WHEN YOU LOOK AT THE BLOT YOU CAN SEE WHATEVER YOU WANT:

Obama And Iran (Reihan Salam 10.27.08, Forbes)

So what can the next president do? The most important step would be to launch a comprehensive campaign on behalf of Iranian political prisoners and independent labor unions and student groups.

For John McCain, who is seen as too eager to go for the military option first, this would be a good way to present a kinder and gentler face to the world. Because Barack Obama has been critical of the Bush Administration for being too hawkish, there is a danger that he might be seen as too accommodating. What better way to disabuse Tehran of the notion that an Obama White House will be weak than to use his bully pulpit and extraordinary international popularity to stand up for human rights in Iran? Andy Stern of the Service Employees International Union could champion Iranian workers just as Lane Kirkland championed Solidarity in Poland. Obama could turn the pro-democracy intellectual Akbar Ganji, who refused to meet George W. Bush as an act of protest against the Iraq War, into a figure as celebrated as Lech Walesa and Nelson Mandela, and a rallying point for Iran's democratic opposition.

Many Obamaphiles think of their man as the left's answer to Ronald Reagan, a charismatic figure who can change the direction of the country for the better. What better way for Obama to take up the Reagan mantle than to help sweep Iran's evil regime into the dustbin of history? That would be an accomplishment even die-hard conservatives couldn't help but admire.

Instead he's offered to meet their crazy president without any pre-conditions.

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SWEATING BALLOTS:

Colo. Dems worry about getting voters to turn out (STEVEN K. PAULSON, 10/27/08, The Associated Press)

Some Colorado Democrats are starting to sweat after the state released numbers showing that mail ballots and early voting in key counties are not what they expected. [...]

Mike Melanson, campaign manager for Democratic Senate candidate Mark Udall, said he's worried that Democratic voters have become complacent because polls show their candidates ahead. He said if voters wait until later in the week to mail their ballots, those ballots might not get to county clerks before the deadline at 7 p.m. Tuesday.

"We have seen people in record numbers request ballots, and we're encouraged by that, but we're seeing a lot of folks sitting on them," Melanson said.

Non-voters don't vote.

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IF IT WERE "HOLLOWED" INSTEAD:

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WHICH IS WHY THE A380 IS TOAST:

Labour facing revolt on Heathrow expansion plans (David Millward, 27 Oct 2008, Daily Telegraph)

Ten backbenchers have signed a Commons motion calling for the runway plan to be scrapped, and the unease is shared by a at least one member of the Cabinet.

So far one junior minister, Ann Keen – who represents a west London constituency - has publicly declared her opposition to expanding the airport.

Others are known to share her misgivings more Labour MPs are expected to sign the motion.

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COULD BE A FUN WEEK:

IBD/TIPP Tracking Poll: Day Fifteen (Investor's Business Daily, October 27, 2008

After seesawing between 3.2 and 3.9 points over the weekend, Obama's lead slipped to 2.8 Monday. Battleground also has Obama up 3, and other polls have tightened, including Rasmussen, Zogby and Gallup to 5.

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STILL WINNABLE:

Gallup Daily: Race Stable With Obama Leading (Gallup, 10/27/08)

Gallup Poll Daily tracking from Friday through Sunday finds Barack Obama with a five percentage point lead over John McCain, 50% to 45%, in the presidential preferences of likely voters using Gallup's traditional model.

Daily Presidential Tracking Poll (Rasmussen Reports, October 27, 2008)

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Monday shows Barack Obama attracting 51% of the vote while John McCain earns 46%. Obama’s five-point advantage is down from an eight-point lead yesterday but up a point from the lead he held a week ago. With today’s results, Obama has been ahead by four-to-eight points every single day for 32 straight days (see trends).

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SO MUCH FOR THE MOST NEGATIVE CAMPAIGN EVER:

Obama, McCain Two of the Best-Liked Candidates (Jeffrey M. Jones, 10/24/08, Gallup)

Barack Obama (61%) and John McCain (57%) each received favorable ratings near 60% among likely voters in the most recent USA Today/Gallup poll.

