Is this the key moment of the campaign?
October 11th, 2008
click on the panel to watch
Will voters look at McCain differently after standing up to the crowd?
Just watch the video above and you’ll see what I believe is a key moment of the campaign and one that will raise respect for John McCain in many quarters irrespective of whether he wins or loses. There’s a good account of it here, as well, on the Time magazine blog.
Facing a crowd who were overwhelming hostile to the black Senator from Illinois McCain says, “I respect Sen. Obama and his accomplishments.” People booed at the mention of his name. McCain, visibly angry, stopped them: “I want EVERYONE to be respectful, and lets make sure we are.”
I think the real John McCain is coming out here and he doesn’t want history to judge his campaign as being racist or based on hate.
It also says, I believe, that some of the nastier attacks that many feared might characterise the closing phase probably will not happen.
It will be interesting to see how he interacts with his opponent in the final debate.
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Mike Smithson
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It was interesting to see the main stream media actually show some of these earlier attacks tonight - the left wing blogs have been full of them - it is about time McCain put his foot down - but only time will tell - with Palin being found guilty of abuse of power - will he finally reign her in and also the surrogates - words mean nothing unless he actually stops Palin and the surrogates from their attacks too ….
So we had Palin stoking the fire just the other day with people in the crowd yelling “kill him” after she accused Obama of palling around with terrorists.
Now after weeks of running negative ads attacking Obama and his associates, McCain suddenly decides to defend his opponent against the types of message his campaign people have been sending out to people.
Why wouldn’t people think he’s anti-american?
Why wouldn’t people think they should be scared of Obama winning?
Why wouldn’t people believe he might be a terrorist, when you have your running mate running around the US delivering a rally call making those kinds of suggestions?
The answers to all those questions can be found in theme of the campaign you’ve been running John!
So I’m going to have to assume somebody high up has had a strong word and suggested McCain and his people might want to tone down the language pronto - before something truly terrible happens. I think he’s been reminded there can be terrifying consequences in response to his people doing whatever it takes to stop Obama winning the vote in November.
I’m not sure how much nastier these attacks can get Mike. What Palin did the other day was the final straw.
Forget the final debate. I’m more interested in seeing how Palin acts through the remainder of the campaign.
With politicians it’s always hard to tell whether it’s the “real” someone coming out or whether they’re just making a political calculation that it’s better not to look like a scumbag.
But credit where it’s due, this is a very decent response.
(Compare and contrast: http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=LHFREDHB-nQ&e )
And I think Mike’s comment about the “real” John McCain points to the obvious next mavericky roll of the dice for him: To disown his campaign, fire a bunch of advisors, start taking questions from the press again and bring the “authentic straight-talker” thing back. Seems like a lot of people - especially the media - really want to believe in that stuff, and he could bounce back (though probably not enough to win) if he gave them an excuse to.
The resiliency of Labour is really amazing to me, though. … they are still within shouting distance of the Tories. How that can be the case given the virtually unbroken string of bad news for the past few years is a bit of a mystery to me. Also, they are tarred with the Iraq intervention, which I believe is even less popular in the UK than it is in the U.S. Why aren’t the Tories enjoying poll leads comparable to those Labour enjoyed during the last Tory administration, a time when things in many ways seemed less gloomy than they are now?
Because opinion polls are a measure of which party people think will be best able to get out of the mess, not a judgement of who is to blame for the mess (a bit like 1992).
runnymede: There’s no financial crisis in North Korea. The people are eating grass, but there’s no bank crisis, at least.
Sean Fear: John Loony will be pleased.
I am indeed pleased that there is no financial crisis in the DPRK; I am not pleased that people are telling lies about people eating grass. I am also glad that the unity and fortitude of the people, party, army and government of the DPRK managed to overcome the natural disasters of the mid-1990s when western commentators were merrily predicting its imminent collapse (as they have done at regular intervals ever since 1989).
re 4. Labour is not “within shouting distance”. The latest Populus poll would have had the Tories 18% ahead but for their spiral of silence adjuster that I think needs tweaking.
No, it’s not the key moment of the campaign - it’s just one of many. McCain’s response to the crowd was the same that any decent candidate would make in similar circumstances. I do however find it curious that he was so close to the questionners, and that they weren’t apparantly managed or vetted (not necessarily “censored”)more efficiently, rather than having an appearance of an unseemly rabble.
3. disown his campaign, fire a bunch of advisors, start taking questions from the press again and bring the “authentic straight-talker” thing back. Seems like a lot of people - especially the media - really want to believe in that stuff, and he could bounce back (though probably not enough to win) if he gave them an excuse to.
Reminds me of John Major and his soap-box in 1992.
I’ve been wondering what it would be like if McCain had chosen a grey old man like Biden as his VP, instead of Palin. (And/or if Obama had chosen Hilllary. At the time I thought that choosing Hilllary would have been risky and divisive, but now I think it would have been even better for Obama than it already (apparently) is.)
That’s an incredibly awkward moment when he snatches the microphone away. He was obviously terrified that what she’d go on to say would be worse still.
“No he’s not, he’s a decent citizen and a family man”. If I was an Arab American, I’d be a touch offended that McCain seems to think that being an Arab and being a decent citizen are mutually exclusive concepts.
6. I was of course quoting whoever it was. but the point is that an election (and opinion polls) are about voting intentions for parties, not just a judgment about whether the current situation is awful.
9. I think he was probably being a bit clumsy in conflating two separate responses:
“I can’t trust Obama”
“He’s a decent family man, a citizen”
and
“He’s an Arab”
“No he’s not”
There are a million and one occasions on which politicians might wish they could go back and say something slightly differently, and perhaps he could have been clearer. Perhaps the details don’t matter because the point is that he was countering someone else’s bigotry.
JohnL, I think the point being made by runnymede was that there are no banks in North Korea in the conventional sense as there is no private wealth. It certainly was not a compliment praising the wondrous fiscal management of your communist utopia, simply as there are no banks there was no run on them.
