You probably haven't thought a whole lot about the kind of aliens that come from outer space during this electoral season. But, as Bill Pullman proved in Independence Day, the role of the United States President in any space invasion is vital. So the little green men are here, Barack Obama or John McCain who you got?
Today there is increased pressure on Barack Obama to cut ties with long-time Democratic insider Jim Johnson, who Obama had tapped to help select his running mate.
Johnson stands of accused of, among other things, getting a seven million dollar below market rate home loan from Countrywide Insurance through an informal program set up for friends of the embattled mortgage company's CEO.
Obama has in the past used strong language in railing against Countrywide and other subprime lenders, making his association with Johnson -- and Johnson's with the lender -- awkward.
So far Obama has yet to dismiss Johnson with his trademark "this is not the Jim Johnson I know" kiss off. But a controversy surrounding the "vetting of a vetter" is an ominous sign for what is about to become a brutal political slog.
During the Clinton/Obama primary fight a favored tactic of both sides was to hit at the other through the gaffes and biographical glitches of their surrogates and associates, and then to suggest their opponent distance themselves from said surrogate or associate. What prevented this from getting completely out of hand was that every couple weeks there was something more important to focus on: Actual voting results.
Only now, since there won't be any of that voting stuff until November, there will be plenty of time to play the guilt-by-association game to its under-the-bus-tossing conclusion. The revelations about Johnson are surely the tit for a tat the Obama camp launched a couple weeks ago when they put pressure on John McCain to get rid of advisers who had done work as lobbyists.
But, cynical political maneuvering aside, is it even wise for the McCain camp to force Obama to get rid of Johnson? Maybe not. Twice before Johnson has vetted VPs for the Dems. First in 1984 he came up with Geraldine Ferraro, but neglected to uncover that the New York Congresswoman's husband's finances were a criminal mess. Then in 2004 Johnson suggested John Edwards, who never jelled with John Kerry, and who was only able to increase the Democrat's vote share in his home state of North Carolina by .4 percent.
Whether it be Jim Johnson or John Hagee, could there be wisdom in letting the other guy's liability stick around long enough to do some real damage?
While I believe John McCain has a better than not chance of being the next President of the United States, he will face a serious obstacle on September 4th when he will be forced to address the Republican Convention in Minneapolis.
The problem won't be so much that his stance on issues such as immigration reform and global warming will be in stark contrast to most of the delegates amassed at the Xcel Energy Center, rather it will be that the delegates will all be Republicans, and they will put their differences with Arizona Senator aside and cheer him enthusiastically.
Then McCain will be forced to acknowledge the crowd's cheers, and perhaps look towards the rafters and smile at President Bush, who will be doing his own cheering from a special box. Unfortunately for McCain, cameras will capture all of this cheering and smiling and acknowledging, and the images will be beamed to homes all over America, reminding people how much they don't like a lot of the people who have just become very excited about John McCain.
There isn't a lot poor John McCain can do about this. (If some sort of devastating disaster befalls the Twin City region in late August, be very suspicious.)
His one saving grace, if you can call it that, is he will probably have his good friend Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman to introduce him. Lieberman is no great shakes, but he is not a Republican either -- in fact he ran on the Democratic ticket for Vice President just eight years ago.
But is there another failed Democratic Vice Presidential candidate out there that John McCain can recruit to help him survive Minneapolis?
Yes there is! In interviews over the last couple days, Geraldine Ferraro has given every indication she would still like to work hard to defeat Barack Obama, whose campaign she feuded with earlier in the year over race and gender issues.
Ferraro didn't add much to the Democratic ticket in 1984, but she just might be what the Republicans need to get through another hour of prime time convention coverage without alienating most of America.
With Lieberman and Ferraro on board, McCain would have the support of two out of the four living failed Democratic Vice Presidential nominees, and would only need John Edwards and Sargent Shriver to complete the set. (Mondale actually won in '76, so he doesn't count.)
