Obama vs. McCain 2

Adherents of the notion that right-wing talk radio works because conservatives have strong and certain opinions while liberals struggle with nuance found ammunition for their argument in last night's successive discussions with the top two presidential candidates.

John McCain was quick to answer, sure of himself, funny and full of stories. Great radio. Barack Obama was thoughtful, discursive, occasionally muddled. What was that? NPR?

In my useless opinion, McCain won the political debate. Obama won the religious discussion.

For instance, on the question of evil, McCain went right to Al Qaida and then stayed there. Fair enough as far as it goes. But Obama talked about evil perpetuated by governments (Dafur), evil by individuals (street crime) and the evil within ourselves. The last part, the evil within us, warns us to be humble about judging evil in others. I passed the halfway mark in "The Dark Side" yesterday, so it was a welcome warning. It also struck me as a good answer for a Christian to give. But then Jesus never could have withstood the Republican attack machine. Questions about his birth remain unanswered, he was soft on crime, a sucker for the poor, a cut-and-run commander-in-chief, a combatant in class warfare, and he interfered with free enterprise by driving money changers out of the temple. Points to McCain.

I also liked Obama's answer about which Supreme Court justices he would not have nominated. He distinguished between Clarence Thomas, whose legal record wasn't up to snuff, and Scalia, who is brilliant but too conservative for Obama's tastes. He admitted to mixed feelings about Roberts -- a distinguished and fair-minded scholar who gives too much credence to the Bush administration's usurpation of the Constitution.

McCain took the classic conservative position: He wouldn't have nominated anyone on the whole liberal side of the court: Ginsburg, Breyer, Souter, Stevens. Of course, he didn't say it was because he didn't like their politics. Instead, he accused them of "judicial activism," which is conservative code for he didn't like their politics.

After all, is it judicial activism to line up in defense of habeas corpus, the most venerated right in Western law? Even in the infamous Kelo decision, the liberal majority essentially held that it was up to the political process, not unelected judges, to decide what amounts to a taking of private property in the public interest. It was the opposite of activism, but accuracy in such matters hardly counts.

In a question not posed to Obama, McCain also said that the California Supreme Court erred when it overturned the state's ban on gay marriage. Interesting how he would have known that. From what I have read, the court decided the case pretty narrowly based on its reading of the California Constitution. So unless McCain has been reading the California Constitution, which seems unlikely, I don't know how he can judge the merits of the case. I think he meant that he didn't like the political implications of the ruling, not the legal reasoning. Too bad he didn't distinguish between the two. But the audience seemed to love it.

Finally, Fox News analysts labeled Obama's response to a question about abortion as the one major gaffe of the night. In response to a question about when a baby acquires human rights, Obama answered that the question was above his pay grade. McCain instantly awarded rights at conception.

I thought Obama's response was fine and, in effect, made the case for the conservative pro-choice argument. He meant, I believe, that such questions involve moral, ethical and religious judgments that are beyond the competence of mere politicians, and that's why it's better to leave such decisions in the hands of women, their families, their ministers and their doctors. Probably not the answer the crowd wanted to hear, but probably the best answer he could give.

Did McCain win? I think so. But it was an interesting reminder of why Obama is such an unusual and fascinating candidate.

UPDATE: The Hammond Report couldn't be happier.

UPDATE 2: Was anyone else struck by McCain's critique of Bush for failing to ask for sacrifice after Sept. 11, followed by his own failure to ask for any sacrifice at all? McCain wants to wage two wars and pose at least credible threats against Iran and Russia, while facing massive deficits and without asking for a tax increase on anybody. Who pays the bills? As usual, the grandkids.

UPDATE 3: I don't want to be too easy on Obama. I thought he had the worst answer of the night when he was asked whether churches running federally funded faith-based initiatives should be allowed to discriminate in hiring against people who are not of their faith. McCain just charged right past the problem. Obama is a good enough lawyer to know that this poses a terrible problem. Are you going to tell Americans that they can't be hired for jobs paid for with their own tax dollars unless they adhere to a certain religion?

Maybe Obama has it worked out in his head how this would work. If he does, I couldn't figure it out based on his answer. He seemed to be dodging.

Obama vs. McCain

Congressional Quarterly assesses the presidential race in Montana.

Thursday talk radio update

Racism reared its head in one expected place and one unexpected one.

