Pre-Debate Thoughts

Heading into the final debate, we know that according to recent polls, Obama's ahead by either eight (Bloomberg/LA Times) or fourteen points (CBS/NYT).

We also know that after weeks of the most erratic campaign tactics this side of Daffy Duck '48, McCain has become the Angry Fuck candidate. McCain said in a radio interview that he will mention Ayers during the debate, and we'll see if that happens.

It will be interesting to see how Obama responds to whichever John McCain shows up. Does he bring up Rick Davis, McCain's campaign manager and lobbyist for Fannie and Freddie*? Or does he bring up William Timmons, McCain's Transition Chief and lobbyist for SADDAM "FREAKIN'" HUSSEIN**!

Or does he do neither and just handle it smoothly?

Tune in tonight to find out.
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Live Blogging tonight, 5:45pm Pacific, sign up for a reminder on the right.

More to come.
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*All right, he owned the lobbyist firm that Fannie and Freddie paid for doing nothing.

**All right, former lobbyist.

Don't Believe The Hype---Polls and the Bradley Effect

Last week, banging out similar political ideas and issues (read: commiserating) with a colleague during a break, we hit upon an "A-ha!" moment of truth which, I fear, will play a major, albeit covert role in the '08 election, possibly blowing away all indications of an Obama lead in current polls, but which no one will talk about or admit to. Voters' dirty little secret; their prrrrecious!

My colleague, a forty-something African-American woman of southern heritage and southerly, sunny disposition, took me aside to a remote café table, sat me down with some mild force applied to the elbow, and honestly decreed: "Look. I'm gonna tell you how it really went down. This is what happened to all those white Hillary supporters who all of a sudden, in a hissy fit, decided to swing their votes McCain's way. They shut the doors, closed the windows, sat down at their dining room tables and quietly, among themselves and their families decided: 'I'm not voting for some n#*%er for president. If I can't have a woman, I'm gonna go for the default: the old, outdated WHITE guy Washington insider. Anything but a black man in the White House." Her words, not even paraphrased (I have a good memory).

Having been brought up and lived in a majority African-American county outside of Washington D.C. in the 80s and 90s, I'd been privy to a child's handful of similar "A-ha!" moments---frank, honest, tough talk by members of the black community regarding racial issues and underlying, covert bias by the white majority toward anyone of color. And so not only did I believe my colleague when she laid it down with brutal honesty, I agreed with her. Because, being white (an immigrant, but still white), I have been spectator to those private, racially-divisive, dinner table conversations; some initiated by my own, conservative family.

There is some reason to worry. Throughout recent political history we've seen the jarring loss of voter support for a black candidate on Election Day, despite positive indications from the polls predicting otherwise; because no voter would willingly admit his/her racial bias when asked his/her preference by the Frank Luntzes or Celinda Lakes of the business.

Since 1982, people have talked about this "Bradley Effect," (named for Tom Bradley, former mayor of Los Angeles) where even last-minute polls predict a wide margin of victory for the black candidate, yet he goes on to lose. Bradley, then mayor, lost his race for governor despite large leads in the polls---the assumption being that voters lied to pollsters about their support for an African-American.

But pollsters and political scientists say concern about a Bradley effect is misplaced. It obfuscates what they argue is the more important point: there are several ways that race complicates polling. For example, Barack Obama could theoretically score a landslide in the southern states, based on positive, but withheld polled opinion of his ethnicity. And then there's the reverse Bradley Effect in which support for a black candidate is understated particularly in regions where it's socially acceptable to exhibit distrust of blacks. Factor in also those voters who are not captured by the polls.

Scott Keeter, Pew Research Center's director of survey research, says pollsters historically have a harder time reaching voters with lower levels of education. Less-educated whites are the kind Mr. Obama has been courting in this election. Conversely, young people are more likely to answer surveys, and they tend to favor Mr. Obama. The race of the questioner, as well, affects the poll and what those surveyed are willing to say or not say to a white or black pollster. (As does, of course, the way in which one frames the question.) It's not a coincidence that both camps employ their own survey-taking foot soldiers. These are the kinds of basic intangibles we Bachelor's Degreed elitists learn in your basic Stat 100 class.

There is plenty of hand-wringing for Obama supporters and fretters yet to be done--remember, the exit polls in 2004 predicted President Kerry. A majority of polls indicate the Obama/Biden ticket is leading by 6-8%---numbers within the usual sampling error allowed in most polls.

However, many insiders argue that race does not play a huge role in the election this year, because the economy has emerged as such a gargantuan issue, and Mr. Obama is not primarily identified by his race...according to polls. So then, what are we to make of all these numbers?

Ask Flava Flav. He'll tell you.

SEI Introduces (S)wine

The simple facts:

- The founding members of SEI are busy in general. Not a complaint (I, for one, have thoroughly enjoyed adding this project to the mix), just a matter of fact. Life is going to get exponentially busier for one of our team in the very near future.

- The news cycle is not going to slow down anytime soon, as issues and news items will continue to pop up on nearly an hourly basis.