Getting the endorsements of Edwards or Shriver is probably a bridge too far. Although on the off-chance McCain was able to build an insurmountable lead on Obama before the convention, Edwards could surely be convinced to jump ship with some flimsy promise of a "poverty tour." McCain might also try to get Arnold Schwarzenegger, a fellow member of the super exclusive popular Republican club, to lean on Shriver, who happens to be the action-star-turned-governor's father-in-law.
But two out of four ain't bad. In fact the slogan for the 2008 Republican Convention could be "Now With the Support of 50 Percent of the Living Failed Democratic Nominees for Vice President."
Anyone have a better one?
After six weeks of polling and in-depth analysis the likes of which a Pennsylvania primary has never seen, we can finally say with a high degree of certainty that tonight one of these five scenarios will go down:
Obama wins. After crying for the camera, Hillary pummels now secret adviser Mark Penn with a hard cover copy of "Microtrends" A red-faced Bill Clinton thrusts his pointed finger at a group of reporters. Somebody loses an eye.
Clinton wins by between zero and five. Obama "brushes" it off by telling supporters not to worry because it "ain't no thing." Television executives from Charlotte to Terre Haute to Portland wonder if such a margin will allow for the campaign to continue long enough to finance their new kitchens.
Clinton wins by between five and ten. Looking towards Indiana, Hillary gets lost in an analogy comparing herself to Notre Dame football underdog "Rudy" Ruettiger and claims she once played halfback for the Fighting Irish. She then takes a swig from a handle of Jack Daniels and shoots a 12-point buck.
Clinton wins by between ten and fifteen. Veteran right-wing TV pundit Pat Buchanan refers to Hillary Clinton as "one tough gal." College campuses everywhere erupt in angry blogging. From his well air-conditioned straight talk bus, John McCain rubs his hands together and thinks about White House drapes.
Clinton wins by more than fifteen. Howard Dean tries to scream, but no sound comes out. Obama dismisses elections as "the kind of old politics which have made our nation cynical." From his well air-conditioned Tennessee mansion, Al Gore rubs his hands together and thinks about White House drapes.
Yesterday in Italy 71-year old Silvio Berlusconi defeated Walter Veltroni to became the head of Rome's 62nd government in the last 63 years. Not only has Veltroni often been referred to as Italy's Barack Obama, but he had written the introduction of the Italian language edition of Obama's book, and campaigned under the Italian language version of the slogan "yes we can."
Now you may remember Berlusconi from the other two times he was Prime Minister of Italy, including once ruling for almost five consecutive years. Given Italy's passion for new governments this would be the equivalent of an American President being in office for 237 years.
So what should 71-year old presumed Republican nominee John McCain take from his fellow septuagenarian's victory over a much younger, charismatic candidate? Well Berlusconi has been pretty candid about his many forays into cosmetic surgery and hair transplant procedures. (Although how could he be any other way in this age of photography?)
Berlusconi even once said hair transplants hold the key to power, and reportedly told his 35-year old political protege that it's never too early to start on a surgical path that will end either when you die or start being mistaken for comedienne Joan Rivers.
So if McCain uses the opportunity provided him by his rival parties extended primary season to "take some time off," the Democrats better watch out. This could also mean that Dallas Cowboy owner and extreme practitioner of male facial improvement Jerry Jones will one day be our ruler.
Picking a campaign song has proved difficult for all the candidates this political season: Mike Huckabee was forbidden from using Boston's "More Than A Feeling" (prompting an intraband squabble); Hillary Clinton allowed her tone-deaf supporters to choose her song and got stuck with a horrid Celine Dion tune; and even Barack Obama, seemingly the choice of the hip musical crowd, was told by Sam of the legendary R&B duo Sam and Dave to cease and desist playing his song "Hold on I'm Coming" at campaign events.
But no one has had as much trouble putting a beat and melody to his White House run than poor John McCain. I chronicle these struggles, and make some suggestions over at Asylum.com. (Which you should check out if you haven't already.)
And candidate who does this:
Of course, the most famous photograph of this particular week has come from the third guy in the mix:
It's a good thing his father left him in America, because it's hard to believe anyone would be fainting at an Obama speach if Barack was wearing his ancestral garb.
Because presidential elections are held every four years and there have only been 55 in our nation's history, one can find all sorts of trends of who gets elected how that aren't particularly statistically significant.
