OK, here’s my take on the politics of the last week:

Sarah Palin

A presidential candidate has his/her first opportunity to show how the candidate will govern when he/she chooses a vice presidential nominee. Essentially, the nominee chooses someone who can help govern or someone who helps get elected. Obama’s choice was a governing choice, a partner to help with foreign policy and to manipulate the levers of power, in Sen. Biden. McCain’s choice was an electoral choice and not a governing choice, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. Sen. McCain’s choice essentially brushes aside any concerns voters may have about his age and health: clearly, Gov. Palin is not prepared to step into the presidency. However, asking the question of her preparedness totally misses the point. McCain is not concerned about that. Her selection is about getting elected. How can that be? She’s from a 3 electoral vote state that is pretty reliably Republican! That also misses the point, IMO. Sen. McCain has not had the enthusiastic support of the evangelicals who massed to the polls and volunteered to help President Bush. James Dodson, for example, was prominently on the sidelines. Sen. McCain has pandered all he could and still didn’t have them on his side. He does now. Gov. Palin isn’t just talk about abortion, she walks the walk with her newborn Downs Syndrome child. She’s an Assembly of God churchgoer: not just an evangelical, but also pentecostal (if you thought Rev. Wright’s church was weird, wait until you see people speaking in tongues). James Dodson is now enthusiastically on board. With Gov. Palin, there’s no transparent bull about guns like there was with Sen. Clinton: this woman really does hunt and fish and is a lifetime National Rifle Association member. Another group of the far right climbs aboard the Straight Talk Express. If you go down the checklist of the 28% of voters who still stand by President Bush (66% of GOP voters), she is golden

to them.

Much of presidential politics, I’m sorry to say, is image: how does it look on television? She’s as photogenic as they come, personable and easy to identify with for many mothers. You might snark about her Univ. of Idaho journalism degree, but it would be a mistake to underestimate her or consider her stupid. A great many of her social conservative views are not at all about “smart”, they are about “faith”.

I do wonder about making a choice of a vice presidential candidate on the basis of one quick meeting at a governors’ conference in February followed by a couple of quick phone calls. Is shooting from the hip straight talk maverick governing, as McCain has demonstrated here, a good or a bad thing? Don’t know, but it makes me uneasy. I wonder why Olympia Snow, Kay Bailey Hutchison or Elizabeth Dole were passed over if Hillary PUMAs were the target. When her fellow Alaska Republican, the head of the GOP in the state legislature, says “prepared to lead the nation? she isn’t prepared to be governor!” — hmmmm. There’s a special prosecutor in Alaska looking into Gov. Palin’s actions with respect to trying to get her ex brother in law fired (her ex bro.n law, btw, is a prick who probably should have been fired IMHO) and an indictment or report is due right before the November elections. That can’t be good. No one, and I mean absolutely no one, is prepared to go from Alaska to the kind of scrutiny one gets as a vice presidential nominee; she will make mistakes, as all humans would, and they will be amplified if her mistake fits one of the media narratives the way Quayles’ misspellings did. That didn’t prevent Bush I from beating Dukakis, though, did it?

So, was Gov. Palin a good pick or not? The answer really is that she will either shine or fail with nothing in between and time will tell the tale. She’ll have a honeymoon during the convention and that will give the GOP a chance to define her before Obama’s campaign can do so. Obama needs to be very, very careful not to go overboard and not to be sexist. The answer to the question also lies with the Democrats, in my view: an unforced error and she’s a hero.

Obama’s speech

More people — 38-40 million — watched his speech on TV; more than saw the Academy Awards or watched the Beijing Olympics opening ceremony. Wow.

The visuals: compare and contrast the tee-shirted crowd of blacks, whites and Latinos at Invesco Field with the stickuptheass all white GOP convention we’re about to see in the twin cities. How many shots of the crowd did you see with people who had tears running down their cheeks? I can’t imagine that at the convention we’re about to see.

