How McCain is Losing It...Obama is inside his head

Today, I took my always accurate one week pre-polling on my way home. This polling has proven right on point for popular vote prediction in local or national races. It involves driving and counting the bumer stickers for one party versus another. Well, 4 years ago Houston Texas where I lived was awash with W - logo for Bushie..this time, McCain stickers are hard to find. I know, he is not from Texas- but we are also a dark , very dark red state. Well, the margin of the count is usually a good redictor in percentage of vote margin...I came up with 3 point advantage for Barack. I think this is a 52-49-1 election.I had posted these thoughts on how this election is shaping up...

The problem with the McCain camp is that right from day one they have allowed their own sense of inferiority complex drive their tactic, thereby making them lose sight of the larger strategy for winning. It has made their message erratic, their goal at best mendacious and their campaign seriously smacking of amateurish. Here are few examples of this complex manifesting;

1. the inferiority complex of McCain campaign-Pushed McCain to try at the first night Obama won the nomination to give an Obama like speech in front of a green ugly banner...let us just say it flopped.

2. Pushed McCain to taunt Obama on foreign trips, which Obama made and of course was such an outstanding success it gave Obama the summer stay in polls he needed.

3.Pushed McCain camp to adopt Obama's change stance instead of going with something that is authentically McCain; of course, from "leader we can trust", to "change you deserve", to "country first" - one has lost track of McCain's slogan for his campaign....trying so hard to be Obama. -

4.Made McCain taunt Obama as a celebrity while at the same time pushing his own narcissistic "country first" theme and yes, Pushed McCain to try to upstage this celebrity he first loathed, but is of course really envious of by choosing a celebrity of his own as Veep-Palin immediately after Obama's speech just to rain on my man's parade. That strategic blunder is now hurting him with the middle

5. .Pushed McCain to taunt Obama on debates and town halls just to highlight his own limted strenght only to flop when the debate held...utter disaster on expectation setting-

6. Pushed McCain camp to make an horrible strategic error of building an entire convention on biography at a time of dire economic trouble just to match Obama's larger than life story. I submit that if McCain had spent half of the convention disassociating himself from Bush- he would have been in a much better place today

7..Pushed McCain to seek to dislodge Obama from the daily news cycle by creating news with his erratic moves- concentrating on winning daily news cycle instead of getting a coherent message out; well, bad news is not good news.
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A friend also had this running commentary on NVS...similar and a follow up to my thesis; it is a beautiful submission and I enjoyed it..

McCain on the other hand is instinctively dependent on tactics, perhaps because of his military background. He conceived of certain set-piece situations and fashioned reactions and talking points to meet them. The main disadvantage of such an approach is that if you underrate your opponent or assume he’s going to do certain things, if any of these does not happen, you end up leaving your opponent with the initiative and the golden chance of framing the campaign. Obama saw that weakness early and made McCain to be reactive, constantly harrying him away from initiating controllable actions of his own. And when McCain reacts to drag Obama into being defensive, the latter simply ignores him or leaves him and his team to be devoured by the press, with the latter already angered by the unprovoked belligerence of McCain and his posse in their failed attempt at intimidation. One strategic plank of Obama’s campaign has been to continue to lure McCain into meaningless bouts of almighty whining. That is why all the major mistakes McCain had been forced to make, including those Busanga listed have been Obama-induced.

To add to that list, McCain’s Palin’s choice was a mistake induced by Obama’s well-calculated avoidance of the pressure of choosing Hillary as running-mate. McCain left his comfort zone to take the bait of a mythical Hillary 18 million voters and landed an albatross known as Sarah Palin, who today is actually a bigger problem for his campaign than Obama! Another forced mistake was to lure McCain into saying he was going to talk about Ayers to his face at the last Presidential debate. McCain shouldn’t have taken the bait. Once he began to speak about that at the debate, people began to see him as really having nothing else to offer in terms of the real issues facing the nation as per the bad economic situation developing. More importantly, the Ayers angle could not sell because it is linked to the very divisive Vietnam issue. For McCain, because of his personal history with Vietnam, such an angle diminishes him in pursuit of a presidency that is meant to heal those wounds as it places him at the heart of the culture war. The fact that Mr Ayers is an American citizen today contributing positive ideas to the intellectual and social well-being of society does not help McCain.Another thing was the way Obama forced him to make the mistake of ‘suspending’ his campaign. Obama proposed a joint statement on the economic situation then, calculating that McCain would want to undermine the Democratic majority in Congress by doing one-upmanship in an attempt to seize leadership over the issue. McCain fell for it. Joe Klein of Time magazine has recounted how Obama was under pressure to follow suit and suspend his campaign as well. We all know his decision and how that has been the singular most important factor in winning over swing voters who began to see the McCain campaign as more gimmicky than substantive.