The problem comes in ensuring continued coverage of these same issues while keeping track of new ones.

The answer: Get help.

And so we did.

In the course of the last month, we've been blessed from the beginning with the support of friends and others who arrived at our address somehow, joined in the discourse and helped our numbers grow. It is from this field that we looked for a simpatico voice to add to our team, people who added to the general font of knowledge and thought with the experiences they brought to bear...

Today, I am happy to announce that (S)wine has agreed to join the SEI team. An author, a father, and a former member of the media elite (behind-the-scenes branch), we look forward to what he will bring to the table.

Please join us in welcoming him.

The Ayers Issue Is So Silly

Well despite all of the talk about toning down the attacks on Obama, there doesn't seem to be an end to the "palling around with terrorist" nonsense. McCain, in an interview on CNN on Sunday, called Ayers "A person who still wants to destroy America."

What the fuck?

Has McCain fallen so far down the rabbit hole that he cannot climb out? He is now promising to bring up the Ayers-Obama "connection" at the debate.

I swear at this point I feel like I'm watching a movie like Bob Roberts instead of a real presidential campaign.

Some of the best perspective on the Ayers thing has been written by Eric Zorn, one of my favorite newspaper columnists in the Chicago Tribune. Today he came out with this piece, which is something of a summary of some earlier blogs he wrote about it. Check out those two posts, called What the meaning of `is' is and Question for Ayers alarmists: Where were you in the 1990s? Eric also does a great job of engaging those who leave comments on his blog and keeping everything levelheaded, reasonable, intellectual and fact-based. He's great and slapping down people's arguments by using facts and his brain, two things sorely missing from the dialogue in so many other outlets.

His blog at the Trib is great and he posts constantly.

Also see Factcheck.org's write-up on the McCain ads about Ayers for info you might need when trying to talk down your moderate or right-leaning family member.

I'm hoping that this backfires on McCain, and I suspect that it will. Any other time this may get some traction. But I think even the stupid people in this country don't want to hear about some old hippy when our economy is tanking and we are bleeding jobs.

McCain-Palin Emission

I received an email from a friend on Friday titled "Watch McCain Lose The Presidency, Before Your Very Eyes." Found within was a link to the viral video of McCain turning the charming sneer onto a couple of members of his even more charming base.

This, combined with Frank Schaeffer's editorial on Friday and Rep. John Lewis' words on Saturday, gave me the impression that while Palin and Mrs. McCain would be free to continue their rabid act, McCain himself would attempt to put a lid on the thinly-disguised stoking of the hornet's nest.

Not so. In fact, after demanding that Obama repudiate Rep. Lewis' comment, he went on to suggest, during a CNN interview, that it was Lewis who transgressed common decency by comparing shouts of "terrorist" and "kill him" during modern day Republican rallies to George Wallace's fomenting of the atmosphere responsible for the Alabama church bombings during the early-60s.



Claiming his base is merely expressing its anger along with calling expressions of caution and disgust over the overtly-hateful rhetoric his campaign has been peddling "over the line" is the only option remaining that allows McCain to continue running and not lose dignity in the short run. What a maverick.

I'm not saying any criticism of Obama is racist (gods no, there are a couple things I bristle about) just as I'm not saying McCain himself is racist (though you couldn't tell from the company he's been catering to lately). I look at his reaction to the first "kill him" incident and see an honest WTF look come across his face. I was willing to say that the main problem was that his camp took too long to try to rectify the storm they were brewing. But now?

Now I read the Patrick Healy's piece in Sunday's NYT and wonder if suppressed racism, while a major ingredient in this election cycle so far, will become its October Surprise as well, simply because McCain decided it was a way to win.

Maybe I should go to Rednecks for Obama again.
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This piece from the New Yorker should be sent to any left-leaning undecided centrists. It greatly discusses Obama's platforms on a number of issues, while comparing them to what we know of McCain's proposals to same. Namely, not much.

Or have them compare some of the details behind Obama's latest economic proposal with the fact that McCain decided not to come out with one of his own.
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The same fellow who sent the email above and I were talking on Sunday, when he mused "do I start being able to hope? Are the signs pointing to an Obama victory?" I replied that I have been hopeful, but I simply cannot stop being vigilant.
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I leave you with the first chorus to Hank Williams Jr.'s latest country song "McCain-Palin Tradition". You could read further lyrics and hear the song at Salon.

John N Sarah tell ya
Just what they think
And they’re not gonna blink
They don't have terrorist friends
To whom their careers are linked
Yes John is his own man
And Sarah fixed Alaska’s broken condition
They’re gonna go just fine
We’re headed for better times
It’s a McCain–Palin tradition

Fish & Teachers & Buttons, Oh My!

Stanley Fish is a favorite of liberal arts grad students, so maybe this only intrigues me, but I was drawn to his column about free speech in two separate cases, one a public school ban and the other a university ban on teachers wearing political buttons or even placing political bumper stickers on cars that will be parked in faculty lots, or attending political rallies.