The speech: not his best in terms of “tingle up the leg”, but everything it should have been and more. A home run and A+ without doubt. Very very strong on standing up to the quivering cavils by McCain of “celebrity” and “inexperience”. This is not Kerry or Dukakis, this guy from Chicago has steel. A frontal attack on McCain’s “temperament” to be president gobsmacked me: I didn’t expect it and think it’s wonderful but how will that play among those in the reliably vote every time over 65 crowd? I don’t know. I preferred the policy contrasts to the character stuff. Finally, it really is the economy, stupid, and you either buy what the Dems or selling or you don’t. I think you may see the last 8 years as economic disaster, but still think Obama’s prescriptions are even worse. Nevertheless, I think the “are you better off than you were 8 years ago?” Reagan question is a real problem for the GOP and McCain is the least likely Republican to be able to shore up the party on that score; further, Gov. Palin doesn’t much help despite her reputation as a cost cutter and fighter of the so-called Bridge to Nowhere. So far, we’ve seen a campaign of numbers: how many in this demographic and how many in that blahblahblah polls more blahblahblah. The numbers that count are: number of first time unemployed; number of bankruptcies; number of bank failures; number of foreclosures; third quarter reports on retirement accounts; price of gasoline, houses, food. The worse those numbers are for ordinary Americans, the more likely a Dem landslide than an eked out win. On foreign policy, President Bush has hurt McCain far more than anyone else possibly could. Obama’s mention that McCain stands alone in support of continued occupation of Iraq puts the GOP nominee in what I see as a very deep hole. All of which is to say that I thought Obama’s “framing” of the issues was brilliant and that I wanted this to be a substantive speech and not another 2004 keynote address and I think Obama did everything he could possibly do to win in November.

Bill’s speech

President Clinton’s speech was masterful from a political point of view and from a personal point of view, he reminded me what it was like to have an intelligent president who can speak the King’s English. He rehabilitated his “legacy” and shored up Obama’s credentials and put the final nail in the Unity pony.

Hillary’s speech

This was the best speech I have heard her give. After the Ohio and Texas primaries, she slowly gained my admiration for her grit and toughness and after this speech, I’m sure I would have enthusiastically voted for her had the outcome of the primary been different. She unified the party further after her surprise “acclimation” motion and I don’t think I can be one of those who says it’s Hillary’s fault if Obama loses. She did everything she could and more as far as I’m concerned.

Michelle’s speech

Just terrific. Pitch perfect. Nothing but praise.

The convention overall

I thought the Dems did a very good job of building up the excitement and enthusiasm of the party faithful as they watched over the four nights. Lots of minor stars got to shine, like Kucinich, Kerry, Gov. Schweitzer of Montana, Bob Casey. Some good lines: “that’s not a maverick, that’s a sidekick”. I thought the convention overall made the media, hunting too hard for controversy in the Hillary Harridan meme, look putrid and the viewership of CSPAN probably swelled considerably as time went on and we got tired of the talking heads, even the ones like Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann who we supposedly like because they are closet Dems in the tank for Obama.

The polls

Gallup shows Obama +8. Ignore the polls. They are stupid.

on a personal note

Son Jack has decided to watch Gustav from an Oklahoma City television rather than in person in New Orleans. He was near Dallas midafternoon Saturday on his way here. His father is delighted and relieved.

Blogblah

Happy Birthday, RebL. Your daddy loves you.
It’s summertime, your momma’s rich and your daddy’s good looking.
Don’t let those 18 million shards of the glass ceiling shred your dreams.

OK, it’s 11:30 p.m. Thursday night and I don’t have an email from Obama. Here’s my last guess on his vice presidential nominee: Robert Rubin. Independent, world traveled, economics genius who presided over the last economic expansion this country had, pro-Israel Jew, off the map and has some “Wow!” and he was close to the Clintons until the very last of the primaries. He changes the Florida electoral map. Not likely a successor or a threat, but someone who would be cool under fire if he should become president during Obama’s term, a really smart guy who isn’t going to make the big mistake.

It’s my wild ass guess.

Blogblah!

UPDATE: Shortly after midnight Friday night, AP is reporting that it’s Joe Biden

OFFICIAL RETURNS: By official count, my losses at poker Saturday were only $2.85. Pretty good bargain for a whole day and night of entertainment. Thanks, Soartstar!

Will someone give John McCain a map of Georgia?

First, Sen. McCain, my friend, please notice that Tbilisi is closer to Grosnyy, Chechnya, than Oklahoma City is to Dallas, TX. Remember how effective American protests were about Chechnya, Senator?

There’s a reason for that, my friend.

How is America or NATO going to get air superiority at that particular point on the globe, Senator? IT’S ON THE RUSSIAN BORDER!!!!

