TPM Reader RY keeps us posted …
Disquieting Rasmussen numbers this morning–McCain’s crying racism worked. 53% of Americans, including the same % of whites and half of all Democrats, thing that Obama’s “dollar bill” remark was “racist.” Only 22% think the Paris Hilton ad was racist–most of those being black people, of course (only 18% of white people took this view).
The good news this morning? God Bless David Gergen! Really–he was on This Week and said (check the video or transcript for exact wording), “When McCain’s camp calls Obama “The Messiah” and “The One”, he’s really calling him “upitty.” I’m from the South, and we understand what that means. That’s code.” Jake Tapper looked like he had been pole axed. Donna Brazille knew what he was talking about, of course. But GS, George Will, and Tapper had to be bluntly told the the way the world works by Mr. Blandly Bi-partisan….
Here’s the video:
Late Update: A reader writes in to dispute that Tapper looks “pole axed” in response to Gergen’s comment. And looking again he may be right, though it’s possible he was pole axed on the inside.
I’m curious to hear what people think of this post at the CBSNews website comparing the Obama and McCain campaign planes. Let me know.
Late Update: For those of you who haven’t had a chance to check out the post, it goes to great length detailing the luxurious accommodations of Obama’s plane, down to photographs of seats in the first class cabin. The author even has The Politico’s Mike Allen pop in for a bit of nonsensical snark: “Air Force One may seem a tad claustrophobic.” Then down at the bottom we have a terse description of McCain’s plane which, if you read the actual words, and disregard the lack of luxe adjectives, disco music and twangy baseline, seems to be virtually identical to Obama’s. Perhaps needless to say TPM AL’s few minutes of research found this 2004 USAToday article which notes that Kerry’s 2004 plane was virtually identical. And President Bush, before he got the government plane, “used a similarly configured Boeing 757 during the 2000 campaign.”
The piece then notes: “Now [President Bush] commands the much grander Air Force One.”
Not exactly claustrophobic.
From the Post (emphasis added) …
Democratic Sen. Barack Obama holds a 2 to 1 edge over Republican Sen. John McCain among the nation’s low-wage workers, but many are unconvinced that either presidential candidate would be better than the other at fixing the ailing economy or improving the health-care system, according to a new national poll.
Obama’s advantage is attributable largely to overwhelming support from two traditional Democratic constituencies: African Americans and Hispanics. But even among white workers — a group of voters that has been targeted by both parties as a key to victory in November — Obama leads McCain by 10 percentage points, 47 percent to 37 percent, and has the advantage as the more empathetic candidate.
As the candidates prepare to square off over energy today, Obama releases a new spot yoking McCain to Bush and Big Oil. That and other political news of the day in today’s TPM Election Central Morning Roundup.
To get the very latest campaign polls direct to your inbox every morning, subscribe to the TPM Daily Digest.
WaPo poll: Obama leads by 10 points — among working class whites.
Cute fun or a rehash of the notorious 2006 Harold Ford attack ad in Tennessee? The Sunday crowd debates the racial undertones, or lack thereof, in John McCain’s current campaign tactics …
High-res version at Veracifier.com.
Out of general fondness, the Washington press corps (which is not just a phrase but a definable community of people) has for almost a decade graded John McCain on a curve, especially in the last eighteen months when he’s slipped perceptibly. Now, in response to the bludgeoning and campaign of falsehoods his campaign has unleashed over the last ten days, a number of his longtime admirers in the punditocracy have written articles either claiming that they’d misjudged the man or lamenting his betrayal of his better self.
So my question is, do they and the top editors who with them define the tone of coverage, keep grading McCain on the curve that has so aided him over the last year?
Let’s be frank. On the campaign trail this cycle, McCain frequently forgets key elements of policies, gets countries’ names wrong, forgets things he’s said only hours or days before and is frequently just confused. Any single example is inevitable for someone talking so constantly day in and day out. But the profusion of examples shows a pattern. Some of this is probably a matter of general unseriousness or lack of interest in policy areas like the economy that he doesn’t care much about. But for any other politician who didn’t have the benefit of years of friendship or acquaintance with many of the reporters covering him, this would be a major topic of debate in the campaign. It’s whispered about among reporters. And it’s evidenced in his campaign’s increasing effort to keep him away from the freewheeling conversations with reporters that defined his 2000 candidacy. But it’s verboten as a topic of public discussion.
The other point that again goes almost totally undiscussed is McCain’s two reinventions of himself over the last decade. From a mainline conservative Republican to progressive reform candidate to Bush Republican. The reporters who have been covering him for the last decade know that there is virtually no public policy issue of note which McCain hasn’t made a 180 degree change of position on in the last half dozen years. An ideological shift of that magnitude is far from unprecedented. And such turnabouts or transformations can be a product of searching insights into the changing terrain of American governance. But two such shifts in the course of a decade strongly suggest either instability or opportunism.
Neither of these points are lost on the people in the press most in a position to push key questions to the forefront of the campaign conversation. But for the moment the curve remains firmly in place — even for those reporters now publicly washing their hands of their former affections for the man.
Just days after John McCain reversed himself on offshore drilling, ten senior Hess Corporation executives and Hess family members each plowed $28,500 into the RNC’s committee to elect McCain president.
Our report is here.