In that spirit, I've learned of two such trends concerning the physical attributes of presidents.
The first is a surprising trend towards left-handedness. The election of George W. Bush -- who was beaten in the popular vote by lefty Al Gore -- broke up a string of four straight southpaw presidents. With John McCain and Barack Obama both being lefties when it comes to their hands, there is an extremely good chance we will soon be five for six. What makes this streak noteworthy is only 12 percent of the United States population is left-handed, and, before Gerald Ford, there had only been two left-handed presidents in US history.
Could this be a function the television age? Maybe lefty candidates look smoother than right handed ones -- just like a left-handed baseball player or golfer is often perceived to have a "sweet swing." It seems a stretch, but why not? The phenomenon needs to be explained somehow.
A trend that long pre-dates moving pictures is that of presidential eye-color: 38 of our 43 presidents have had green, blue or grey eyes. Of the five dark-eyed presidents only Richard Nixon -- the last one-- was elected to a second term, and we all know how that turned out. In contrast to the men who hold the highest office in the land, only 16% of the US population has light eyes. While this low percentage is a reflection of shifting ethnic demographics, it was still only at 30 in 1950, and was probably never higher than 50.
President Barack Obama would break up the longest and starkest streak in presidential appearances but, running against a left-hander with blue eyes, he will have his work cut out for him.
I haven't done a "songs I've been listening to" feature in a while -- and will probably do one soon. But not only am I the occasional dispenser of musical playlists, I'm also huge fan of them. In fact, the main way I've been expanding my music collection lately is checking out other blogger's playlists and, if they have good taste in music (meaning we have the same taste), I will download all of the songs they listed that I don't have.
One of the better playlists I've seen recently comes, somewhat surprisingly, from Meghan McCain, the 23-year old daughter of the presidential candidate. She has been documenting the campaign on a blog that has been getting a bit of buzz. So I checked it out -- it's mostly just captioned pictures from her dad's campaign events -- but I noticed she does playlists too, and when I gave them a look , I was very impressed. (I think it was the sweep of The Dandy Warhol's Bohemian Like You, PB&J's Young Folks, CCR's Run Through The Jungle and Jeff Buckley's Eternal Life on her first mix that grabbed me.)
As Meghan McCain realizes, the key to a musical playlist is mixing genres and eras -- while going light on radio hits, but not completely ignoring them -- in a way that establishes your music cred. The movie -- and I assume the book -- High Fidelity explores the embarrassingly high level of self-consciousness that anyone who has compiled a playlist for public consumption knows goes along with the process of picking songs.
But talking the talk when it comes to music is a lot easier now than it was when High Fidelity was written. For these days the quest for the right kind of music knowledge no longer has to go through the kind of know-it-all, clannish record store snobs High Fidelity depicts, as the Internet has put just about all the music and music criticism ever created a click away.
More and more, I've been meeting people whom I wouldn't think would know much about music -- outside of what they hear on MTV or the radio or from the jam band of the day -- but do. While I've always considered myself highly educated on non-classical music, I would freely concede I have discovered many, many more new bands over the last few years sitting behind my desk than I ever did going to shows or discussing the best new (and old) thing with fellow afficionados during my pre-Internet era.
If you do check out Meghan McCain's playlists, you might notice you can't actually listen to the full songs. But if your father isn't running for president, you can plug the songs' -- or any song's -- titles into a website like Hype Machine and stream and download to your heart's content.
With his winsome mix of kitsch and karate kicks Chuck Norris has provided a boost to a Mike Huckebee presidential run otherwise fueled by Jesus and squirrel meat. Unlike some other celebrity endorsers (meaning the rest) Norris has been a net positive for his candidate by using his mouth only for the display of his pearly white teeth.
But Norris departed from his successful strategy of big smiles and handshakes Sunday, and assumed the attack dog role that, on the Democratic side of this primary campaign, has been reserved for candidate's spouses.
If nothing else Norris aimed high, going after John McCain when the other political players have been reluctant to openly criticize the war-hero and long-time Senator this primary season.