A caller complained to Dave Rye that he had received a push poll call that contained the question: Do you think your community is ready to vote for a black candidate? I may not be quoting him exactly, and he may not have been quoting the survey exactly, but it was something close to that.

He thought the question was racist, and Rye agreed. I don't see it. Asking someone to assess the level of racism in one's community is not in itself racism. Perhaps there was some racist intent, but I suspect the question related to surveys that show only about 5 percent of voters say they would refuse to vote for a black presidential candidate, but about 20 percent think their neighbors would not (sorry, can't remember where I saw these numbers and don't have time to track them down). It's a way of trying to get a handle on people who don't have the guts to tell a pollster they won't vote for a black but who, nevertheless, won't vote for a black. Sounds legit to me.

The other mention was by Sean Hannity, who raised the argument that if it is racist to vote for a candidate because he is white then it is racist to vote for a candidate because he is black. Hannity has pushed this theme a lot, and it seems so obviously wrong to me that I don't think I have mentioned it before for fear of insulting the intelligence of my dozens of readers. But perhaps it is worth spelling out in case a Hannity fan wanders by.

Here's the deal: Is there a non-racist reason to vote only for white candidates? I've kicked the idea around in my head for a while and can't come up with any. Perhaps somebody can suggest one.

Is there a non-racist reason to favor a black candidate? Of course. It's a way of telling ourselves, and the world, that America has, once and for all, put racism to rest. It's a way of guaranteeing black citizens that the dream of equality is no longer just a dream. It's payback, in a way, for all those good black citizens who never got a chance to hold public office because they lived in a racist society.

You don't have to like those reasons, and you could certainly argue that they are an inadequate basis for electing a president. And you might be right. But I don't see how you can argue that those reasons are racist.

UPDATE: Two other points: First, Hannity, Limbaugh and Glenn Beck all seemed upset about Russia attacking Georgia, and they wanted us to do something. But it never became clear to me exactly what. Maybe I missed it.

Second point: I tried to listen to Limbaugh a bit as a matter of public service, but I didn't get far. Almost immediately, he said that the reason America's reputation has declined overseas not because of anything Bush has done but because of -- hang onto your hat -- Michael Moore. Yes, Michael Moore has more influence over America's international image than the president of the United States does. Talk about making Bush look small.

UPDATE: Here's a source for the claim above about how many people wouldn't vote for a black candidate.

Low times for Lee

From a reader:

Over the past year, Lee Enterprises stock has ranged from $20.60 to $2.76. Tuesday, it opened at $3.33 with a high of $3.39 and a low of $3.10. Meanwhile, the Lambros real estate agency is listing “historic Lee Lodge” in Polson for $4.5 million. Lee owns the Billings, Butte and Missoula newspapers as well as some in smaller communities. One can only hope that corporate executives have adequate golden parachutes.

Schweitzer the Republican

Here's the script for the latest Schweitzer-Bohlinger ad:

Schweitzer: I’m Brian Schweitzer.

Bohlinger: “And I’m John Bohlinger.”

Schweitzer: Four years ago, when I chose John, a Republican, to be my Lieutenant Governor, I took some heat from a few Democrats.

Bohlinger: And I know some Republicans who weren’t happy either.

Schweitzer: But working across party lines was more important to us. We’ve created the largest budget surplus and the most tax relief in state history, we’ve helped create over 50,000 new jobs, and our economy is one of the fastest growing in the country. Did I leave anything out?”

Bohlinger: Just that you couldn’t have done it without me.

Pretty clever. Schweitzer has been working this line for four years, and Republicans still haven't found a way to react except by sounding pissy about it. But voters' desire for bipartisan consensus is real, and the GOP ignores it at its peril.

UPDATE: Montana Headlines responds. I don't disagree at all with his analysis of the situation, but I doubt for a couple of reasons that the solution he suggests (demonstrating where the governor has rejected compromise) will be effective.

One is that there just aren't a lot of hard lines of difference between the two parties. Both believe in economic development, some environmental protection, balanced budgets and reasonable taxes. They disagree mostly about where to draw the line, not about whether a line should be drawn. So if voters mostly like the way things stand, then they probably will vote to keep things they way they are.

The other is that most people, even political junkies, just don't follow day-to-day legislative operations that closely. So trying to educate the masses about cases where Republicans sought compromise and Schweitzer rejected it is likely to be a futile endeavor, easily glossed over by the political campaigns. Where the GOP has to fight back is on symbols -- and Schweitzer seems to have that end of the game pretty well locked up.

