Playground Presidential Endorsement: John McCain (and anybody but Sarah Palin)

Barack Obama is a bright and intelligent man. His leadership style appears to be thoughtful, and I hope that his desire to bring together an administration with diverse beliefs is a sincere one. He will likely be our next president and I certainly wish him all the best, just as I did with Bush and Clinton and so on. It does us no good as a nation to hope for a president's failure.

And with that said, I will not be voting for Barack Obama. I believe he lacks the experience and the record of bipartisan work ethic and accomplishment that I would hope to see in a nominee.

Which brings us to John McCain.

I can sit here all day and find fault with the McCain campaign and how they've elected to run this race. They've lacked focus, shifting from one target to the next. They've never pushed a comprehensive plan for helping to improve the economy. McCain's plan to shift away from employer-based health care (a good idea) was never well explained.

And then there was Sarah Palin. What looked good on paper has turned out to be an unmitigated disaster in practice. Her superficial appeal was quickly worn away, and what was left for the world to see was an inarticulate woman with seemingly little knowledge of foreign policy. Her daughter is knocked up, she's "borrowing" a $150K wardrobe, her husband races "snow machines." Sarah Palin has become the Elly May Clampett of presidential politics, a woman who seems completely out of her element unless she's reading from her notes.

While Sarah Palin may have some credentials as a reformer, she sadly has chosen to become just another messenger of empty-minded populism that targets its appeal to blue collar, rural voters with high school diplomas. Her audience is the same audience that Mike Huckabee targeted, the same audience John Edwards targeted. Neither was successful precisely because targeting this audience drives away middle-income suburban voters (who are increasingly college educated) in droves.

It is fine for the Republican party to be a party of socially conservative values. The problem the party has faced has been a Pyrrhic one. The GOP has consistently gone for short-term wins in voter turnout by pushing divisive issues like gay marriage, stem cell research, and abortion. While these issues enthuse a small portion of their base, they are a huge turnoff to the moderate and independent voters who usually decide elections. To those voters, these issues are simply not a priority, and are a distraction from what politicians should really be focusing on - health care, the economy, the war in Iraq, gas prices - really, anything but those social issues.

Sarah Palin is everything that is wrong with the Republican Party and Republican politics. She says she's a reformer but supported the Bridge to Nowhere. She professes to believe in clean government but packed her own cabinet and state government with friends and cronies who had no experience relative to the jobs they were given. She's against higher taxes except when she can sock it to oil companies in Alaska. She can't bring herself to fully repudiate Ted Stevens even after the old crook has been convicted.

The choice of Palin was a transparent and desperate attempt to lure this highly vocal minority back into the fold. That didn't come without a downside. When all is said and done in this election, you will see that not only lawyers, but doctors, bankers, and small business owners will have given more money to Obama than to McCain. The target audience for Sarah Palin is the very crowd that is driving working professionals out of the Republican Party, the very professionals that used to be the base of the party. The very professionals who used to be our training ground for future politicians.

Sadly, the party of William F. Buckley, Ronald Reagan, and Newt Gingrich is dead. And what is left in its wake are a bunch of anti-intellectual populists who will pander to downtrodden voters by attempting to exploit their worst fears (Obama "pals around" with terrorists... one party rule will be disastrous...). There is no positive message. There is no Contract with America. There are no ideas. Just fear.

And American voters aren't buying it anymore.

My vote on Tuesday is for John McCain - the John McCain of eight years ago, the one that, in the rare chance he's elected, I hope he can find once again. I will be writing him in so that I can choose my own vice presidential nominee. I will likely lose again, just as I've been on the losing side of every presidential ballot I've ever cast, all the way back to sixth grade when I cast my ballot for Michael Dukakis. Perhaps I could cast my spell on Obama, but I would prefer to bury one of my own.

The Republican Party needs another huge defeat and a lot of time for soul searching. They need it in order to figure out that it's not Iraq. It's not Wall Street. The problem is the Republican Party and its complete lack of constructive ideas for governance - ideas that don't involve fetuses, the Bible, or who your neighbor is sleeping with. Here's hoping that turnaround starts on Wednesday.

Does someone want to get Miss Wasilla back on the reservation?

Talk about being off message. Someone tell her to wait a week, and then she can talk about this all she wants.

In an interview with ABC News' Elizabeth Vargas, the Republican vice-presidential nominee was asked about 2012, whether she was discouraged by the daily attacks on the campaign trail, and would instead pack it in and return to her home state of Alaska.

"I think that, if I were to give up and wave a white flag of surrender against some of the political shots that we've taken, that would bring this whole & I'm not doing this for naught," Palin said.