On Sunday Huckebee accused McCain of being too old to hold the presidency, a charge that has been whispered ever since the 71-year old announced his intention to run. In fact, also over the weekend, controversial new New York Times columnist Bill Kristol referred to McCain as "unmodern" and "neovictorian" in a column allegedly listing the Arizona Senator's virtues.
But is Norris the right guy to make the over-the-hill argument? A quick spin around the Internet reveals Norris is soon to turn 68, yet maintains the ability to accomplish seemingly impossible tasks such as sneezing with his eyes open and killing two stones with one bird.
If, at 71, McCain still posses even a tiny percentage of Norris's skills at 67, a McCain presidency would be so successful that former Commander in Chiefs Washington, Lincoln and Roosevelt would be forced to come back to life so they could bow down in proper resepect to McCain's presidential superiority.
Chuck Norris may be able to speak braille but, when it comes to his ability to articulate an effective political take-down, the man who can divide by zero only ends up with the Idle Threat of the Week for January 14th to 20th.
There are a lot of things that go into the failing of a political campaign. Most prominently a lack of funds, bad poll numbers and a candidate showing hints of dementia. But, when a campaign does implode, those in the political analysis game will be looking outside the box for the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back.
Could it be, when the pundits reflect upon the wreckage of McCain 08, that they will be forced to conclude the Senator's humpy spine of a presidential dream was cracked by homosexual outerwear?
Apparently the sudden exodus of campaign personnel that has everyone severely downgrading McCain's already dwindling chances was sparked by a series of tirades McCain directed at his staff. Among his accusations were that his handlers forced him, in a misguided attempt to shave years off the septuagenarian's appearance, to wear an onslaught of "gay" sweaters.
Maybe it's a generational thing, but I find McCain's charge confusing on both counts: I simply don't associate excessive sweater wearing with either the gay or the young. In fact, it immediately conjures up an image of a middle-aged African American doctor who imparts curmudgeonly but lovable morsels of wisdom from his well-appointed brownstone while shilling pudding pops on the side. (Not that there's anything wrong with that.)
But I will say this: Tying a sweater around your waist does clash a bit with traditional heterosexuality. The look is a bit skirty, if you ask me. So if McCain's people were booking him into stuffy halls without providing the Senator with some sort of sweater holding staffer to handle the garment in question when things started to heat up, I could see the point McCain was trying to make.
Due to a forward shift in the electoral calender, the New Hampshire primary isn't as important as it once was. At tonight's Republican debate the skies over the Granite State responded to this demotion by erupting in bolts of lighting, which interfered with the auditorium's PA system and resulted in breaks in the sound and random buzzing noises.
The angry sky led to the evening's best moment, when a particularly jarring bolt cut off Rudy Giuliani's mic just as he began to respond to a question involving a Catholic leader who had declared Rudy a traitor to his religion for his pro-choice stance.
The former New York mayor handled the situation with the easy humor required, and handled all of the other questions he received with quick thinking, attention to detail and superior preparation. (The latter a quality he shares with Democratic front runner Hillary Clinton.)
This wasn't always the case, as Giuliani made an absolute mess out of the obligatory abortion question in the first debate -- and didn't even have the excuse of a spookily timed lightning strike. But now that he has, like it or not, established his position on abortion, Giuliani is free to focus on the two main themes of his campaign -- freedom and security.
Spinning, but always in an open and logical way, every question back to these two pillars, Giuliani was able to make a plausible argument that, on the strength of his biography and his ideas, he is in a unique position to lead the nation and the world towards a safer and more free future.
Giuliani was also successful in making sure everyone knew he was the front runner by attacking the positions of the Democrats he would face in the general election, and mostly ignoring the Republican primary wannabees stuck staring at his back.
John McCain too was sharp tonight, and scored points during an emotional exchange with a woman whose brother had been killed Iraq. Rising from his seat, McCain looked the woman in the eyes and admitted mistakes had been made in the execution of the war that took her brother's life. This candor was in keeping with one of the major themes of the evening: The failures of the Bush administration are now fair game.