How are American ships going to get into the Black Sea and, more to the point, how are they going to get out? IT’S RUSSIA’S PRIVATE LAKE, SENATOR!!!!

Where are we going to get 150 tanks to face the 150 Russian tanks already in Gori, my friend, the good Senator from the great state of Arizona? Will we take them out of Iraq? Will we get the Italians and the Germans and the French to send theirs? They call this the Caucasus because of mountains there, Senator, so you might want to take into account that tanks have problems in mountains. Ask the Soviets about what happened to their tanks in Afghanistan, Senator.

I looked under the sofa cushions, Senator, and since we’re spending $12 billion A MONTH on the two wars we’re already fighting, I’m not sure there’s anything left in the cubbard. Smart bombs don’t come cheap these days.

Now, switch to decaf and lay off the Viagra until Cindy’s hand heals up, OK, my friend?

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post script: Senator, The Charge of the Light Brigade was a neato keen childhood poem, but a military disaster.

I bought 2% milk instead of whole milk today.

Just keeping you updated.

Oh!, and I also had a small salad for lunch.

I didn’t walk in the rain, though.

These details are the Devil.

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Even trying to factor in the weight I should give to my own bias for Obama over McCain, I still think it was jarring upon seeing McCain’s “Obama is a celebrity” ad immediately after the USA surprisingly won the gold over France in the 4X100, preserving Mike Phelps’ chance for 8 gold, a uniquely patriotic moment for even a leftist like me.

A “negative” ad at that particular time just really struck me as out of place.

If a political ad during the Olympics can be appropriate, it seems like Obama’s “hands” ad about energy strikes a decent tone. By contrast, it makes it seem to me like McCain’s being a jerk.

The polls are actually much more stable than the Dow; for weeks now, Obama’s been +/- 1 of 47 percent and McCain’s been +/- 2 of 42 percent. The electoral vote state maps have also been fairly stable, but seem to be moving Obama’s way since May with 11 states in “toss up” status, by which I mean within 4% in the average of polls taken in each state.

If you think about it, 47-43 means that about 1-2% are voting for Barr or Nader and about 8 percent are waiting for the vice presidential choices, conventions and the three debates. This wait-and-see undecided voter doesn’t seem unreasonable by any means.

One caveat: the more I study the polls this year, the less confidence I have in them. I won’t bore you with the reasons, but I don’t expect polls to be predictive this election in the presidential arena. I believe there is a much higher margin of error this year than the statistics admit. I think Obama’s ahead right now, but that’s gut as much as anything, and I think no one can say with certainty any more than that.

On a related political note, I got an email from the Obama campaign promising to tell me the vice presidential pick “first” — by email or text and not through the news media. Good gimmick and also plays up the McCain campaign’s ignorance of the importance of such means of communication. Also harvests zillions of email addresses and hard-to-get cell phone numbers. A plea for money could not be far behind. They even have a form for you to put 10 folks from your address book on their lists. Work it, baby. They don’t miss a trick. iPhones and Blackberries will whirr and beep.

As I’ve said before, I like Richardson as a choice. I think he could help put Texas in play. I like Bayh, I would be cool with Hillary even though I think it’s a dumb pick, I don’t like Biden and I’m cooling towards Tim Kaine of VA. I think McCaskill or Sibelius are disasters. If he would do it, Al Gore would seal the deal for the Dems.

OK, I’ve got that off my chest.

Blogblah!

IMHO, a self-made man usually shows all the flaws of every DIY project I’ve ever seen.

Nevertheless, I’ve embarked on a self-improvement kick.

For example, yesterday I walked eight (8) leagues … er … miles … uhm … kilometers … OK … blocks. Well, 8 blocks is just about 2/3 of a mile and pretty close to a kilometer.

I walked to the convenience store to buy a pack of cigarets. AND back home afterwards!

OK, so a walk to buy cigarets isn’t all that great a health improvement, but at least I didn’t drive and pollute and contribute to the “energy crisis”.

I also did a pushup and a situp. Whew! Soon, they’ll be calling me “Iron Man”.

I’m also watching my diet.

Last night at dinner, I refused to have red meat and had chicken instead. It’s a cholesterol thing, you know. Yes, I felt quite virtuous with my chicken enchilada covered in cheese and sour cream, knowing the good I was doing to my arteries.