As for the ‘eating grass’ comment as I’m sure you are aware, it was a reference to the famine that struck NK in the mid-1990s where an estimated 600,000 people starved to death. Think about it…’Six Hundred Thousand people’.
What people were reduced to eating prior to starving to death God only know but I’m pretty sure grass was on the menu and unless you were there, I really don’t think you are in a position to comment much less accuse others of smears.
It’s interesting that Palin’s odds to become the next VP have become slightly delinked from McCain’s to be President on the Betfair markets (6.6 against 6.4). That may not be significant, especially at this time of night, where one transaction could have that result, but it will be worth watching for whether it continues.
For what it’s worth, I’ve just had small bets on Bloomberg and Romney for VP in case Palin steps down. I’m not really convinced that either would be chosen were she to do so, but both names would be speculated upon and their odds would come charging in from way up into the hundreds, probably to single figures. If the choice of Palin shows anything, it’s that accurately predicting single-person calls is a tough job (credit to those who got this one right), but it’s nearly always the case that choices about personnel get safer the closer it is to an election. I don’t think the Republican Party - whose nomination it is - would allow another choice as obscure as Palin. I know Bloomberg’s record is far from perfect in terms of loyalty to the party (heck, he’s not even a member of it), but in present circumstances might that less of an issue.
A sort of double edged sword. On the one hand you see that McCain is a decent person but on the other you’re allying yourself with those ghastly supporters.
Possibly a similar problem to the Tories….Cameron seems human but it’s still the party of Thatcher so still something no self respecting person would have anything to do with (except for JohnO Ted and David H of course!)
Surely the report described on the BBC as ‘extremely damaging’(to Palin) is more significant to the presidential race at the moment? It sounded pretty terminal to me.
David Herdson:13: Post troopergate report, Intrade has Palin being removed from the ticket at 6.6%, so if the markets were efficient you’d expect a bit of a spread between President McCain and VP Palin. (Presumably offset a bit by the possibility that McCain would drop off the top of the ticket and someone other than Palin would take over).
I think you could just about see McCain switching in Bloomberg while doing the same kind of thing I’d advocated at (3): Throw caution to the winds, upset the right, gamble for the media and independents and hope that the wingers turn out anyway to stop Obama. But it would be hard to do logistically - the slot is not necessarily solely in McCain’s gift, and presumably Palin would still be on most the ballot papers, so there’d be a general atmosphere of confusion and erraticness. I think he’s almost definitely stuck with her…
Roger@15: Normally you’d think it would be a game-changer, wouldn’t you. Before she got picked most people assumed that she couldn’t be the VP candidate because of these outstanding abuse of power allegations, and here we are three weeks from the election and a bipartisan ethics panel has found that they’re true.
But at this point she was only really supported by the 28%-ers in any case, and they’ve apparently convinced themselves that it’s all a media conspiracy. Presumably if McCain was even considering the possibility of dropping her over this his campaign wouldn’t have brought out its own report declaring that she didn’t do anything wrong. If anything, I think it might make it harder to get her off the ticket: Before Troopergate, she could have resigned for family reasons and maybe got a bit of sympathy; After Troopergate, it can only be proof of McCain’s bad judgement.
Yes it is a key moment. The media guns will be out for Palin after the Troopergate report - that is more important - and ANY more dirt dished out by Palin will be highlighted as hypocritical without McCain condemning it and as she has her own dirt that will stick - it hardly qualifies her to attack Obama. Palin becomes the story and it will be very hard for Team McCain to get nasty again, as they planned.
16. EiT - I agree. I think he probably is stuck with her. Intrade’s figures equate a 14/1 chance of her going; those aren’t bad odds of themselves but do rightly imply that the chances of her staying on the ticket are many times greater (at the moment).
You’re right about the logistics as well - it would be awkward were she to stand down this late in the campaign for all sorts of reasons. Still, the two events of a vacancy being created and that vacancy being filled are different things and if Troopergate gets worse or the impression coming from it gets reinforced by other negative stories she could have to go, whatever the consequences. That remains some way off at the moment though.
Not sure about it being a key moment, the economy is swamping everything else at the moment
12. unless you were there, I really don’t think you are in a position to comment much less accuse others of smears.
I haven’t been to the DPRK, but I know several people who have been to NK several times, and their testimony is the next best thing. The point about the floods and famine of the mid-1990s is that the DPRK overcame it and emerged stronger, rather than collapsing and capitulating as many western commentators were expecting / predicting / hoping.
18. The media guns will be out for Palin after the Troopergate report…
I thought she had been cleared by that?
22: No.
http://www.adn.com/monegan/story/552393.html
I see that Haider has been killed in a car crash.
What will happen to his party in Austria?
On topic:
We have been seeing the ‘real’ John McCain for the last couple of weeks; nobody ‘becomes’ what he is - he’s an angry old man who knows that he has lost his last chance to become President.
As for Palin, when some of the Tories on here were cheering her name from the rooftops some of us were deriding her as crass and dangerous, and now we know that she’s crooked.
McCain is flying the Hindenburg and November 4th is his destiny with an airfield at Lakenhurst Naval Station.
And it couldn’t happen to a nastier old man.
Malcolm
24. Wow! About Heider.
On topic, I think, Mike, that the defining moment of McCain’s campaign was the choice of Palin. For in making that choice, he went with someone who it could be seen is a firebrand. When she turned out to have - overall - a negative affect on his chances of election, he then went further by turning 100% negative.
He’s now decided that the situation which he is largely responsible for creating isn’t so good after all, and he’s now damping down the flames. It’s good that he’s doing this, but sad that it needs to happen.
McCain isn’t an imbecile - I believe he now realises that the game is up, that he can’t win. He doesn’t want history to show him as being responsible for promulgating the darker side of American society. Good that he’s doing this, good that he’s showing some leadership on the positive side.