In contrast, Obama’s quiet but commanding leadership of the Democratic Congress throughout the episode began to undermine the claim of inexperience. His calmness began to be interpreted as what is needed at a time McCain was seen as disruptive. Once the administration began to listen to his proposals and negotiate on them, people began to feel he possesses the leadership qualities to see America through the tough times. He’s also used real guile to blunt the race issue on his own side while making it an albatross for McCain. Of course, he was aware early that despite McCain’s supposed high idealism at the beginning of the campaign, the old man was going to ultimately succumb to the culture warriors within the GOP. Obama simply left him to the natural adversaries of all culture warriors – the big-city ‘elitist’ press around the coasts. He stoked that fire expertly with well aimed comments as when he talked about not being like any of past leaders whose faces are on the dollar or when he keeps emphasizing the erratic nature of McCain’s campaign or talking about pig and lipstick without mentioning Palin, all of which had the Republicans in all sorts of contortions.

Underlining all this is Obama’s strategy of linking McCain with Bush and the economic and political failures of the past eight years. His much more people-friendly tax and health policies made anything McCain was going to throw at him immaterial. The discipline of his campaign, the solidity of his organization and the way he exploits technology positively contrasts his campaign with McCain. And, of course, his message appeals to the young who wants change and the old who craves a return to economic and social stability.

Republican Corruption...and Ill Excuse

Senator Ted Stevens

Just read this editorial from Wall Street Journal today, bunch of clowns. See the tactical they are mourning the GOP loss, and when did they become a party machine? Why this sudden preoccupation of the GOP and their media babbles to preserve the filibuster- were they not the one toying with the idea of the nuclear alternative in 2004 when they controlled all arms of government? Apparently, they are scheming for some politics of railroading and blockage next year but I am predicting they are in for a surprise- a President Obama will wield unprecedented power through the machine of faithfuls he has built in the grassroots. And yes, the media is attacking Palin cos they hate her going after Stevens…lol. Idiots. And finally the big deal- Stevens have been a republican since the great society program started by LBJ a democrat, hence democrats are responsible for Stevens corruption. Clowns!

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Sic Transit Ted
Of bribes and hubris
Senator Ted Stevens, a legislative architect of the Bridge to Nowhere, was found guilty yesterday by a District of Columbia jury of taking illegal cash and gifts from an Alaskan oil executive. One would be hard put to identify anyone other than the senior Senator from Alaska -- perhaps Tom DeLay -- who did more to drive the Republican Party into the political wilderness waiting for it at the far end of that nowhere bridge.

One of the Senate's most ardent and unapologetic spenders and earmarkers, Mr. Stevens helped cost the GOP control of Congress in 2006 after public exposure of Congress's increasingly absurdist pork-barrel projects. An irony of this conviction is that the media types who will be dumping shame on Senator Stevens's ethics are the same ones mocking Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, who has done as much or more than any official to fight the Stevens culture of public-sector fat cats. Perhaps that is her real offense.

Facing Alaska's voters only days after this conviction, Senator Stevens almost surely will now cost his party a Senate seat in a year when it desperately needs it to preserve the power to filibuster next year. Especially at age 84, he could have resigned his seat on indictment and let another Republican win it, but his politics has always been essentially about himself. He could mitigate this legacy by resigning now and letting Alaska's GOP Lieutenant Governor Sean Parnell run as a write-in next Tuesday against the Democratic candidate, Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich.

Senator Stevens has served in Washington for seven terms. That means his tenure extends back to the building of the Great Society political edifice of the 1960s. His career rose alongside a Washington that grew from a relatively modest capital city on the Potomac into what it has become -- a Beltway colossus of overlords and rent-seekers. Members of Congress, charged with dispensing the federal budget, sit at its apex. Senator Stevens is but the latest to have mistaken himself for one of the marble statues in the Capitol dome.

SOURCE

Cash for thrash...

