Meghan McCain is breaking her silence following a wave of media attention over a picture she posted on Twitter Wednesday night.The revealing picture of herself in a tank top, which left little to the twitterverse’s imagination, immediately drew harsh criticism from other tweeters, prompting an upset McCain to declare of the social networking Web site, “What once was fun now just seems like a vessel for harassment.”
Now that the election is over, Newsweek is at liberity to reveal all the juicy gossip it’s been saving up throughout the campaign. Here are a few nuggets:
- $150,000 is actually a low estimate for the amount Sarah Palin spent on her wardrobe.
- The Secret Service found “a sharp and disturbing increase in threats to Obama in September and early October” after vitrolic Palin rallies.
- McCain’s advisers decided not to tell him the campaign was over before his last debate.
- Palin brought up Obama’s relationship with William Ayers without McCain’s approval.
- McCain set the following boundaries: “no Jeremiah Wright; no attacking Michelle Obama; no attacking Obama for not serving in the military.”
- Obama didn’t choose Hillary Clinton because of her husband. This relieved McCain.
- Hillary Clinton and John McCain are friends who do shots together.
- Before her RNC speech, Sarah Palin greeted campaign advisors wearing only a towel.
The majority of voters cited the economy as the key issue for them in this campaign, unsurprisingly. This information helps shed light on when, exactly, John McCain lost his chance at the White House. You’d think it would be difficult to pinpoint the exact moment (or moments, at least) when an election is lost for a candidate. Journalist and columnist Daniel Gross asks these questions about McCain and his campaign:
But when, precisely, did John McCain lose the narrative on the economy? Was it last July, when economic adviser Phil Gramm, discussing the “mental recession,” noted that “we’ve sort of become a nation of whiners”? Perhaps it was back in December 2007, when McCain said, “The issue of economics is not something I’ve understood as well as I should.” Or was McCain’s economic goose cooked long before the campaigns started? Ray Fair, the Yale professor who plugs macroeconomic data into an election-predicting model, said that “since November 2006, the model has consistently been predicting that the Democratic candidate would get about 52 percent of the two-party vote.” (Read more…)
In fact, the beginning of McCain’s loss can be traced back to mid-September of this year. On the brink of economic crisis, the man told a crowd in Jacksonville, Florida that “the fundamentals of our economy are strong.”
McCain’s misstatement about the economy’s strength was a symptom of a bigger problem for his campaign (that his team had no set narrative or strategy, while Obama stayed strong and true to his message throughout the campaign. Read more about that here.)
Once he admitted there was a problem with the economy, McCain suspended his campaign to fly to Washington and find a solution. He was unable to convince Obama he should do the same, and finally resumed his campaign without having solved anything.
Finally, the third debate. Joe the Plummer, while a wonderful “mascot,” could not stack up to the concrete former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker and Warren Buffett presented by Obama.
The point is: Obama ran a flawless campaign that stuck to a clear message. He stayed away, for the most part, from issues of race - not using it as a crutch to win votes, but also overcoming it as an issue with some white voters. There were many obstacles to overcome, which Obama did. And now he can apply that know-how to running the United States. Read more for a run-down of Obama’s whole campaign…
We’ve been hearing Conservatives and Republicans endorsing Barack Obama left and right. In the past, I had never understood how people who vote one way their entire lives could all of a sudden change their minds and vote for the other side. This, at least, is a great way to look at things if you’re Republican but can’t bring yourself to vote for John McCain.
“If I were to give one reason why I believe electing Barack Obama is essential tomorrow, it would be an end to this dark, lawless period in American constitutional government. The domestic cultural and political reasons for an Obama presidency remain as strong as they were when I wrote “Goodbye To All That” over a year ago. His ability to get us past the culture war has been proven in this campaign, in the generation now coming of age that will elect him if they turn out, in Obama’s staggering ability not to take the bait. His fiscal policies are too liberal for me - I don’t believe in raising taxes, I believe in cutting entitlements for the middle classes as the way to fiscal balance. I don’t believe in “progressive taxation”, I support a flat tax. I don’t want to give unions any more power. I’m sure there will be moments when a Democratic Congress will make me wince. But I also understand that money has to come from somewhere, and it will not come in any meaningful measure from freezing pork or the other transparent gimmicks advertized in advance by McCain. McCain is not serious on spending. But he is deadly serious in not touching taxes. So, on the core question of debt, on bringing America back to fiscal reason, Obama is still better than McCain. If I have to take an ideological hit to head toward fiscal solvency, I’ll put country before ideology.
[…]
But I do know that he [Obama] will handle these wars with reason, with prudence and with care. Those are three qualities absent from the White House for eight years. And I do know that Obama’s very person, and what he symbolizes, will do more to restore America’s image and repair our global public relations than any single measure any new administration will be able to accomplish.[…]”
May the best man win. Read more…
It’s the third sign of the Apocalypse. Everything I’ve been conditioned to believe is crashing down around me. That’s right, folks: FOX News has said something against the Republican presidential candidate. FOX’s Neil Cavuto even calls Obama, “Senator Straight-Talk.” Cavuto’s problem with McCain is his inconsistency and shifting positions (didn’t they used to call that “flip-flopping?”). Check it out - you have to see it to believe it:
A doctor has estimated that there is a one-in-four to one-in-five chance that John McCain, if elected, would not survive his first term as US president. The worry is that the Republican candidate would suffer a relapse of the skin cancer he once overcame. It is interesting to note, however, that the opinion of McCain’s chances of survival are directly proportional to the doctor’s political leanings - meaning, doctors giving him the best chances are Republicans, and vice versa. Read more…
So this “GOP spending $150,000 on Palin family wardrobe” thing seems to be pretty good fodder. But it’s possible it’s more serious than that. In 2002, a Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act was passed that basically set some limits on how much parties could spend on campaigns. This reform also referred to unregulated contributions and “soft money,” being money that does not directly attribute to the election of a candidate or their campaign. The ironic thing to notice here is that this reform is the McCain-Feingold reform, as John McCain was one of its pioneers. So, it is arguable to say that McCain broke his own law. I’m no lawyer, so I can’t say whether that’s true, but check out the specifics of that reform here.
These guys do all the work for me - Brian Williams and Chuck Todd discuss McCain-Palin interview:
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