When things come up like they are now, when these hatreds and fears are exposed, then they come up for a reason. People in the States will be watching very closely and feeling very sad themselves about how there can still be such a cancer left in their society. I’m sure that this is why Obama is doing relatively well now in, for example, Florida. With its higher proportion of retirees, there are people with more time on their hands to consider cause and effect.
So there is good all round, in that such “stuff” shouldn’t be hidden any more. For it to be cleared out, it needs to get an airing, people need to realise that healing is necessary in their society.
- - -
In case anyone read my post of earlier in the week about something major being unveiled on October 14th, I don’t think that any more!
Who’s to say this wasn’t a set up? It allows McCain to look decent whilst still getting out negative messages about Obama (he’s scary, he’s an Arab) that the McCain camp couldn’t openly use themselves. Having watched a documentary about Atwater the other night I’d not put anything past the Republicans.
23. Oh! That report was more recent than I thought. I must have heard/read about inaccurate pre-emptive speculation rather than the actual thing.
Jörg Haider has been killed in a car crash.
(I know people have already mentioned it, but I wanted to show off the fact that I know how to type an umlaut).
27 John, you may have been confused by the Republican’s own recent report which (surprise, suprise!) cleared her!
29. Doh! (Or is it “D’oh!”?)
Typical shabby sneaky republican trick, investigating themselves in a partisan and biased way.
Thank goodness I’m a monarchist.
(Thank God I’m an atheist, although that’s a completely different joke).
#3,
Hear, hear…!
It was a fine response from McCain, possibly his best moment of the capaign. I think he showed his true colors but even if you take the cynical view, you have to grant that it was the right thing to do politically. The rough tactics haven’t worked, may even have backfired and were in danger of encouraging some supporters to run embarrassingly out of control. It should be a cleaner campaign from now through to the finish and we should all be thankful for that.
The Palin report won’t help McCain though. Shorn of all the ideological baggage it finds that what she did was legal but naughty. Her guns have been spiked and she will continue to be drag on the Republican ticket.
I guess the conclusion has to be that McCain’s choice of VP didn’t work, but I still maintain it was a chance worth taking.
He won’t take her off the ticket. It wouldn’t work.
#12, excellent point.
In the Democratic Peoples Republic of [North] Korea the 80+% of people, outside the second-largest army of the world, are struggling to survive. It brings to mind a [Nat-Geo?] documentary where a “Western” doctor went to PY to restore the eye-sight of a number of KYS’s subjects.
In gratitude he was ignored: All hail the Glorious Leader: Our True Saviour! Apparently Socialist looneys don’t do honesty, nor appreciation….
Looks like all the Palin bigots will have a field day now.
McCain’s also a decent man, and he is effectively taking on his own party - look at the faces behind him when he says Obama is a decent family man. I think the GOP will feel betrayed by McCain when the post-mortum on this campaign is conducted. And do you know what I’d do if I were President Obama - I’d give McCain a key job in my administration… That leaves the GOP with Palin - oh, dear…
35 - Secretary of State and then we would have the full West Wing prediction come true!
The Daily Mail is still picking on the Tories.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1076370/Top-Tory-William-Hague-flew-Barclays-500-000-Italian-jolly-markets-crashed.html
#24, are we seeing the end of the Franco-Prussian EU-experiment, or just the start of a new Metternich-era?
[
And does Her Majesty's Armed Forces have as much support (from the "Govan-ment") as HBOS and RBS...?
]
“That leaves the GOP with Palin - oh, dear…” interestingly it doesn’t seem to work like that in the US the party out of power doesn’t seem to have a leader until a new candidate is chosen. Why dont they chose a leader/spokesman - who would then have a head start in the primaries, but could still lose?
32 PtPp-agree with all that.It is good to see a good man saying a good thing.The cynics who say this was a set-up, show themselves up for the essentially cheap lot that they are.
IOU an apology PtP and also to your friend for not responding to your email.I open my emails rarely and am a shocking replier.
I’m choking with disbelief, compare the Hague story to this one on Brown.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1076412/Yes-hes-human-Allison-Pearson-gains-exclusive-access-Prime-Minister.html
coldstone - discussed at length last night also in the Sun. His defence is that he paid his hotel bill but ignores the trips, meals etc that Barclays laid on for their guests.
How long will it take for banks to realise that life has changed. I find it interesting that the banks pay their front line staff in the branches very badly. They are lucky most of them remain loyal and give good service whilst their bosses are p1ssing it all away.
40 No apology necessary, URW. In fact I thought I owed you one for not contacting your Site.
The proposed Syndicate I spoke of has been lengthily delayed, but not abandoned.
I should be in touch about this again before the end of the year.
Btw, anybody who has been folloing the fascinating EV map on Intrade will have noted that Indiana has just turned blue for the first time. Missouri however has reverted to red.
You are still a Gold Member PtP.Just visit and send me a Private Message.I do respond to those.
These days,financial matters are taking pride of place over the politics.
Mike this really is amazing - amazing that it is in the Saturday edition of The Mail -the Saturday paper has higher circulation and may actually be read.
http://tinyurl.com/4jaucq
Is it time to start backing Labour again? (Has any one seen the Conservatives recently?)
45 Thanks URW. You are a gold member yourself!
46 David Davis for Leadeeeeeeee Chancellor !
URW@40: In defence of the cynics, look at the ads McCain’s running:
http://jp.youtube.com/profile?user=JohnMcCaindotcom
Can you see why people might be skeptical of someone who stands before a camera and says Obama “is a decent person and a person you do not have to be scared” while their campaign is running ads like “Ayers” and “Dangerous”?
46
If a few years ago anyone had told me, that on the same day that the Mail ran a hatchet job on a prominent Tory politician, it would run a PR job for a Labour PM, I would have thought you were on day-release from the local, ‘Institution’
First to ‘go there’.