McCain is at his best when he is swimming against the tide, and the dominant current on the stage was that his immigration bill was a washout. McCain responded with a passionate and effective defense of his views on immigration, if not the exact details of the heavily compromised bill he put his name to.
Mitt Romney, on the other hand, was not at all sharp. He has developed a really unfortunate habit of going off on esoteric tangents when he gets a question he doesn't like. In an earlier debate he evoked some sort of weird nuclear technique when confronted with his ever-evolving views on stem cells, and tonight he bizarrely dismissed a question about whether he would have supported the war in Iraq if he "knew then what he knew today" as a null set and an empty set.
While I could see the point Romney was trying to make -- the question was invalid because little things such as time and space always prevent you from knowing then what you know now -- evoking an obscure mathematical theory to bully out of an otherwise fair question does not a president make.
As for the rest, I found ordained minister Mike Huckabee's explanation of his religious views articulate and interesting -- although not particularly convincing, and I thought Duncan Hunter probably does possess the presence and gravitas that would compel a relatively unknown congressmen to run for president. Other than that, there wasn't much coming from the one percenters besides Ron Paul's cheering section.
After the first two debates, there was talk that the undeclared Fred Thompson was the big winner. Tonight, with Thompson all but in, the strong performances of John McCain and Rudy Giuliani -- the two favorites since day one -- take much of the wind out of that argument's sails.
The new bipartisan proposal for immigration reform has rather impressively unified every political figure who isn't named George W. Bush, John McCain or Ted Kennedy in opposition. Personally, I have no problem with the deal -- it seems as fair as it does ineffective. Although I'm also of the school that the only way we can solve our illegal immigration "problem" is either somehow elevating Mexico's economy to first world status or nuking the Central American nation. And until one of those options is feasible, we should just eat our reasonably priced oranges and like it.
But John McCain, clearly more passionate about defending the measure than I would be, resorted to angrily using the worst four-letter word there is when debating the merits of the proposal with fellow border-state law-maker John Cornyn (R-Texas) in a Senate meeting room last Thursday. According to witnesses, McCain also used another curse word "associated with chickens" during his tirade.
F-bombs in back rooms . . ? Hmm, that's a bit too stale cigars and Dick Cheney for the current political climate. But today the 70-year old McCain proved that he can also deal in the kind of new-media sarcasm the kids enjoy so much when he launched this spectacular attack on Mitt Romney's constantly evolving views on immigration and everything else. (During a blogger conference call, no less:)
"Maybe his (Romney's) solution will be to get out his small varmint gun and chase those Guatemalans off his yard."
Well played, septuagenarian. It's funny because it's true. And it is also the snark one would expect not from an aged red state Senator, but from a hip cynic with the kind of youthful demographics advertisers love.
Come to think if it, now that I know he has this weapon in his arsenal, maybe it wouldn't be such a bad idea if McCain responded with the regenerative power of facetious vitriol every time someone brings up facial blotches or naps on the Senate floor.
As if to outdo the eight-pack their donkey rivals presented last week, the Republicans trotted out a ten-spot of candidates for their first primary debate. Chris Matthews moderated and early on the participants came to the wise decision that they would turn the tables on the talk show host and basically do to him what he's been doing to his guests on Hardball for eleven years: They ignored what he said, and said what they wanted.
Matthews proved a good sport, and went along with the unorthodox arrangement. It made for a slightly more lively debate than we had last week. Although it was still not particularly informative, with so many mouths needing to be feed.
The other elephants in the room were the flailing Iraq war and the unpopularity of George W. Bush. On those issues the candidates came to an easy consensus that there were serious flaws in the execution of the war, but its heart was in the right place, and there was no Bush bashing by name.
Here is how I thought each candidate performed:
Rudy Giuliani: Started out very strong and on point, but got stuck in the abortion muck towards the middle. After trying the federalism angle, he finally came out with a surprisingly strong defense of a woman's right to choose. As if to shut up everyone up about the issue, it seemed. After this admission, Rudy lost his spirit and focus leading to a lackluster second half. Although, for the man who has been accused of running for the "president of 9/11," 9/11 talk was conspicuously absent from tonight's pitch.