On the intellectual front, I’m trying to learn to speak French. I have CDs in my car and listen to the lessons except when I listen to Edith Piaf sing in French. So far, I’ve learned that “oui” means “yes”. Pretty good, eh? Oh, and I can also talk through my nose, a big step in French speaking apparently.

I watched a glass-making demonstration last night at a new gallery at NW 11 and Western. The Bewleys were showing their work, which I love, along with a variety of other artists. Loved the show, really loved the new space they’ve created there, and found out that making glass is very hot work. Thus, not likely to be one of my own mediums for expression. Sweating over a hot laptop keyboard is more my style.

Yesterday was also MindOverMary’s last day in town. She flew out about 4 p.m. to be restored to her S.C. porch and lake view. I already miss her. We had a lot of fun while she was here and some really great talks. Love you, little sis.

My son, Jack, called yesterday, trying to weasel his way back into the will after blowing me off on my birthday last month. Darn the boy (he’s 40 and hardly a boy anymore, but what the heck?), I love him too much to stiff him and I’ll probably let him have a share of the booty when I croak. What the hell would his sister do with my silk ties and black socks anyway?

Have a great weekend, everybody!
Love you lots!
Bye!

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Today’s New York Times magazine has what may be the most interesting article published in the dead tree journalism world this year. It’s Malwebolence, about trolls. Trolls, of course, are those web users who seem to exist for the purpose of stirring up trouble and making other people’s lives miserable on the internet. One can hardly be on the internet these days without having run into trolls, whether you use that word or not. Trolls often hack, in their most virulent form, and can do things like send endless pizzas and paid escorts to your door, expose your Social Security number, or just “follow” you around bedeviling you. The reporter actually meets some trolls of the more public variety — the superstars of trolling, if you wish — and finds out who they are and what they are like in the real world and discusses their thinking about what they do and why. I found the piece totally fascinating and very highly recommend you spend some time reading it.

On the “Ickky” front, and again from dead tree journalism, is the cover of this month’s Nichols Hills Magazine. Does anyone else remember the controversy surrounding an MSNBC’s talking head description of Sen. Clinton as “pimping out” her daughter, Chelsea? This month’s magazine cover is a photograph of one of this year’s 21 Oklahoma City debutantes, Janell Law Fryer, a University of Kansas coed and the daughter of Ms. Tricia Law and Mr. Peter Burchfield Fryer. She’s wearing a yellow frock, has her left hand on her hip and is looking over her shoulder, a mass of auburn hair blowing amongst a flowered background. She’s fresh faced and virginal in the photograph (God only knows what she’s like on campus in her life). My first reaction was “ickky”. My second reaction was: “ickky”. I find I can’t even make the “shoulderpad feminism” argument about it. The word “ickky” just keeps blocking everything else out. For half a century, there have been OKC debutantes in my reality. Most years, I think about it not at all. It’s not part of my world to any great extent. I don’t care about debutante balls in Oklahoma City at all except to think it’s kind of a silly imitation of the New York City debutantes. The notion of parents presenting their daughters “to society” seems 19th Century and beyond quaint. It’s ironic to me that the phrase “coming out” has been co-opted to mean something alltogether different. Maybe it has something to do with Sen. Clinton’s campaign for president being so far past such idiotic ideas as parents owning children and women as chattel. I can’t even parse out all the reactions I have except to say: “Ickky!”. Ickky! Ickky! Ickky!

MCARP has been writing some recently about being depressed without being depressed “about’ anything. Just wanting to isolate and stay home with the cats. I second that emotion, Smokey Robinson. The past couple of weeks, maybe three, it’s been a real battle inside myself to get out of the house and isolating has won as often as not. I have to really force myself to engage with other humans, even the ones I love the most. I’ve been more than a little reluctant to meet up with my cohort of friends for Wednesday dinner or Friday art stuff. No Thursdays on the roof; heaven forbid. I haven’t really had a choice, in a way, since my beautiful, wonderful, happy, smart, totally awesome sister has been in town since last Monday and absolutely nothing in the world could keep me from spending time with her, not even my depression since that’s not nearly as important as she is. I feel your pain, MCARP. Part of it has to be the heat. It just has to be. It drains the very life out of me to be outside for even a short time. However, even under the air conditioning running 24/7 inside my home, I’m stand-offish. I don’t even really want to post here because that’s a form of reaching out to the world and I don’t want the world to reach back to me. No one’s had to bring me fish and chips (and no one’s offered, I might add), but I have not wanted to go outside even if it meant not eating or eating thrown together crap out of my freezer. I have the usual alcoholic/depressed person’s issues with romance and finance (all problems of alcoholics are said to fall into one of those two categories, an oversimplification but a useful one). I don’t think that’s it. However, I’m not MCARP and have been somewhat more proactive about things (I hate the word “proactive”, btw). I’ve doubled my antidepressant and have an appointment tomorrow with my therapist to try and get out of this cycle. On a less rational note, I also blame a big part of this emotional trough on the last full moon, which is when things took a decided turn for the worst.