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WILLIAM WARLEY WASN'T IN THIS FAR OVER HIS HEAD:

Barack Obama, Forever Sizing Up (JODI KANTOR, 10/26/08, NY Times)

Just 47 years old and only four years into a national political career, he has never run anything larger than his campaign. He began his run for president while he was still getting lost in Washington, a city he does not yet know well. His promises are as vast as his résumé is short, and some of his pledges are competing ones: progressive rule and centrist red-blue fusion; wholesale transformation and down-to-earth pragmatism.

Mr. Obama’s ambition and confidence have long confounded critics and annoyed rivals. In 2006, the still-new United States senator appeared before Washington’s elite at the spring dinner of the storied Gridiron Club, and as tradition dictated, roasted himself. He ticked off the evidence of his popularity: the Democratic convention speech that had won him national celebrity, the best-selling books, the magazine covers.

“Really, what else is there to do?” he said in mock innocence. “Well, I guess I could pass a law or something.”

Not bloody likely.

Here's another choice bit:

In 2004, Mr. Obama gained sudden fame and fortune: his convention speech drew a nationwide standing ovation, he won a Senate seat, and he signed a multimillion-dollar book contract. Flush with cash for the first time, he made two financial decisions that cast doubt on his reputation as an anti-corruption crusader. He set up a blind trust for his investments, but sloppily so, managing to put thousands of dollars into a biotech company that was developing a drug to treat avian flu just as he pushed for federal financing to battle the disease.

And he allowed Antoin Rezko, a developer and longtime donor, to acquire and sell him land next to the dream house Mr. Obama was buying in Chicago, even though Mr. Rezko’s name was already cropping up in newspaper articles about corruption.

After all, which of us doesn't own anti-avian flu stock?

Or, how about this:

Critics have used the Rezko incident to question Mr. Obama’s reputation as a reformer, to argue he has few core beliefs. They cite a proposal he made in the Senate for stringent reporting requirements concerning nuclear plant leaks, which he then softened after Republican colleagues and energy executives complained. The bill died in committee. Or the time he joined a bipartisan coalition on immigration reform but backed away when labor groups protested. That legislation collapsed, too.

“He folded like a cheap suit,” said Senator Lindsey Graham, a Republican from South Carolina and a close ally of Senator John McCain, Mr. Obama’s Republican rival.

Most of all, his critics point to his “present” votes in the Illinois Legislature, in which he did not choose sides, avoiding difficult matters like trying juveniles as adults. At least 36 times (out of thousands of votes) Mr. Obama was the only senator to vote “present,” or one of just a few.

Even some of Mr. Obama’s friends call him unusually opaque. After hashing out a question with him, “you may come away thinking, ‘Wow, he agrees with me,’ ” said Rashid Khalidi, a professor of Middle Eastern studies at Columbia and a former adviser to Palestinian diplomatic delegations. “But later, when you get home and think about it, you are not sure.”

But defenders say that Mr. Obama’s reticence is as intellectual as it is tactical.

Yup, that's what Americans look for in their presidents, opacity and indecision.

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WERE THEIR COSTS HALVED?:

Refining loses its lustre (Chris Stanton, October 27. 2008, The National)

Moody’s Investors Service, the global credit rating firm, changed its outlook for the world’s refining sector from “stable” to “negative” on Friday, citing slowing world demand for oil products and a forecasted glut of spare refining capacity.

“While cyclicality is built into our refining outlooks, the move to a negative outlook stems from demand changes that appear to be structural and enduring,” said Andrew Oram, a senior credit officer for Moody’s.

That is bad news for the UAE, which is in the midst of expanding its refinery at Ruwais and studying the feasibility of building a refinery in Fujairah. Together, the two export-orientated projects would add 617,000 barrels per day (bpd) to the country’s current refining capacity of 628,000 bpd.

