General movement

I’ve been away for a few days and will be back properly tomorrow with some thoughts on the campaign to come, the dumb things that both sides are saying and the whole VP question. But for the meantime, I’ll point you to Obama’s second general election ad which shows how Obama is trying to both define himself as someone who understands the average voter and isn’t a standard-issue big government liberal.

We’re still waiting for Obama’s dramatic general election pivot---his father’s day speech shows how powerful Obama could be on education...

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McCain keeps pushing on Obama breaking his word about public financing

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Want to win $300 million?

The McCain campaign’s offer of a $300 million prize for the development of an electric car battery that can surpass the hybrids and electric car currently on the market is smart politics. It is a catchy idea that is going to generate buzz—it has been the lead on Drudge all day—and gives some concreteness to the otherwise rather abstract idea of energy innovation. I also like it because it is a solution to the problem of reducing carbon emissions and moving away from Middle East oil that doesn’t rely on rationing...

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Crist: 'Stay tuned'

Charlie Crist, the governor of Florida, is seen by many as an attractive VP pick for McCain. He’s popular enough in Florida that his presence on the ticket would probably deliver the state for McCain and he is a moderate Republican who would appeal to floating voters. But many think that his personal life rules him out of contention which makes this exchange in an interview with The New York Times Magazine particularly interesting.

You were married nearly 30 years ago, but the marriage lasted less than a year. Do you prefer living alone?

I got married and divorced because it didn’t work out. I haven’t found the right one since. It’s really that simple.

You can’t find one woman in all of Florida?

Maybe I have. Stay tuned.

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This won't seal the deal

The Obama campaign’s decision to roll out its own version of the presidential seal (pictured) strikes me as a mistake for several reasons. First of all it looks arrogant, as if they are taking the result of the election for granted.  Second, messing around with the presidential seal is bound to upset some people.

Replacing the flag shield with Obama’s own logo and E pluribus unum with a Latin version of yes we can will hardly assist the Obama campaign in its attempt to rebut the idea that the campaign is a personality...

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Making Obama pay for opting-out

Obama’s decision to opt-out of public financing draws a devastating AP article and a brilliant David Brooks column. Here’s the start of the AP story which will have been picked up by huge numbers of papers across the Union:

Barack Obama chose winning over his word.

Barack Obama is the most split-personality politician in the country today. On the one hand, there is Dr. Barack, the high-minded, Niebuhr-quoting speechifier who spent this past winter

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The McCain campaign must make this hurt

Barack Obama has decided to become the first major party candidate to opt-out of public financing for the presidential election since the system was created in 1976. The decision will give Obama, thank to his huge donor base, a massive money advantage over McCain. Obama is going to be able to flood the airwaves in pretty much any state where he is competitive, meaning that he’ll be able to force McCain to spend time and money defending states that are normally solidly Republican.

There is, though, a potential political downside to...

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Muslim women moved out of camera shot at Obama rally

The absurd accusation that Barack Obama is some kind of Muslim Manchurian candidate has caused his campaign some political discomfort. But it is still disappointing in the extreme to read in The Politico that two women wearing headscarves were moved from behind the podium at an Obama rally in Detroit so that they would be out of camera shot.
 
Volunteers moved the women and the campaign has moved quickly to apologise for their behaviour. “This is of course not the policy of the campaign. It is offensive and counter...

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Reading the VP tea leaves

At first glance the news that Hillary’s former campaign manager Patti Solis Doyle is going to be chief of staff to Obama’s running mate, seems to suggest that he’ll pick Hillary. But as Ben Smith argues, it actually indicates that it is unlikely to be Hillary.

First of all, Hillary sacked Solis after Super Tuesday. Second, Solis Doyle blotted her copybook in Hillary land when it became public that she was talking about a job with the Obama camp even as the primaries were going on. Third, if Obama was...

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The power of Obama

Barack Obama’s address to mark Father’s Day shows why he has the potential to be such a transformative figure in US politics and why he is going to be so very hard to beat. The speech is an exhortation to fathers, particularly African-American ones, to step up to the plate. It is, in many ways, a deeply socially conservative speech. He criticises music that glorifies violence, families that plonk their children in front of the television, and talks about the need to glorify “achievement, self respect, and hard work”. 

As with...

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