I suppose that's one way to get earned media.

Probably not the best way, though...

State Senate candidate Jessica King was issued a citation Friday after she struck a pedestrian who was in a crosswalk with her vehicle.

King, the Democratic candidate for the state's 18th Senate District, was traveling north on North Main Street at 6:20 a.m. Friday when she struck a 76-year-old man who was using the mid-block crosswalk in the 500 block of North Main Street, Oshkosh Police Sgt. Steve Sagmeister said.

Playground Projections: Dems Pick Up First U.S. Senate Seat

U.S. Senate - Alaska
0 of 438 Precincts reporting


√ Mark Begich (D): 0
Sen. Ted Stevens (R-I): 0

Playground Picks: Groundhog Day in the 8th CD

Two years ago, I penned this endorsement of John Gard in his bid to win the 8th CD seat held previously by Mark Green. For those who care not to re-read my words, here is the CliffsNotes version of that post:

John Gard was a terrible speaker, but is a pretty decent guy and before that was an effective legislator. Steve Kagen is an empty suit who can self-finance. If Democratic control of Congress hinges on this, I'd tell you to vote for Kagen. But it doesn't, so you should vote for Gard because he is by far the more qualified candidate.

Fast forward to today. House Republicans are still in absolutely no shape or position to lead, and Democratic control of the House after next Tuesday is all but certain. Steve Kagen, in two years, has proven himself not only to be an empty suit, but a blowhard at that. John Gard, fresh off a few years of playing Wii Sports while Cate makes the money, wants to go back on the public sector dole... er... represent you again.

In other words, we're right back where we were two years ago. And in this veritable Groundhog Day of a campaign, John Gard's still a better choice than Kagen, even if he pronounces "Venezuela" like it has five syllables. Don't get me wrong, I think he's still going to lose by roughly the same margin he lost by two years ago. But mark my words, Democrats: Kagen's getting sent home the first time he doesn't have an enormous tailwind, and that'll probably be 2010, after two years of one-party rule in Washington.

Playground says: vote Gard. He's not a fantastic option, but he's better than the other guy.
Playground thinks: Kagen by 3.

Friday funnies

First is Friday's timely column by Dan Bice, regarding GOP blogger-cum-candidate Jo Egelhoff in the 57th AD. I've heard from sources in the Fox Valley that her abrasiveness at public forums and with the media are costing her dearly. Also, she should consider putting an auto-timer on those lights at the condo she bought in the district - people are apparently catching on to the fact that she's not what you would call a conventional resident of the district so much as she owns property in the district. By all accounts, Democrats feel that repeat candidate Penny Bernard Schaber is in an excellent position to pick up a seat that Republicans have held for generations. Some have gone as far to say as the 57th is their number one target.

Second is word that alleged liar Daniel Knodl has been formally charged with a misdemeanor for falsifying names of supporters on his literature. Bullshitting names on campaign literature? That's just weak. Pending criminal charges usually don't help a candidate, and surely the 24th is not a seat that the GOP was expecting to worry about.

I make no predictions (yet - those are coming next week), but these are two flare-ups the AssGOP can ill afford in their attempt to hold on to the Assembly.

Don't it make your red states blue?

Looks like another one (or two, or three) bites the dust...

CNN reports that top officials of Sen. John McCain's campaign are "making tough decisions" as they now see Colorado, New Mexico and Iowa no longer winnable.

Instead, the campaign's "risky strategy" is counting on Florida, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Virginia, and a comeback in Pennsylvania.

Green Bay's Idiot-in-Chief tucks tail on holiday displays

Good to hear that perhaps Jim Schmitt, Chad Fradette, and the rest of the merry band of idiots in Green Bay may have decided to tuck tail and run on the issue of religious holiday displays.

Lingering controversy over last year's installation of a nativity scene at Green Bay City Hall could begin to draw to a close Wednesday when the City Council's Advisory Committee considers a policy allowing only nonreligious displays.

After meeting recently with area clergy to get their views, Mayor Jim Schmitt drafted a resolution that would allow only secular decorations on city-owned property.

You know that your position is untenable when both the lawyers and the clergy tell you how stupid you're being. But in any case, the Playground salutes the elected morons of Brown County's least livable incorporated community for finally agreeing with us.

Is it something in the water?

That's the question we must all ask about Florida's 16th Congressional District, where creepy perv Mark Foley was replaced by the equally disgusting Democrat Tim Mahoney. Mahoney goes to show that, indeed, Republicans have nothing on Democrats when it comes to disappointing moral conduct in office. They're all a bunch of power-abusing sluts.

