricken radio network.  The Michael Eisners, Barry Dillers and Jack Welchs have done a thorough job of hiring talking heads who perceive their class interests and those of the public they partially inform as being identical with their conservative ownership.  They would love to do the same to the Internet.  Let’s resist that by joining the EFF.

5. 

   idredit on November 5, 2008 at 2:54 pm

   BREAKING NEWS: Rahm Emanuel named Chief of Staff

   • 

     AP on November 5, 2008 at 3:36 pm

     That didn’t take long, did it?

   • 

     idredit on November 5, 2008 at 3:40 pm

     Breaking: MSNBC just retracted; Rahm has not yet accepted

   • 

     Steven D on November 5, 2008 at 3:45 pm

     I think he’ll make a good chief of staff, and I’d rather have him out of the House to be honest.

6. 

   btchakir on November 5, 2008 at 4:43 pm

   The day has been one with few outside pressures from worrying about the election. I was happy going in to teach, coasted through my Graphic Design class, went grocery shopping and came home listening to call-in shows on the car radio. Everyone in Baltimore, the location of the NPR station I was listening to, was up and positive after the election. None of us will have to get busy until tomorrow… busy trying to get the country that George W. Bush and Dick Cheney and their trolls made a mess of back in order. It’s going to be a hard job.

   But today we are happy and even the Republicans I’ve heard calling in on the radio are positive and, in a sense, relieved.

   It looks like Obama has not only been elected, but has a real mandate for change. We are all going to have to support that change… help with spreading the opinions of the people and communicating the message from all involved in making change. This blog will be there. Honest.

   Under The LobsterScope

7. 

   keepinon on November 5, 2008 at 9:13 pm

   Steven: We have to talk and keep talking about the Historic Landslide win Obama constructed and it’s accompanying Mandate for Change. May not shut Fox Noise up, but it will at least try to keep things in their proper perspective. 😉