John McCain: Over the last couple months McCain has been shifting between crazy McCain and grumpy McCain. Crazy McCain is superior to grumpy McCain, and crazy McCain was what we got tonight. But he wasn't that crazy. In fact, his level of sanity was such that it threatened to encroach upon crazy's more palatable cousin -- maverick. And if maverick McCain resurfaces all bets are off. It was a good night for McCain.
Mitt Romney: Most analyst will say Romney, who comes off as articulate, competent, thoughtful, focused, polite, patriotic, humorous and humble, won this debate. I wasn't convinced. Here is the thing about Romney: One day, many years ago, Mitt Romney read a book titled "How To Be The Perfect Man." Romney followed this book, to the letter, and became more perfect than almost everyone else, and certainly more perfect than anyone currently running for president in either party. The only problem is this perfection is clearly rote learned. In a way, that should be a positive trait for a presidential candidate -- if he can learn how to be perfect, he might be able to learn to be a great president. But in another way it's creepy. Learning perfect from a book. And people don't like creepy.
Tommy Thompson: As governor of Wisconsin, Thompson vetoed 1900 spending bills. During his first televised debate for national office he mentioned these 1900 vetoes three times. So it's almost like he vetoed 5700 spending bills during his time as Wisconsin Governor.
Mike Huckabee: Chris Matthews's shocking attempt to lather him into an anti-Mormon rage and smack Romney with the real Jesus failed. Huckabee's highlight was when he claimed his Arkansas residency allowed him a leg up on the others when it came to knowing what awful people Bill and Hillary are.
Jim Gilmore: Overall, very solid. Vice presidential material. Although he did became way too angry when Matthews implied he was Karl Rove's boy. (And didn't deny it)
Sam Brownback: More interested in promoting the "culture of life" than winning the nomination. A good communicator.
Duncan Hunter: In this day and age it's nice to know someone is in it for big business and is not afraid to admit it.
Tom Tancredo: Kept getting stupid question about Israel and organ thieves when he just wanted to talk shooting Mexicans.
Ron Paul: He showed every slightly unhinged crackling voiced anti-war candidate that, during a televised debate, you can still be classy and not make yourself a nuisance. Mix that with his unabashed libertarianism and a dogmatic view of the constitution, and I can't see a national election scenario where Paul gets less than .25 percent of the vote. (But hey, Ron Paul did let the world know he loves the Internet, and this stop on the Internet sort of loves him back.)
No one outside of the Republican big three jumped up because of tonight. Of the big three, Romney and McCain were sharper than the front-running Giuliani. Will this matter? Probably not. But Giuliani does need to get to a more comfortable place with his abortion position next time out.
As she navigates the murky sea of celebrity, Lindsay Lohan has a tendency to hitch her craft to older women who have already been back and forth a few times.
First it was Kate Moss. Cocaine Kate taught Lindsay how to cause a scene at the local strip club, and which bathrooms were best for their favorite late night inhalant. Her next BFF was Madonna, who introduced Lindsey to the magical mysticism of Kabbalah.
With her social and spirtual life taken care of, Lohan is now free to inject her own opinion into the Hollywood debate over whether she is a talented young actress or a movie wrecking "spoiled child."
That in mind, Lohan has wisely proposed to Hillary Clinton a trip to Iraq together. This will give the headline grabbers time to bond and allow Lindsey to learn from Hillary the art of triangulation.
Hillary has been going through a transformation of her own. No longer a wonkish shrew in sensible shoes, the junior senator from New York has taken to engaging in all-night vodka drinking contests with former hard-partying fly-boy John McCain.
Whether this change in behavior is a result of husband Bill's continued "friendship" with a blonde-haired Canadian heiress/politician, or just how Hillary's been dealing with will-she-or-won't-she anxiety, there is no doubt Hillary is a woman ripe for getting her groove back.
What better way than a trip with Lilo to sunny Iraq? Sure there is the outside chance of losing a foot or an eye, but the two New York luminaries will also be surrounded by hoards of adoring soldiers, who typically see nothing but sand and veiled women.
The questions is, after she is done with Hillary, where will Lohan turn next?
It's too bad Mother Theresa is no longer available.