While there are no steamy chat logs here, what we do know is that Mahoney slept with a whole bunch of women who weren't his wife. He then gave one of them, Patricia Allen, a job working in his legislative office, and allegedly threatened to fire her when the affair went sour. But not, however, before buying her silence to the tune of $120K, and allegedly arranging for her to take another job.

Good show, kind sir. Mahoney is quite possibly set up to be the new Jay Johnson, the only incumbent Democrat in Congress to lose his seat in November.

Squeeze one more on the bandwagon...

While I agree with much of what Colin Powell had to say this morning on Meet the Press in regard to the McCain campaign and the current state of the Republican Party, one has to wonder about the timing of this endorsement.

Powell conveniently waited until Obama established a lead near or beyond the outside edge of the MOE in nearly every swing state before piling on. This isn't to say that his viewpoints are invalid. But it doesn't take a lot of political courage to make an endorsement when the election may well have already swung conclusively in Obama's direction.

What have you done for me lately?

If you're the NRA and the target of the question is John Gard, the answer is nothing. Now that Gard's spent a few years hanging out on the living room couch, I guess the NRA has forgotten Gard's efforts to shove concealed carry down everyone's throat, one of the myriad of polarizing issues that help end the careers of a number of Republican moderates in 2006.

(WAUPACA, WI) Congressman Steve Kagen, M.D. received the endorsement of the National Rifle Association today in his campaign for reelection. The endorsement was announced by Jeff Nass, President of the Wisconsin Rifle and Pistol Association at the Waupaca Conservation Club.

"The National Rifle Association is proud to endorse Congressman Steve Kagen for reelection," said Nass. "Congressman Kagen has been a staunch supporter of the Second Amendment and we are proud to help send him back to Congress to continue to uphold the rights of gun owners in Wisconsin and throughout the country."

Stick a fork in Gard, too. With Obama up double digits and the RNC pulling out of Wisconsin, things don't look good for our favorite career public sector employee. As I'm sure he has discovered, nobody gives you $88 a day to commute from the Xbox to the refrigerator.

Na Na Hey Hey...

Kiss them goodbye:

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Republican National Committee is halting presidential ads in Wisconsin and Maine, turning much of its attention to usually Republican states where GOP nominee John McCain shows signs of faltering.

The party's independent ad operation is doubling its budget to about $10 million and focusing on crucial states such as Colorado, Missouri, Indiana and Virginia where Democrat Barack Obama has established a foothold, according to a Republican strategist familiar with presidential ad placements.

The article goes on to indicate that the McCain campaign is currently planning to be up in Wisconsin through the end of next week. If present poll numbers hold, one has to imagine that they won't be doing much buying for the final ten days. It'll be interesting to see how Republicans are going to perform down-ballot when the only message most voters are seeing is coming from Barack Obama and the DNC.

Seventeen

Sure, the Quinnipiac poll released on Tuesday is probably an outlier, but even if Barack Obama's margin in Wisconsin isn't a whopping 17 points, it's still likely outside or on the outer fringes of the MOE at this point. If post-debate polling doesn't show John McCain's standing improving considerably, what possible incentive is there for McCain to continue throwing good money after bad here?

A consensus seems to be forming that McCain likely won't win a single state that John Kerry won in 2004. If that's the case, why not pull the ad buys in Wisconsin and shift the resources to Ohio or Virginia (or, heaven help the Republicans, North Carolina)?

Also, I use this poll to bring you a musical tribute to the number 17:

More BS from the NRSC

Check out this bit of delusion from Rebecca Fisher, spokeswoman for the NRSC:

"Polls show that most of the competitive Senate races are currently in dead heats. That's encouraging news for us going into Election Day since we have much stronger candidates. (We are) very confident that we are going to defend our incumbents and (have) a good shot at getting a majority of our open seats."

Really? Because last I checked, everyone's completely written off about five of those seats. Virginia and New Mexico are long gone, as are Oregon (Smith), Alaska (Stevens), and New Hampshire (Sununu). Holding Libby Dole and the Colorado open are probably both under 50/50 odds right now, Norm Coleman and Mitch McConnell are in battles for their political lives, and this is what some party hack gives us. Consensus opinion seems to have the GOP down between 5-9, the ONLY Dem seat in play is Mary Landrieu in Louisiana, and the NRSC is trying to feed us bullshit about how rosy things look.

Sometimes I think that political hacks would actually do themselves a favor if they were just a little more realistic in their assessments. There's nothing wrong with sending your spokesperson out to say that "we're facing some challenges in the short-term, but we're confident about our long-term odds of success." Still bullshit, but at least it's bullshit that's tinged with reality. Instead, Fisher gets sent out to lie to people. That must help the fundraising. Everyone I know wants to give money to liars.