"I must tell you, there are those in the public debate who have said that we must act now. The last time I heard that, I was on a used-car lot," "The truth is, every time somebody tells you that you've got to do the deal right now, it usually means they're going to get the better part of the deal."
Rep. Mike Pence, R-Indiana.

The thrash for cash plan is rubbish- and I don't just mean figuratively, I mean literarily. It is Paulson trying to save his buddies. Makes no sense to me why he had Section 8 to deny oversight and even contained clauses for golden parachute! Mouthing stuff like free market when the plan is exactly a short circuit of free market is just trying to eat your cake and have it Paulson. The absence of the man on top- Bush that is- is even more befuddling. If it comes to thrashing political opponents and cowboy talk- one can count on Bush and Dick Cheney. But alas they are missing in action as Rome burnt. How can Paulson propose a plan that helps wall street, reward their bad behavior with no single clause on how to protect homeowners on main street who invariably are the ones paying for this package? Makes no sense to me unless you figure that this White House is one that is for the wealthy, powerful and well connected- they don't give a damn about main street. Never did; but somehow they sold main street a lie: "we are the guys you can drink beer with"!
But maybe times are changing. Once upon a time, Republicans mocked regulation and government spending--and the voters laughed along. But who's chuckling now? The collapse of investment banks, like the collapse in the mortgage securities market, was a by-product of insufficient regulation. Meanwhile, it's "old-fashioned" Democratic ideas like Social Security--a program Republicans have campaigned to privatize--that insulate senior citizens from drastic declines in the market. And government spending doesn't sound so awful if it means universal health insurance, which can reduce the threat of financial calamity for working families. Democrats have tried to shift the tax burden upward, so that the wealthy pay more of their growing largesse. After eight years of Bush tax cuts reversing that progress--and middle-class incomes stagnating--the case for making the tax code more progressive again is ironclad. I have never seen anytime in politics where the left and right seem to agree so much on regulating private business- it appears that after Enron (result of energy deregulation) and Lehman/AIG et al (result of financial deregulation)- regulation is no longer a swear word.
Again, it appears cash is forever king. The market intervention by the Feds via their cash for thrash plan is another reason for you to stay out of the market.You should not put your money in a market that is more closely correlated to unpredictable temperature in Washington DC and not the free wily nilly of demand and supply. The essence of free market is that you can make sense of the rules- which by the way suddenly became Paulson- the El Dorado of wallstreet bad behavior turn treasury secretary. Talk about the fox guarding the sheep pen
Speaking of cash on hand, it is not a coincidence that Japanese companies and Warren Buffet are the ones coming to the rescue of Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs respectively...as well as other wall street thrash collectors. It makes sense that the thrifty, disciplined and saving conscious Japanese economy and the oracle of Omaha are the saving grace of the flamboyant, living on credit wall street boys. Personal Lesson: Save, Save, Borrow less. The trade, credit and personal savings deficit of the US is a bigger threat than terrorism to the demise of this super power.
My Own Anti-Paulson Proposal - simple and straightforward:
- Banks literarily modify mortgages for first and second home owners at zero cost to homeowners ; removing balloon rates and correctly pricing payments to fit real income and actual housing value depreciation. Judicial oversight on bank and customer dealings should be provided by county/city/municipal courts.

- Real estate speculators are forced to declare bankruptcy i.e. those flippers or execute a short sale at bank own convenience. No oversight for this deal- so the bank is free to screw the speculators.

-Banks write down their losses due to modifications which affect the bundled CDOs that support such mortgages.

- Banks seek the Fed loan to cover these losses in return for tax payer equity in these entities in return for interest instead of capital. Equity balloons (just like the damn ARM they were peddling) into larger equity by the Fed if loan is not repaid within a set period. The upside for the banks here is that they are free to keep paying their ridiculous golden parachute-- it is just a loan anyway and the faster they can't pay , the more likelihood they going to loose their shirt to the Feds.

Me thinks my plan is fair, and right..it helps main street, punishes bad behavior (of Wall street and speculators), allows the economy escape a credit crunch by allowing the bad boys to remain liquid while creating a floor beneath the housing market and avoiding a situation where foreclosures & bankruptcies drive down the values of even the sane borrowers in the larger economy. My plan tackles the source of the problem- exotic loans to people who can otherwise afford conventional ones. It is high time the rich also contribute to the large welfare that they have absconded for too long under George Bush a la tax cuts and bail outs.

Here is a very interesting proposition on how an auction of distressed asset should work..from slate.