Fish does his usual thorough and critical job of sussing out the real issues at hand. He points out that the injunctions against bumper stickers are ridiculous, especially given the size of the university in question. He also makes clear distinctions between teachers’ conduct in those areas that can reasonably called a workplace (the classroom) and those that can’t (walking across a campus). And he honors the long-held standard on student and teacher free speech, namely that administrators have a prevailing interest in maintaining order at their institution, which can trump free speech right on campuses.

And, I have to say I end up generally agreeing with Fish. I can’t support the injunctions against bumper stickers or attendance at rallies. But, I know that when I was a teacher (ENG101, or freshman composition, at a large state university), any intrusion of my own political views into the classroom had consequences.

We talked about this a lot in pedagogy classes and workshops, especially given our department’s general encouragement of critical pedagogies, which place high importance on the political realities of students and teachers and encourage reflection on both. My stance had been full disclosure, reasoning that the only way to empower my students to examine and feel free to disregard my own political bent was to be completely open with them, and to vocally acknowledge their power to disagree.

As much as I still feel that approach has merit, it did create problems. If there was a point of disagreement with a student, the openness pf my political views became a source of friction. I can think of one student in particular, a 27-year-old non-traditional student majoring in science who had just transferred from a Montana land grant school. He had absolute faith in his own analytical reasoning, and could neither except it when I pointed out where his rhetoric didn’t and couldn’t support his position nor when I encouraged him to embrace some degree of uncertainty in his writing. By the end of that term, he was calling me a communist in class and going on back-row diatribes about how it might be fine for the humanities to embrace uncertainty, but the sciences dealt in rational fact, which rendered the class useless to him.

Maybe I would have lost this student anyway (he did manage to get into arguments with several of my colleagues when he stopped by my shared office after my office hours, and his attempt to get me in trouble with the department chair had to be headed off by our Composition Director, who had already had numerous frustrating interactions with the student). But, without a doubt, the fracture between us was accelerated by his interpretation of my political views.

And yet, I do feel a hesitancy here, mainly because it feels like these rules will more directly impact Obama supporters. Maybe this is only true in public schools, as the Democrats have long counted the teachers’ union as a supporter; there seems, and I have no reason to believe this than my own experiences on a handful of campuses, to be a wider range of political belief within college faculties.

It’s a tricky line to walk. As much as I can understand the reasons, it bothers me that schools are not seen as a place where students can learn how to be active, engaged and respectful citizens, with their teachers as examples not of ideology but conduct. Perhaps it is just one more sign of the fractured, divisive nature of our political system that political engagement and public support for a candidate or movement or organization is seen more as potential cause for disruption than an opportunity for instruction.

McCain Campaign, You're Fired

You’ve got to admire the doe-eyed optimism of William Kristol. Okay, maybe not so much admire it as get a well-deserved chuckle out of it.

Kristol wrote an op-ed of advice for the McCain campaign today. It recommends he completely re-tool his approach, fire his campaign and send them to work on local voter drives, start shooting from the hip with real and difficult honesty, and stop attacking Obama (not because that is the right thing to do but only because the attacks have been ineffectual). Kristol claims that McCain and Palin are affable, competent campaigners that are being held back by their campaign’s strategy.

I think what Kristol is failing to acknowledge is the difference between McCain’s carefully-crafted image and his essential character. He wants McCain to run as a happy, confident leader. While Kristol acknowledges that there are reason for that lack of confidence that McCain would have to overlook, he completely misses that fact that McCain is in fact not a happy man. He is and always has been an angry, bitter man. His outbursts of temper are legendary; he called his second wife a “cunt” in public, an action I’m sure would have me looking for a second wife were I ever to try it with my first. Happy people are at peace, but the uber-hawkish McCain doesn’t give two tugs of a dead dog’s dick about peace. He wants to bomb Iran, stay in Iraq forever, and maybe go back to Southeast Asia to finish the job.

That’s not a happy man. Neither is McCain the kind of honest man that could take up Kristol’s suggestions for rhetorical stance.

I suppose the real reason I’m posting Kristol’s column is just as an example of the movement-wide myopia of the Right. Call it strength or weakness, because it has certainly acted as both, but Democrats have always been able to recognize the very real shortcomings of their candidates, to view them in a realistic, if optimistic, light. But the Right seems intent on having only heroic figures for leaders, paragons of perfection, even if that means they have to cut these images from whole cloth.

Kristol’s column reads as folksy, tough-love wisdom, but it is nothing of the sort. It is a public declaration by a leading voice on the Right that he, and the rest of his party, are unwilling and unable to see the reality of the candidates they endorse.

Fair or not, a candidate is his campaign. Trying to blame the campaign for the failings of the candidate is just an attempt to detach McCain’s agency, to absolve him of responsibility for his slide. A classic move to “mistakes were made,” ignoring that mistakes don’t happen on their own, that they are committed by an agent of action.

And the agent’s name is John McCain.