What do we know about Haider’s accident ?
Dr David Kelly territory ?
48 Edmund
I have just watch the clips from the McCain rally and the way he handled those rather embarrassing members of the audience who put the silly questions was both skilful and courageous.
This was a different McCain to the one appearing in the ads you refer to.
On balance, I believe the ‘rally’ McCain presents the truer picture.
re 46. I try to have my weekends off and I’m waiting until we get more post conference polling.
There’s a new marginals poll coming out on Tuesday or Wednesday and the big question is whether Labour is doing disproportionately worse in these seats - as ICM suggested last weekend.
See the post I’m planning for Monday morning.
51 I firmly believe that there are no genuine “accidents”. This does not necessarily mean that there was a conspiracy around his demise.
Edmund,the cynics to whom I was referring were those saying the whole thing was a planned set-up.
I think McCain’s rebuttal of the rednecks was as genuine as it was courageous.
In essence he was distancing himself from his campaign.This is double-edged of course but still he acted well here.
46 - Strange headline for an article that tries to claim he’s Superman!
Should be:
“Yes, he’s superhuman after all…”
52, our Euro-meisters must be obeyed!
As some of our left-wing contributor’s would say, Zei…[editted...]!
55. URW - So that’s not him on the ad he saying I am John McCain and I approve of this message?!
46 Don’t know about you but doesn’t it seem we are getting the July/August 2007 Not Flash Just Gordon campaign again? Gordon being lauded for his seriousness, his ability to handle a crisis. The travelling around the country meeting people to explain. Selected journalists invited into his home to show the family man (not that he’s using his children, they are not props). Government of all the talents (with Mandelson this time).
Same playbook but hoping for a different result this time?
Good Day PBers Worldwide and in Alaska - Palingate - Oooppps
On thread :
Strangely I believe that McCain will get little credit for this. Over the past few days the MSM and the blogs have been all over the “angry story” stoked by McCain and Palin. Now that McCain is rowing back indicates to me three things :
Firstly the internals of their polls and focus groups show that swing and independent voters don’t like his disdainful attitude to Obama and angry crowds and those seen as responsible for them.
Secondly that McCain knows he’ll lose and doesn’t want to tarnish his reputation further.
Lasty he’s been given the black spot by the GOP not to damage further down ticket Republicans.
Might increase many people’s respect for McCain but it can only serve to alienate many from his party and his campaign, indeed it may even serve to make McCain seem weak; incapable of leading his own core supporters.
The real ‘angry panic’ amongst the GOP’s Conservative base at the prospect of an Obama victory and the way it is being vented at rallies and other venues can do nothing but harm to McCain and his campaign, not matter McCain’s own response.
Well Done John McCain. Thanks for posting this Mike. The man has guts to stand up to the mob.
2 - I’m confused by poster “Pug Munter”.
Today he’s posted a long attack on John McCain. Yet the other day, he was one of McCain’s greatest advocates. See
http://politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2008/10/07/will-mccain-look-at-obama-tonight/
For example, post 254:
McCain has raised enough questions about Obama’s character to turn this election around. The maverick knows the future of America rests on the outcome in November, and he wasn’t found wanting tonight.
My eyes are literally welling up as I type this.
God bless America.
by Pug Munter October 8th, 2008 at 3:41 am
The conclusion to this post is left as an exercise for the interested reader.
Too bad he didn’t have the guts to discourage the mob from forming in the first place.
People sign their posts “God bless America”?! This isn’t Free Republic, you muppet.
It contrast so much from the Fear based politics of the Bush era and personal abuse we get from this side of the pond.
51. It’s more Pym Fortune territory than David Kelly.
51
My first thought when I saw the headline this morning was that the conspiracy theorists will be coming out in force over whether or not he was ‘removed’.
Fact is that 99 times out of a hundred an accident is just that. Yes someone will have been responsible and perhaps negligent but there won’t be anything more sinister to itthan that. Even famous/notorious people suffer mundane fates sometimes.
61 One further thought. It might be that the Secret Service have advised McCain of a credible threat to Obama. They are already investigating an incident at a McCain rally where a reference to Obama was met by a shout of “kill him”.
Peter the Punter@52,
Certainly agree that he looks good in those clips - the problem is how you reconcile his words with his actions: approving attack ads that are encouraging people to believe the very things that he’s criticising these embarrassing members of the audience for thinking. Why is he’s saying Obama isn’t dangerous to the camera while approving spending millions of dollars on ads that say he is? Obvious possibilities would be:
a) He wouldn’t approve the ads himself but his advisors insisted and for some reason he couldn’t overrule them.
b) He’s a cynical politician who wants to look personally honourable while getting the benefit of using attack ads and surrogates to damage his opponent.
I don’t know which it is - I suspect a bit of both.
But the interesting political fact here is that unsentimental people like Mike and yourself (and probably most of the US media) seem to want to believe in (a). Giving McCain one last desperate hope of saving his campaign by distancing himself from it…
69 If one out of a hundred is a conspiracy/murder that’s pretty disturbing don’t you think ?
Especially as they will be disproportionately biased against controversial figures.
“Politico” on McCain and the angry crowds :
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1008/14479.html
New SUSA poll for Iowa :
McCain 41% .. Obama 54%
http://www.surveyusa.com/client/PollReport.aspx?g=1acf389c-6fca-469e-9f9c-55b502cd98aa
Was Jörg Haider wearing a seatbelt? Did he (assuming he was the driver) have alcohol in his bloodstream? If the answer to the first is yes and the second is no, I might begin to entertain the shadow of a scintilla of a possibility of a conspiracy theory. If not, I won’t even get that far, since any conspiracy theory that is dependent on the victim undermining his own chances of survival is a non-starter.
