I took a mental health day today and went down to Baltimore to check out Camden Yards. It’s a very nice ballpark, and it was a beautiful day. It was a very nice birthday gift.
Of course, this means that I missed all the political news today. But I count that as a good thing. I mean, I missed Jim DeMint’s political manifesto in the Washington Post. That man talks a lot of trash. We’ll see if he can back it up. I also missed Bill Clinton’s observations, most of which were unhelpful. It’s always interesting to hear what he has to say, but he hasn’t been able to stay on message since about 1996. He was a disaster for his wife’s campaign, so why should we expect him to be particularly helpful for the Democrats? But at least he’s out there working hard on a lot of people’s behalf.
I also missed a couple of items in the New York Times about Democratic strategy sessions. Let me give some worried Democrats a little advice. Don’t worry about the president nationalizing the campaign. His poll numbers are bad in some places, but they’re better than your polls or the polling averages of any Republicans. People hate Congress. They don’t hate the president. And he’s still an excellent campaigner. If Obama goes after the Republicans and if the DNC paints the teabaggers as a crazy national movement whose power needs to be checked, the president’s approval ratings will go up and our base will get engaged. So, yeah, fight your race on local issues. But you should have no reservations about the election getting nationalized. That gives us a chance to improve the overall dynamics of the election. Hunkering down and hoping for the best is not going to work out real well.
