http://rules.senate.gov/senaterules/standingrules.txt

Are you getting that number by subtracting 50 from 70? There’s also the mass of people who disapprove of Bush but won’t vote at all, or who will be kept from voting by caging, intimidation, etc.

(I found a figure of 64% for voter turnout in 2004. Bush got ~50% of that.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dNhtn2iVtg

“Biden,” eh? Sounds made up to me. Are you sure you don’t mean Bernstein? What’s that? He’s Catholic? Well, they’re just the Jews of Europe, so I still win.

ARCTIC COAST REPRESENT.

I think most of the remaining “undecided” are right wingers who are just starting to see the light, or simply think Obama is closer to the old school Tory they always wanted. For those people the appearance of stability and competence count for a lot. Palin plays well with the neo-cons, but I don’t think she is doing at all well with the vast numbers of rightwards leaning voters who hate the current administration.

Palin is doing nothing to deal with her image as an erratic and dangerous politician. I think a lot of people can spot the same self assured stupidity in her, that they grew to hate in Dubya.

Bush got ~50% of the vote in 2004, and now has something like a 70% disapproval rating. That means a minimum of 20% of voters are right-wing enough to seriously consider voting red, but have become allergic to the Bush administration.

It doesn’t matter how, or if, Mcain separates himself politically from Bush, I think people still make the mental connection between them.. Because Mcain and Palin both do similar things. They awkwardly try to use the same folksy “charm”, have trouble stringing together coherent answers, and generally look constipated and confused when put infront of a microphone. Palin and Mcain, are both slightly dim. Like Bush. And it shows! All three of them rely entirely on scripts, and generally come across as puppets with tangled strings.

These superficial things are very obvious, and reflect the deeper similarities very well. Even people that don’t know jack about policy will pick them up, and many will vote accordingly. Seeing Biden and Palin, or Mcain and Obama side by side, only makes the contrasts more obvious.

The common assumption seems to be that McCain is in charge of his campaign and that everything that happens does so because McCain wants it that way. From my observation of events, that seems, at best, only partly the case. At the risk of being accused of sporting a Reynold’s Wrap cap, I believe that there are other “authorities” in the deep weeds guiding many of the most crucial decisions (such as the Palin pick) who have other agendas, perhaps much longer term agendas, to play out using McCain’s campaign as a tactical delivery system.

So, as to the hypothesis above, I’m not at all sure that McCain personally gives a flying fuck one way or the other about this, but others – perhaps working out of nondescript office space somewhere, nominally on behalf of the Republican Party – may care very deeply about maintaining this impression of inherent VP authority (the “Cheney Precedent”, if you will) even within the context of a losing campaign.

Indeed, it actually would be irresponsible not to speculate.

Realistically, however, he lost the debate.

Yes, he actually addressed issues. Yes, he was articulate and knowledgeable. He lost the “zippiness” contest, however, and that’s what people want. Zippy. Perky.

About halfway through, when Palin had not experienced an onscreen attack of explosive diarrhea, when she had not vomited all over her cue cards, when she did not actually tap her hidden earpiece and ask Rove or whoever to repeat the approved answer, it became clear that she had won.

I gave up at that point and turned the damned thing off.

This is what her widely-recognized lack of qualifications for the office of VPOTUS amounts to: our widdul Caribou Barbie is manifestly incapable of filling the void soon to be left by Dick(head) Cheney on that Frabjous Day of 01/20/09. [FSM and UBL willing!]

Therefore, CHENEY’S AUTHORITAH WILL NOT BE OFFERED TO HER, and the Republic will be safe — from her, at least — for just as long as John McCain manages to avoid 1) a recurrence of his melanoma, 2) apoplectic aneurysm and/or vapor-lock, 3) actuarial death from other natural causes, 4) assassination by Milleninial Xtian zealots determined to force the Apocalypse, 5) assassination by any of sundry Zionist/Wahabbist/Hubbardist/Buddhofascist zealots acting out their own version of scripturally-justified insanity, 6) etc, etc.

Until then, we only have McNitro himself to worry about.

I feel better already.

No, Really…I do!

Much…better…

Really? “Change is coming. I’m going to not point backwards by doing things just like Dick Cheney!”

Wow.

(Reagan) no doubt terrified many of his listeners with his conclusion, telling them that if they did not prevent the passage of Medicare, “one of these days you and I are going to spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it once was like in America when men were free.”

HuffPo

on Main Street that’s affecting Wall Street.

That was fairly early on, I think, wasn’t it? I remember hearing that go by and yelling something obscene and anatomically unlikely at the TV.

I’m not quite sure what my neighbors think of me during election season.