Via Andrew Sullivan, rumours that (as we specualated a bit here) the RNC are planning on pulling the plug on McCain to spend the money trying to save incumbent senators:
http://crookedtimber.org/2008/10/10/a-bit-of-horserace-commentary/
‘The leader of the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland has intervened in the Glenrothes by-election campaign with a plea to voters to tackle candidates on issues that “should concern every Catholic”‘
… reminding them of key areas of concern for the church, including the Government’s commitment to the renewal of the Trident nuclear weapons system…. also bemoans the “depressing reality” that 40 years after it was passed the Abortion Act has not been repealed or amended, and warns of the threat of new amendments to the controversial Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill.
The 70-year-old cardinal was criticised before last year’s Holyrood elections when he predicted that Scottish independence would happen “before too long”. In the same interview he said nations such as Ireland and Denmark had benefited “from the prosperity which self-determination can bring.”
Shortly before the Glasgow East by-election, Cardinal O’Brien told Catholic voters there that the HFE proposals were a “monstrous attack on human rights”.
He also reminds Catholic voters in his letter to Glenrothes of the continued existence of the “overtly sectarian” Act of Settlement that prevents any Roman Catholic taking the throne.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/scotland/3174691/Scottish-Catholic-leader-urges-public-to-vote-in-Glenrothes-by-election.html
Latest Zogby/Reuters tracker :
McCain 43.8% .. Obama 47.6
Note - Yesterday - M-43.4/O-47.6
http://zogby.com/news/ReadNews.dbm?ID=1581
My opinion is that this is the key moment in the campaign.
McCain must learn the hard way,you don’t mess with music business lawyers
QUOTE
Throughout the campaign season, Sen. John McCain’s presidential campaign has continually drawn the ire of musicians by using their copyrighted material without permission. Now yet another band is complaining. Yesterday, the Foo Fighters issued a statement telling McCain to stop using their song “My Hero“:
“The saddest thing about this is that `My Hero’ was written as a celebration of the common man and his extraordinary potential,” the band said in a statement. “To have it appropriated without our knowledge and used in a manner that perverts the original sentiment of the lyric just tarnishes the song.”
As ThinkProgress has previously noted, McCain’s continual copyright infringement contradicts his campaign pledge to protect “copyrighted works.”
Re The Daily Mail article on Mc Broon, I can see the hand of Alastair Campbell.
Trying to rewrite someones persona wont wash. Everyone knows about the temper tantrums, the smashed phones/furniture/
Andy McSmith of The Independent shows that he has a poor grasp of Scottish geography. That hardly engenders confidence in the authority of his report. One wonders why the vox-pops of three weeks ago are only being published now?
The Glenrothes constituency, between Edinburgh and Kirkcaldy [!?! - Glenrothes is actually on the road from Kirkcaldy to Dundee]…
The [Labour] party had made the unusual decision to choose a 59-year-old candidate who had never run for elected office before. He was Lindsay Roy, a local headmaster, whose job meant he could only campaign outside school hours. He is nowhere near as well known as the SNP candidate, Peter Grant, the leader of Fife Council.
What was painfully noticeable, visiting the constituency in mid-September, was the silence of Labour voters. No one seemed to want to admit to voting Labour. “The Labour Party should be panicking when a small town like Glenrothes could be putting the Prime Minister’s job on the line,” said Alec McIntosh, a driver. “But in the evening, I get telephone calls saying, ‘Will you vote for us, will you vote us’, from every party except Labour. I have been Labour all my life. I was brought up to believe that Labour is the party for the working man. But I don’t see that it makes a difference to the working man which of them is in. I don’t know if I’ll vote Labour at the general election, but in this by-election I’ll definitely vote SNP.”
Alec Redpath, a leading member of the Church of Scotland in the village of Leslie, said: “Labour has been in power for so long, and did a lot of good things in Fife, but people see the national picture and how if affects them personally. The credit crunch worries people. People are saying they want someone who can help them out.”
“I’m absolutely disgusted with Gordon Brown, because this is the man who wrote the cheques for the war,” said Rudi Vogels, a former social worker and “lifelong socialist”.
… Labour’s private polling is telling them that the mood among their supporters in Glenrothes is good enough to risk having Mr Brown pay a visit as polling day approaches.
“I think it’s wrong how he’s getting all that slagging off,” said Daniel Ferguson, a retired lorry driver. “They blame him for this, they blame him for that, when it’s not his fault. He’s always trying to do his best. He thinks about working class people.”
“This crisis is not Gordon Brown’s fault,” said Elizabeth Cooper. “It’s global, and we can’t expect Gordon Brown to sort it out alone, or anybody else for that matter.”
The SNP’s research has shown up fuel and food prices as the main sources of discontent. They plan to campaign hard on both…
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/embattled-prime-minister-scents-unlikely-victory-on-his-home-turf-957887.html
Glenrothes by-election - best prices:
SNP 4/11 (Sporting Bet)
Lab 9/4 (Ladbrokes)
Con 100/1 (Ladbrokes and Sporting Bet)
LD 100/1 (Ladbrokes)
Still no Betfair market on Glenrothes.
6. Mike, what would the numbers have looked liked without the spiral of silence?
Betfair - Next General Election - Election Date
Jan 2010 or Later 1.43
Jan - Jun 2009 5.4
Jul - Dec 2009 6.2
Jul - Dec 2008 100
37. The Daily Mail is ridiculous. It appears to be incapable of taking a consistent line thanks to the conflicted interestes of its Editor. That Hague business is a utter non-story and doesn’t appear to have been picked up anywhere else.
85 - and its readers are the ones most likely to be hostile to Brown (and most likely to like Hague)
Dacre really, really wants his knighthood
CEEFAX saying US following UK in investing directly in US banks, for first time since 1932. With US lead, expect other nations to follow.Perhaps headlines next week, “Brown saves the world” . Life is going to be very tough for the Conservatives, nobody will be reminded of GB’s share of responsibility for the environment in which this crash has taken place. The first signs of any change in sentiment could well be Labour holding Glenrothes comfortably, after GB involvement in the by-election.