I’ve learned the hard way that isolating is not a good strategy for me. Isolation only begets more isolation in Blogblah world. I find myself inside my head more and more and, being a few degrees off plumb to begin with, the more I’m away from others and inside my own head, the further off the beam I get. A few years ago was my last time to make that mistake, if it’s possible for me to have any say about it. I became suicidal, literally. That’s why I’ve “gutted up” and taken myself outside when every instinct I’ve had the past three weeks is to pull the covers over my head. For me, that way madness literally lies. So, I got out. Here’s some things I’ve done:

I went to see two “superhero” movies, “Dark Knight” and “Hancock”. Both were more interesting to me than most superhero movies. I thought the Batman movie was interesting because it left Good versus Evil and became Order vs. Chaos and those who praise the late Heath Ledger’s Joker were spot on, IMHO. Will Smith’s venture was not as good but had a special attraction for me because he became an alcoholic superhero. No matter your gifts, alcohol can ruin your life and lead to bad behavior. I took some of that right to heart.

I went on the First Friday Paseo artwalk, sans the Oz couple, and withered in the heat. Jim Polyester and his wife, H, nailed things, I thought, when they said the art was OK, but nothing to bowl one over. I got to meet Amanda’s fiance, J, and he seemed like a great guy; even better, her band played Sauced and I heard a really terrific set while sitting not far from Skip the Grey Eminence. A friend said I walked through the Sauced crowd like a politician, shaking hands at most of the tables, and the sister also complimented my ensemble, something I always like.

I’ve spent some really deeply satisfying time with MindOverMary, and enjoyed her childhood friends and a couple of evenings at Isis with her and Dave Z and that crowd. Kelley O brightened my day (although not as much as her landscaping landowner) and she looked SO good in a white dress against her dark summer tan at one of the Isis visits.

Last night, I got in some dancing with the super-secret GF after dinner at Pearl’s, where we chatted with the new Mrs. Brian the Chef.

Brennschluss was at Red Cup with L, his SO, and just as I was leaving I discovered from NunzioX that his Austrian Squeeze was there as well (I didn’t recognize her and I suppose I went even higher on her deep freeze list because I once again didn’t engage her, but I was in a rush to get to work before noon).

I’ve had some food at the new Iguana Lounge on 9th Street and it seems like a new, good, hip place to eat and was led to go around the corner to see a house at 4th and Oklahoma that is very modern and cool looking from the street. I’m told people I know also know the homeowner. It’s certainly worth the driveby.

My friend the Ultimate Webmaster came to town and spent the night at my house, but on a sad mission to see his Mom through a cancer surgery that was not completely successful. A shout-out to all my Stillwater peeps and their finned, feathered and furry friends.

Finally, Flibbi, who writes recently about the power of touch. Hugs are the deal, I think. She mentions that newborns require touch to be healthy, but fails to mention that nursing home residents clearly do better with hugs — human, caring touch has been proven to lengthen their lives. Why would we doubt the power of hugs to keep those of us between infancy and senility more healthy in mind and body? This brings me back to one of the reasons I think isolation is a bad strategy for me. I honestly believe I literally need hugs to stay healthy. You don’t get hugs huddled in your bedroom. It’s therapy.

Well, I’m headed to Mom’s for a Sunday afternoon poolside get-together for MindOverMary. This was, I guess, just my way to procrastinate since I again don’t want to get out of the house. Hope to see some of you there!

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midnight update: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn has died at age 89, according to the International Herald Tribune. His books are brilliant, but Gulag Archepeligo was horrifying to read; it was a car wreck I didn’t want to see but from which I could not look away.