UPDATE 2: In comments, Montana Headlines observes that I seem to be calling on Montana Republicans to engage in the same sort of battles over symbols that I have criticized in the McCain campaign. He's right about that, I think, or at least that thought occurred to me while I was delivering papers along Shiloh Road yesterday.

But first, a point of disagreement. Montana Headlines suggests that I think voters don't really care about bipartisanship, just about the appearance of it. No, I don't mean that at all. Voters really do care about bipartisanship, but they are unlikely to be persuaded by going through the minutiae of past legislative battles that Republicans are better at it than Democrats.

So what do I think Republicans should do? Any Republicans who care about my opinion are welcome to send large checks to The Billings Outpost Relief Fund (1833 Grand Ave., Billings MT 59102), but here's the freeware version:

1. In legislative races, Republicans should take it on a case-by-case basis. They should point out that Republicans are the go-to guys on low taxes and energy development, and they can try to persuade voters that the GOP's years of fiscal prudence led to the relative prosperity Montana enjoys now. They should (generally) avoid social issues, ignore the national party and never, ever say a bad word about John Bohlinger.

2. In the governor's race, Roy Brown should campaign hard, run a clean race, build up as much favorable name recognition as possible and hope for better luck in 2012. Brown's a good man, and probably would be a good governor, but the odds this year are awfully long.

3. If Brown, as my advisee, says that's not good enough -- he wants to win now -- then my advice would have to be that he go immediately, heavily and profoundly negative. If he can find a picture of Schweitzer giving somebody a haircut, play it big. If Schweitzer has ever tortured a kitten, beaten his wife or cheated a business partner, go for it. If Bohlinger shoplifts bow ties, make an example of him.

I don't think that strategy would be likely to work, and it might very well taint Brown enough to damage any future campaigns. But I think it's the only thing that might work.

McCain vs. the truth

Montana Headlines takes on the task of defending John McCain's recent attacks on Barack Obama. It's a dirty job, but I guess somebody had to do it.

Oddly, he defends the humor in the ads on the basis of their You Tube popularity. Suffice it to say that certain aspects of humor simply defy rational analysis, such as, for example, the popularity of Adam Sandler.

But I would not want to defend McCain's ads, as Montana Headlines does, as consistent with his promise to run a "respectful" campaign. A joke or two is OK. Arguing that Obama doesn't have the experience to be president is perfectly legitimate. Saying that Obama is too liberal for the job is just fine.

But it's not OK to accuse Obama of selling out America to help his political chances. It's not legitimate to imply that Obama is a celebrity bimbo. It's not fine to flat-out lie about Obama's energy plan, or to lie about his tax plan. And it isn't respectful to imply that Obama has some sort of messianic complex.

Montana Headlines' justification for the McCain ads, such as it is, seems to be that McCain might lose if he doesn't get down and dirty. Just once, I would like to see American voters make it clear that candidates will lose if they do get down and dirty. Then Americans would actually have to make their decision for president solely on the basis of the candidates' experience, skills, potential and policies.

So far, only one candidate appears interested in having voters choose that option.

Thursday talk radio update

Deep in the dog days, nobody seemed to be in the mood for a fight. Dave Rye told a caller with whom he disagreed that he didn't even want to argue. O'Reilly was so tepid that I scarcely remember a thing he said.

Even Hannity seemed off his game. Rather than drum up the anti-Obama hatred, he focused more on recent polls showing the race is tightening and tried to imply that it's really all over; the Obama threat has ended. He pretended he was angry about this, but he sounded half-hearted about it. Perhaps he was hoping that nobody remembered polls like this one.

The only time Hannity seemed to get really annoyed was when he mentioned Obama's remarks about Republicans being proud of their ignorance. It must have hurt because it hit so close to home. Naturally, that didn't stop Hannity from continuing to misrepresent the situation. He kept pretending that Obama's energy plan consists solely of tire gauges, an obvious and deliberate lie.

I would hate to peer into the nightmare of Hannity's soul.

Driscoll and stuff

The Outpost editor gives his take on John Driscoll in this week's Outpost. It was a fun and fascinating interview, and I hope some of that comes through in the story.

The editor also attempts to demonstrate that he hasn't totally forgotten how to write a column.