85
Try reading the SUN
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/money/article1796084.ece
10/1 Palin to be kicked off the ticket with us at ladbrokes, should anyone be interested. We’ve seen a fair bit of money overnight on Obama to take North Carolina at 8/11.
I am shocked - William Hague was seen sipping an espresso - sipping a flippin espresso. How dare he drink coffee when he markets are moving downwards - how dare he move freely witin the EU and support his wife at such a time as this? He should surely be drinking weak lemon drink from a flask between shifts at the pit face.
Mail = poles up their arses at all times.
Still, at least Gordon found some props
He may still yet have blood on his hands but at least he can salve his conscience in the next few weeks by publicly denouncing some of his campaign and that of his vice president for going further than he wanted.
As for sacking everyone and changing tack yet again, that would pretty much ensure him not being elected. He’s already been seen as erratic and hot headed, it would only reinforce that belief and now is the time for steadiness and calm (well, as much as is possible in these febrile times!)
Hague travelling with his wife is an outrage. An outrage! This has cost the taxpayer absolutely nothing.
Whatever happened to spending taxpayers’ money on mistresses? Hague’s a disgrace to the political class, with his marriage and lack of public fund wasting.
86. Absolutely. Targeting Hague wont go down well with the Mail’s Conservative voters. He is by far and away the most popular figure within the party and one of the more popular Tory figures in the country as a whole. I’m really not sure what the Mail is trying to do, is it trying to alienate its entire readership? Fortunate for Dacre there really is no credible mid-market alternative out there since the ‘demise’ of the Daily Express.
I must say, I do find the idea that Gordon Brown came up with the idea of the UK bail out rather amusing - almost as amusing as the concept that the US re going to invest in banks direct just because Brown did.
Alistair Campbell is making his money for sure
87 - depends if the Great British public is willing to give him much credit for it.
As Major found out, if the public don’t really want you about then they’ll give you grudging credit and nothing more.
FWIW Labour will get a 4 point boost but will lose it relatively quickly.
87 The problem with saving the world is that the big disaster never happened but the smaller one does- but the recession, the job losses, the stretched public finances, house repossessions do happen. Brown is going all out to ensure he gets as much benefit politically as is possible from the actions this week - which still only might work - but they have been costly, will be costly and are too late to stop the downturn.
In six months, one years time when things are hard I’m not sure that “it would have been worse” will carry much weight,
It should hardly fall to me to defend the editor of the Daily Mail, but if Dacre was after a knighthood, he would be sucking upto Cameron, (our next PM)who would give him one, ‘in greatful thanks’
Afterall that’s what Mrs T always used to do!
91 - if McCain’s got nothing to lose, and if he wants to return to the Senate with some degree of dignity, he might as well start sacking people and doing it “his way”.
The GOP are screwed this year anyway, and McCain won’t win now (famous last words)
88 “No stranger to the cake trolley … ”
Hague reportedly doesn’t like Europe.
97 As opposed to sucking up to Gordon, who will give him one in greatful thanks. I think you just spun yourself 360 degrees their coldstone.
93/97 - Dacre is apparently not a well man, so maybe can’t wait for a Cameron government.
Cannot think of any other reason why the Mail goes down this route
According to SUSA polling of early returns in Iowa and North Carolina (Absenttee) are both running at Obama 65/31.
I think the world owes a debt to the taoiseach of Ireland, Biffo, for his deposit guarantee on Irish banks. A man with guts and vision, who stood up to the world (or at least the EU).
Also I am not convinced that we are out of the woods. I am now more worried than before the UK package was launched.
Once post-mortem begins, Brown will look bad - he was the Chancellor of light touch regulation. No matter how much he tars Cameron, his own words condemn him. Also the UK economy is heading south and Labour will (rightly to some extent) be blamed.
102 - does that include the brave men and women (cue vomiting) of the military?
If so, the GOP are even more screwed than first thought
McCain returning to the McCain method that powered his insurgent campaign for the nomination is too late but it could bring over some waverers. I liked potential nominee McCain, I don’t like Candidate McCain. The press liked that McCain, available, jocular, at ease. If he won (very unlikely) then that McCain, quick to anger yes but also capable of cross party consensus would most likely be the President.
I wonder how much of his recent grumpiness, his unease, his inability to look at Obama is because he has sold out and his behaviour doesn’t sit with his self image of an upright, honourable ex-serviceman?
Did anybody see the BBC this morning with the impartial Mary Riddell being asked how gordon was doing and the BBC editing footage of PMQs so Cameron was completely removed and gordon is suddenly the new Ricky Gervais, whilst Cameron is apparently Hapless, and some people claim the BBC has institutional Bias, I really can’t think where tthey got that idea from.
101
I can! Dacre just hates Cameron, I should imagine its something to do with Dave’s rather liberal attitude to drugs in his youth.
So what your saying is dacre with his small c conservative values can’t stand cameron for doing cocaine 20 years ago yet loves Gordon’s profligate state spending, running down of the military etc. Come off it coldstone. Dacre is Gordon’s buddy and like the curry house plotters will get his reward. There is nothing principled going on here at all.
107 - well, the Daily Mail Editorial/ConHome/Heffer/Cornerstone faction of society has attacked him before over that sort of stuff and it didn’t have much effect then.
Do agree that Dacre really can’t stand Cameron.
IME of Mail readers though, they’re not quite the moral harridans of society, and probably wouldn’t give a flying one over a few moral indiscretions
Someone’s being rude to Sarah Palin. Whatever next?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxL7MKsGoPo
Shadsy, you were wondering yesterday about how many seats the Scottish Tories might win at the next UK GE. I was too busy to reply properly, but I thought that your initial assessment of 4.5 was entirely reasonable.
David Mundell’s seat (Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale) is pretty much nailed on, if only because if you wanted to kick him out it is unclear who on earth to vote for! Split opposition means easy Hold.
