First thoughts: Guns of September
Posted: Friday, September 12, 2008 9:24 AM by Domenico Montanaro
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First Thoughts
From Chuck Todd, Mark Murray, Domenico Montanaro, and Carrie Dann
*** The guns of September: Just a day after Thursday’s ceasefire to commemorate the 9/11 anniversary, the presidential campaigns are now firing their heavy artillery. This is especially true for the Obama camp, which is up with two new TV ads (one has Obama talking to the camera to argue that he’s the real change agent in this race, and the other takes a tough shot at McCain’s age and computer skills). Obama campaign manager David Plouffe also issued an “enough is enough” memo to reporters and squeamish Democrats. “In recent weeks, John McCain has shown that he is willing to go into the gutter to win this election. His campaign has become nothing but a series of smears, lies, and cynical attempts to distract from the issues that matter to the American people. But as Barack Obama said earlier this week ‘enough is enough,’” Plouffe says. “We will respond with speed and ferocity to John McCain’s attacks and we will take the fight to him, but we will do it on the big issues that matter to the American people.” (That begs the question, though: Is McCain’s computer literacy a “big” issue in this election?) Meanwhile, the McCain campaign is not ready to see the spotlight move off of Palin; it's out with a new ad attacking the Dem ticket for attacking her. Everything with the McCain campaign is Palin, Palin, Palin. They don't want the spotlight off of her.
*** Role swap: Speaking of… If you want more evidence that Sarah Palin has emerged as the true principal of the McCain campaign, just look at the weekend schedule. Today, John McCain -- the party’s presidential nominee -- appears on the “The View” and “Rachel Ray”; he’s down in DC on Saturday; and then he flies to New Hampshire for a NASCAR race there on Sunday. By comparison, Palin -- the running mate -- returns to the Lower 48 tomorrow, immediately holding a solo campaign event in Carson City, NV. The campaign has made it crystal clear who the campaigner-in-chief is. And it’s not McCain. It’s an astonishing and unprecedented development in American presidential politics. Essentially, the person driving the rallies, crowds, and campaigning isn’t the person running for president. Just asking, but when are going to start hearing this from McCain camp TV ads, “I’m Sarah Palin, and I approve of this message.”
*** Palin's first interview: While Palin has become Team McCain’s campaigner-in-chief, her somewhat shaky interview last night with ABC’s Charlie Gibson suggests that she won’t be the campaign’s go-to person for the Sunday shows just yet. The kindest reviews of her performance all have the phrase "at times" -- meaning it wasn't a homerun. But it also didn’t seem to be a complete and utter disaster (like that John Edwards performance in ‘02 on “Meet the Press”, or even Bill Richardson’s “Meet” stinker in ’07). Rather, it was somewhere in between. She's surviving and Republicans will be satisfied with her performance. But how is it playing in the middle with moderates and persuadable voters? What about the GOP foreign policy establishment? Was she too scripted? Did she struggle too much on certain issues? Perhaps our biggest question: How will Saturday Night Live play it? Will it exaggerate her deer-in-the-headlights response to the “Bush Doctrine” question? Or, like those SNL skits from earlier this year, will it portray a mean, unfair, and condescending Charlie Gibson. By the way, Palin yesterday linking 9/11 to the war in Iraq is getting some extra attention.
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VIDEO: Palin says she's "ready" for the job in her first TV interview since being chosen as McCain's running mate. ***
Last night's forum: While Palin was answering questions from Alaska, McCain and Obama (with Biden in the audience) participated at last night’s forum on service and citizenship. Both candidates did fine, but you could tell Obama took this forum a bit more seriously than Saddleback. He was sharper. In fact, even though we said yesterday that the forum’s subject matter -- service -- was in McCain’s wheelhouse, we seriously underestimated how much it was in Obama’s wheelhouse, too. It helped Obama that he had a national service plan to tout and McCain didn't. The other thing to struck us about the forum is that there really was a true ideological divide on the role of government on display. Obama made a defense of government, arguing he wanted to make government "cool again." McCain talked about how government can get in the way of many issues, particularly service. The two campaigns appear to be trying to emulate the other lately, but they can't mask the fact that there are real philosophical differences in how they'd govern.
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VIDEO: NBC's David Gregory discusses last night's forum with MSNBC's Chris Matthews.
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McCain’s college grad problem? Over the last several months, the chattering class has hashed and rehashed Obama’s weakness with working-class white voters. But does McCain have a problem with college-educated whites? Consider: In the final NBC/WSJ poll before Election Day in 2004, Bush led Kerry equally among non-college whites (52%-42%) and college-educated whites (54%-44%). But in the August NBC/WSJ poll, McCain led Obama significantly among non-college whites (51%-33%) but narrowly among college-educated whites (46%-43%). The GOP presidential nominee improved those college numbers in the most recent NBC/WSJ poll (to 51%-43%), but that’s still below Bush’s numbers in October 2004. McCain needs to improve his standing with college whites to win. It will be interesting to see how Palin plays with these two groups. Will she create a wider rift between college and non-college whites for McCain, or help close the gap?
*** A “Values” snub? Yesterday, we reported that McCain was skipping the Family Research Council’s Values Voters Summit. And it also looks like FRC’s Tony Perkins isn't thrilled with how his summit's being treated -- he won't even accept a video presentation from Palin. Writes CBN’s Brody: “The Brody File has learned that the offer of a short video from vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin to folks at this weekend’s Value Voters Summit has been turned down by its president, Tony Perkins. A source inside John McCain’s campaign tells me that Palin was set to record the video Wednesday in Virginia before she left for Alaska. But when the McCain campaign approached Perkins about offering the video rather than a personal appearance Perkins said, according to numerous witnesses, ‘That’s not enough.’”
*** Every electoral vote matters: How important is every single electoral vote? Consider that Obama is spending parts of two days this weekend in New Hampshire. The state, worth just four electoral votes, is one of the four closest according to our calculus.
*** On the trail: McCain appears on The View (along with his wife Cindy) and also does Rachel Ray. Obama is in New Hampshire, campaigning in Dover and Concord. And Biden raises money in Texas.
Countdown to the first presidential debate: 14 days
Countdown to the vice presidential debate: 20 days
Countdown to the second presidential debate 25 days
Countdown to the third presidential debate: 33 days
Countdown to Election Day 2008: 53 days
Countdown to Inauguration Day 2009: 130 days
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