Potemkin rallies

That Ahmadinejad rally was photoshopped (sorry, "enhanced using Adobe® Photoshop® software") to appear larger...

Exerpt of the day

Re-reading The Audacity of Hope this season, I came across this passage:

...for those of us who believe that government has a role to play in promoting opportunity and prosperity for all Americans, a polarized electorate isn't good enough. Eking out a bare Democratic majority isn't good enough. What's needed is a broad majority of Americans--Democrats, Republicans, and independents of goodwill--who are reengaged in the project of national renewal, and who see their own self-interest as inextricably linked to the interests of others.

I'm under no illusion that the task of building such a working majority will be easy. But it's what we must do, precisely because the task of solving America's problems will be hard. It will require tough choices, and it will require sacrifice. Unless political leaders are open to new ideas and not just new packaging, we won't change enough hearts and minds to initiate a serious energy policy or tame the deficit. We won't have the popular support to craft a foreign policy that meets the challenges of globalization or terrorism without resorting to isolationism or eroding civil liberties. We won't have a mandate to overhaul America's broken healthcare system. And we won't have the broad political support or the effective strategies needed to lift large numbers of our fellow citizens out of poverty.

I made this same argument in a letter I sent to the left-leaning blog Daily Kos in September 2005, after a number of advocacy groups and activists had attacked some of my Democratic colleagues for voting to confirm Chief Justice John Roberts. My staff was a little nervous about the idea; since I had voted against Roberts' confirmation, they saw no reason for me to agitate such a vocal part of the Democratic base. But I had come to appreciate the give-and-take that the blogs afforded, and in the days following the posting of my letter, in true democratic fashion, more than six hundred people posted their comments. Some agreed with me. Others thought I was being too idealistic--that the kind of politics I was suggesting could not work in the face of the Republican PR machine. A sizable contingent thought that I had been "sent" by Washington elites to quell dissent in the ranks, and/or had been in Washington too long and was losing touch with the American people, and/or was--as one blogger later put it--simply an "idiot."

Maybe the critics are right. Maybe there's no escaping our great political divide, and endless clash of armies, and any attempts to alter the rules of engagement are futile. Or maybe the trivialization of politics has reached a point of no return, so that most people see it as just one more diversion, a sport, with politicians our paunch-bellied gladiators and those who bother to pay attention just fans on the sidelines: We paint our faces red or blue and cheer our side and boo their side, and if it takes a late hit or a cheap shot to beat the other team, so be it, for winning is all that matters.

But I don't think so.

That post is an interesting look back.

OMG!

JeffLieber has some laughs at the no-you-can'ters.

If you've been following the election closely since January this is pretty funny.

Kos' Research 2000 trend

Palin -8 is a new low after the Couric interview sinks in...

Obama has a new high of +25 (!!)

Can we call the election yet?

Rile the base

Palin's email today:

Friends, in the course of a few weeks, the Obama-Biden Democrats have launched attack after attack on me, my family and John McCain. They're desperate to win and they'll no doubt launch these attacks against other reformers on our ticket.

When asked about this, a campaign aide responded with 3 points:

1) Obama finance committee member Howard Gutman questioning Palin's parenting and her willingness to take on the Veep candidate role when her family is so consuming -- a comment he subsequently apologized for.

2) Andrew Sullivan's demand that the McCain campaign release medical records putting to rest rumors about the birth of Trig Palin.

3) A user diary on DailyKos, which is of course the site of leading Obama supporter Markos Moulitsas, raising questions about that pregnancy.

Markos is dismissive:

You could use a Daily Kos diary to justify just about any charge ever made. Same with the Free Republic message boards, etc. But that's patently absurd, and just more of her `rile the base' bullshit. If something stupid can be said, you can believe someone on Daily Kos has said it.

So let me see if I understand this correctly:

3) "Obama-Biden Democrats" are responsible for random users' diaries at the website Daily Kos, which anyone can post to.

2) Andrew Sullivan was an "Obama-Biden Democrat" who's repeated insistence that she (and all other candidates) should release their medical records constitutes an attack on her family, particularly his request for Trig's birth records to set that rumorfest to rest.

1) Questioning her time commitments as a parent and then apologizing for it is a "desperate to win" attack, and one of "attack after attack".

Did I get that right? Gee, I wonder who's desperate.

Plus four

Gallup with a statistically significant 48-44 split.

Via kos, a Hispanic snapshot:

SUSA's latest has Obama up 52-44 in New Mexico, which is great in and of itself. But I was struck even more by this line:

Hispanics

McCain 28
Obama 69

That is close to the numbers in yesterday's R2K/dKos daily tracking poll:

Hispanics

McCain 29
Obama 67

It's too soon for either McCain or Obama's errors to have played any part in those numbers, but my guess is there will soon be a further 3 point shift to Obama.

UPDATE: Yglesias ponders the change