Edinburgh South - a total shoo-in for the Tories in my opinion. Labour drop from 1st to 3rd, maybe even 4th.
Renfrewshire East is looking an awful lot better for the Tories after the appointment of Jim Murphy as Scottish Secretary. I expect a heck of a lot of anti-Murphy tactical voting now in that seat.
Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk should be a shoo-in too, but I just wonder if the Tories have the organisation on the ground?
Dumfries and Galloway has got to be a good chance for them. Tories must be a “probable” here.
After those 5 seats, things get a bit more dubious for the Tory chances:
Edinburgh SW - good chance, but Alistair Darling may just scrape back in due to split Con/SNP opposition
Stirling - SNP have the upper hand
Aberdeenshire West & Kincardine - an outside chance here, but again a strong SNP performance could scupper them
Argyll & Bute - SNP have the upper hand
Aberdeen S - anyone’s guess!! this one will be a total cliff-hanger - 4-way marginal
Edinburgh N & Leith - the Tories would have to be having a wonderful night to even get 2nd spot here
After that I just cannot see any other opportunities for them.
Hope that helps.
108
Whatever, for me its just amazing, and should be a thread on its own. The Mail has also run this.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1076378/The-gangsters-daughter-Tory-billionaire-biggest-divorce-times.html
There’s even a story about ‘John Nott’ upsetting the Cornish, (not difficult) over putting up two wind generators, with references to Cameron’s.
80 - The hand of Campbell appears to be active all over the media spectrum. What’s interesting is that it has become easier to spot, as it scuttles about in the shadows.
God help us but Zogby are starting some battleground state trackers on Monday, expect results out of whack with everybody else, in either direction.
I think McCain’s response is genuine, honourable and touching. It’s consistent with a lot of the earlier campaign - he didn’t bring up Ayres in the debate, and we’ve noted on pb.com before that he, Obama and Clinton have all preserved more than civil manners to each other - Obama and Clinton have both praised McCain personally several times. It’s important to remember that they all work together in the Senate. (Why don’t I slag off other MPs? Partly because it’d be embarrassing when I next met them, but mainly because I see them in numerous contexts and they’re generally pleasant colleagues.)
How can this be reconciled with the attack ads? There’s a bit of calculation in that, no doubt - the US tradition is always that the guy at the top of the ticket is Presidential, while the VP and nameless staffers do the attack stuff. But there’s also the fact that candidates are not really the sole arbiters of their campaign. If the GOP tells McCain that the money is drying up and supporters are demanding more red blood in the adverts, he probably won’t tell them to get lost, just try to limit how far it goes and avoid getting into it himself.
As for the impact, it ought to be a modest plus, but the big question today has to be the reaction to Palin. I’d have thought that wavering voters might well think it the final straw.
112 - Coldstone, I forgot that Labour politicians are ‘whiter than white’. No drink, drugs, sex, divorce or financial impropriety. Ever.
102: How does SUSA do this poll? Is there a public marked register of who’s voted, and they download it, cross-index with a phone data base, and call them up? Seems a bit unlikely.
116 - its not so much the doing it, as the attitude to others doing it.
111. Stuart, that is very much appreciated, cheers.
112 What? its amazing that Gordon’s buddy can drag up non stories to get a knighthood. He certainly has an amazing lack of scruples and amazing contempt for his readership.
‘MacAskill clashes with immigration chiefs over reforms’
http://www.theherald.co.uk/mostpopular.var.2459610.mostviewed.macaskill_clashes_with_immigration_chiefs_over_reforms.php
121. Weathermen getting involved in politics?
119. De rien.
I look forward to some imaginitive GE markets from Ladbrokes.
115. At last, a bit of common sense about this issue.
Stand-off could ‘go on to 2009′
The executive has not met since June.
The failure of Sinn Féin and the DUP to agree on the transferring of policing and justice powers from Westminster has been a key factor in the deadlock.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/northern_ireland/7664576.stm
OT
The economy.
This is very scary and will HAVE to be sorted…
From John Mauldin’s newsletter..
http://www.frontlinethoughts.com/gateway.asp?ref=reprint
Letters of Credit: Going, Going Gone?
Just as the business world is dependent upon commercial paper as its life blood, the world of global trade depends on letters of credit (LOC). Without LOCs, the world of trade quickly freezes up.
If you are a manufacturer of a product and want to sell to someone outside your borders, you typically require a letter of credit from the buyer before you load any cargo at a port. A letter of credit from a prime bank is considered to be proof of your ability to pay. It not only can be a source of ultimate payment, it can be a source of inventory financing while goods are in transit.
And if you are a business which is buying a product, you do not want to release money until you know the product is on the way. There are buyer’s and seller’s agents who make sure these things happen seamlessly, and world commerce had grown because of it.
Now we are starting to get anecdotal evidence that this extremely vital market is also freezing up. If you think the problems stemming from a meltdown with the commercial paper markets are threatening to the world economy, they are small potatoes when compared to a seizure in the letter of credit markets.
I had been thinking about this for a few weeks. Then an article posted on Naked Capitalist caught my eye. Quoting:
“At the end of the day, if every counterparty is bad then you don’t have a market and you don’t have an economy. I spoke to another friend of mine this afternoon, whose father has been in the shipping business forever. Pristine credit rating, rock solid balance sheet. He says if he takes his BNP Paribas letter of credit to Citi today for short term funding for his vessels, they won’t give it to him. That means he can’t ship goods, which means that within the next 2 weeks, physical shortages of commodities begin to show up. THE CENTRAL BANKS CAN’T LET THAT HAPPEN OR WE HAVE NO ECONOMY, LET ALONE A CREDIT SYSTEM.”
And they quote the following story from The Financial Post of Canada:
“The credit crisis is spilling over into the grain industry as international buyers find themselves unable to come up with payment, forcing sellers to shoulder often substantial losses.