The Playground would like to offer Fisher a $10,000 bet that the Senate GOP does worse than even come November. I'll be waiting by the phone for your call, Rebecca.

And political operatives wonder why everyone thinks they're full of crap.

GOP continues to convince itself that up is down

There's an article in the latest issue of the Capital Region Business Journal about the upcoming Assembly races. In it, Speaker Mike Huebsch offers the following nugget of political wisdom:

"You need three things when you're going to go in and try to hold a majority and win races: You need an outstanding candidate, you need a great message and you need the resources to get that message out, and the Republicans feel very comfortable with all three of those."

I couldn't agree more. Sadly, what we see with the Republicans is marginally-talented candidates, zero message, and not so much money. There's also an enormous headwind blowing off Wall Street these days. In other words, Huebsch has the Assembly Republicans in the same, or worse, position than what they were in two years ago. No momentum, no policy agenda - just a bunch of folks trying to run on their charming personalities.

Good luck with that.

I'm back, and just in time to watch everything go to hell!

Sorry for my absence in recent weeks. Sometimes real life throws you things that are important than the income-free blog you write. But now that I've made arrangements for my new job and that pesky little LSAT is out of the way, it's time to gear up.

We're fired up. We're ready to go. And we're ready to watch the change we don't believe in kick poor John McCain's ass clear from one coast to the other. Win some, lose some. Such is life.

Some quick hits to get you all caught up on everything I think about everything that matters:


OMG look at that trainwreck! Oh wait, it's just a Sarah Palin media availability. Looked great on paper but wow, she's a huge albatross around McCain's neck. Turns out that he would have been off heeding the Playground's advice from August in choosing Mitt Romney. With Wall Street going down the crapper, Romney would've lent the McCain campaign a strength on this issue than two public-sector freeloaders like Obama and Biden could never hope to possess. Obama listened to me and picked Biden. See how well that's working out for him?


Tina Fey is the unheralded power player of the 2008 race. First, "bitch is the new black" helps Hillary Clinton turn the corner in popular culture and mount a finish that nearly toppled Our Lord and Savior. And now, Fey's tireless and dead-accurate lampooning of Sarah Palin has helped to send Palin's approval ratings into the tank. Palin's favorable rating among women is now BELOW her unfavorable rating. Yeah, guess that ain't working like it was supposed to.


John McCain's campaign smells like old man and hopelessness. Could you run a more gimmick-based campaign than this? First, he picks Palin. Then, he "suspends" his campaign so that he can go back to Washington and help them get absolutely nothing accomplished. Then the rescue bill fails, and when it returns in a substantially similar form but with a boatload of pork attached, he votes yes anyway. Way to go. I'll commend him for that, I guess. Maybe that's principle. But if you want to win this race, you vote no, then go out and bash Wall Street and every freeloader out there who's behind on a mortgage.

Remember, the reality is that the overwhelming majority of Americans are responsible and make their payments on time and resent the hell out of the fact that they're going to be hit to bail out people richer than them and poorer than them. And instead of running with that ball, McCain is pushing to have the government absorb tens of billions of dollars in losses on freeloaders' mortgages so that they don't get thrown out on their ass. Nice strategy.

Playground Poll: When does McCain pull out of Wisconsin? Everyone's got McCain down 10 right now - WISC, Rasmussen, SurveyUSA, you name it. Common sense only dictates that if McCain can't compete in Michigan, he can't compete in Wisconsin either. Michigan sets up way better for McCain demographically. So really, how soon until he shutters the "Victory Center" and pulls the commercials? McCain will not win a single state that Bush didn't win in 2004. So the sooner he figures that out and just bunkers down in the red states, the better his already-slim chances become.

Have Democrats ever been handed more for simply not being Republicans? Let's face it. Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid are a couple of political retards. That they are in charge of Congress is an insult to the hundreds of Democratic congressmen and women who are way more competent than they are. Like Obama, they never talk about any kind of an agenda, other than to remind people that they are not the party of George W. Bush. And guess what? It's going to work for the second straight election.

I want my money back. That's right, John. Remember that $75 I gave you back in January to help dominate the airwaves in Keene, NH? I swear to the God in heaven above, you have spent all of it sending me shitty follow-up mail asking for more money. I donated on the Internets, buddy. If I want to give you more money, I will probably do it on the Internets. You don't need to drop four pieces of mail in my mailbox every damn week. And when you do send email, don't send it from you or Sarah or Rick Davis or your stupid wife. Have your hot daughter Meghan send it, and maybe include some pictures.