“Before cargoes can be loaded at port, buyers typically must produce proof they are good for the money. But more deals are falling through as sellers decide they don’t trust the financial institution named in the buyer’s letter of credit, analysts said.
“‘There are all kinds of stuff stacked up on docks right now that can’t be shipped because people can’t get letters of credit,’ said Bill Gary, president of Commodity Information Systems in Oklahoma City. ‘The problem is not demand, and it’s not supply because we have plenty of supply. It’s finding anyone who can come up with the credit to buy.’
“So far the problem is mostly being felt in U.S. and South American ports, but observers say it is only a matter of time before it hits Canada. ‘We’ve got a nightmare in front of us and a lot of people are concerned it’s going to get a lot worse,’ said Anthony Temple, a grain marketing expert based in Vancouver.
“Access to credit is key to the survival of maritime trade and insiders now say the supply is being severely restricted. More than 90% of the world’s trade by volume goes by ship. ‘The credit crisis has made banks nervous and the last thing on their minds is making fresh loans,’ Omar Nokta, an analyst at investment bank Dahlman Rose, said in an interview with Reuters.
“While shipping has always been a cyclical industry whose fortunes rise and fall with the global economy, analysts said the current crisis over the drying up of credit is something they have never seen before.”
If banks are refusing to go into the LIBOR market and lend to each other, then why would they want to take a letter of credit either? At first, it will be a small trickle, which is how the commercial paper meltdown started. Then it will be a flood.
The one good sector in the US is its export sector. Start slowing that down due to a lack of ability to ship or receive payments and see what happens to an already shrinking economy. If anyone wants to see how the credit crisis can affect Main Street, look no further.
It is hard to overstate the problem and the potential for it to create a true economic meltdown. It must be dealt with, and soon. See more below.
What to Do and Where Do We Go from Here?
The credit markets are frozen. Period. The chart below shows one week LIBOR going back for four years. Notice the gradual rise into 2005? It was a lock-step move with the Fed funds rate. And the less smooth drop was also in concert with the Fed funds rate. The recent spike is not responding to this week’s Fed funds cut. The spreads are wider than ever. The problem is not just the price of LIBOR. There is no trading at any price. The LIBOR market is a fiction today. And left unchecked, this lack of dealing with other banks will spread to letters of credit and the international trade markets.
‘Fearful and apathetic Norwegians back Scotland to win in poll’
http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/sport/Fearful-and-apathetic-Norwegians-back.4582237.jp
Unfortunatly they are talking about a sporting fixture, and not the forthcoming independence referendum…
115. Re. Palin - is this spat remotely comparable to the misdemeanours of the Clintons? I think not.
125 - When’s the Saville Inquiry reporting? Has it been put off for another 12 months?
Morning all, I see David Lawrence is still criticising those of us who have consistently dispaired at the GOP picking the Palin woman. Clearly like many from the religious extreme right, she considers that her personal agreement with God entitles her to do whatever she considers right, whether that breaks the law or not.
If she was an ordinary person, I am sure Troopergate would be leading to a criminal prosecution. So many others seem to be prosecuted for less. Her behaviour at the rally the other evening where she was calling Obama a friend of a terrorist in this country would not only lead to her facing litigation for defamation or slander/libel (not sure what it’s called in English law) but arguably given that she was inciting the crowd to the extent some were shouting death threats, that puts her on a par with the moslem extremists whose supporters we have locked up for shouting and carrying placards calling for death to British soldiers etc.
The GOP deserve to reap exactly what it has sown. I watched a news item the other night where people were asked about Obama and the number who said he is a moslem and they would never vote for a moslem and someone couldn’t be a true American if a moslem was scary. Not only because it was totally wrong but the sheer venom behind the comments.
The sooner this election is over the better and frankly some of the GOP people behind these disgusting campaigns should be facing charges of racial hatred!
It is not every day that you see the leader of a Unionist political party declaring that Unionism is “dead”!! Sign of the times.
‘Lib Dem leader bows out with farewell speech’
Mr German, 63, will use his speech to warn there is a danger of the Welsh Assembly being left behind by the devolution movement.
While Wales is grappling with the question of more law-making powers, Scotland is racing ahead by pushing for more financial autonomy, he will say.
Aides said he will proclaim unionism “dead”, and say that in the future the devolution debate will be between supporters of a federal Britain and independence.
http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/2008/10/11/lib-dem-leader-bows-out-with-farewell-speech-91466-22013227/
130..i am sure that Palin will stand down from the GOP ticket today.
‘EU steps up pressure on Ireland to hold second Lisbon Treaty referendum’
Brussels diplomats have warned Ireland that it is isolated after angering other EU countries, such as Britain, by taking controversial financial crisis measures that benefited Irish banks while “dumping on others”.
“The economy might be going into freefall and the Irish really did not help things. Sympathy for their difficulties is running out,” said a diplomat.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/eureferendum/3173967/EU-steps-up-pressure-on-Ireland-to-hold-second-Lisbon-Treaty-referendum.html
129. Sure we already know what it will say, why release it when you can make a few more quid.
Ditto the Assembly, why bother when you can be earning a few quid for not bothering.
Easterross
“The sooner this election is over the better and frankly some of the GOP people behind these disgusting campaigns should be facing charges of racial hatred!”
At the same time the Dems have been hiding behind Obama’s race and using it as a cover for some more valid criticisms of him. Take the matter concerning his pastor. Obama never answered how he was unaware of what the guy was preaching over the last two decades. But, hey, he gave some half-arsed response so to press the issue is “racist”….
The Republicans have “done wrong”, but so have their competitors. In a just world they’d both be prosecuted for slander et al. But then you wouldn’t have anyone left to form an administration if either side won.
132 Graham
Have you taken Shadsy’s generous odds on that?
10/1 I believe.
129. Alex - “When’s the Saville Inquiry reporting? Has it been put off for another 12 months?”
“… would not report until the second half of 2008.”