Moody’s predicted refiners would now on average earn US$10 (Dh36.76) for every barrel of crude oil they converted into usable products like diesel and jet fuel, compared with an average of close to $20 earlier this year.

The downturn marks the end of a long boom period for refiners that began in 2003 as world demand for diesel and other products took off, said Raja Kiwan, an analyst for PFC Energy who is based in Dubai.

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REMEMBER HOW POOR WE ALL WERE IN 2004?:

September new home sales rise by 2.7% (The Associated Press, October 27, 2008)

Sales of new single-family homes rose by 2.7 percent last month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 464,000 homes, Commerce said. Economists had expected sales would drop from the August level.

The median price of a new home sold in September declined by 9.1 percent from a year ago to $218,400, the lowest price level since September 2004, a period when home prices were rising rapidly as the country experienced a five-year housing boom.

The surprising increase in September sales still left them 33.1 percent below the level of a year ago as the country is battered by the worst slump in housing in decades.

A correction isn't a burst bubble.

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THOSE WHO CAN NOT JUDGE YOUNG TALENT...:

Stimulus in Pinstripes: Never mind the economy. The Yankees see no choice but to spend their way out of their current predicament. How much for Manny? (Will Leitch, Oct 26, 2008, New York Magazine)

At the end of September, the Yankees re-signed general manager Brian Cashman to a three-year deal that will reportedly pay him $2 million a season (as much as backup catcher Jose Molina, if you’re curious). Cashman, a lifelong Yankees employee who started as an intern, was rumored to be considering jobs elsewhere but returned, in part because leaving now would brand him in the press as a failure, the balding short guy who’s always shaking hands at press conferences with men he’s just made absurdly rich but will never ultimately bring a title back to the Bronx. The pattern started with Mike Mussina in November 2000 and has since included Carl Pavano, Randy Johnson, Jason Giambi, Gary Sheffield, Kei Igawa, and, of course, Alex Rodriguez.

What’s interesting about Cashman is that one senses he resents simply shelling out Steinbrenner Bucks to whichever hot new free agent happens to call. Cashman is close friends with Red Sox general manager wunderkind Theo Epstein, who has built the Red Sox into the envy of professional sports. He has done this by investing in the farm system and recognizing that leveraging seasons five years away for an ungallant gallop toward an unlikely postseason today is exactly what landed the Yankees in trouble. Epstein has the payroll, sure, but he runs the team as if he didn’t. The Red Sox featured five players 30 or younger in Game 7 of the ALCS, most of whom are under team control for the next several seasons. That’s the smart way to run a team. Cashman would love to do it.

Two problems. One: Cashman works for the Steinbrenners, who, using the same kind of logic that turned the Knicks into a horror show, consider a season without a World Series title worthy of the racks. But two, and more important: Cashman had his chance. Before last season, Cashman talked about keeping payroll down, trusting his young players, letting the next generation of Yankees take over … essentially acting like Epstein. (Or, for that matter, how the Yankees acted in the early nineties, when a recently reinstated and chastened George Steinbrenner held on to prospects like Bernie Williams, Derek Jeter, and Mariano Rivera.) Cashman had his plan in place. He didn’t need a $200 million payroll to field a winning team.

Except, of course, he did. Phil Hughes and Ian Kennedy were supposed to be rotation anchors; each imploded, leaving gaping holes filled by the likes of Brian Bruney, Darrell Rasner, Kei Igawa, and Sidney Ponson. (And later, ahead of Cashman’s timetable, Joba Chamberlain.) Robinson Cano and Melky Cabrera dropped off dramatically, adding more credence to the notion that Yankees prospects are always of greater perceived value to the Yankees than to any other team in baseball. And those acquisitions signed earlier in the decade to back-loaded contracts? They did what aging players do: They got gimpy (Johnny Damon), declined (Jason Giambi), or both (Jorge Posada). Cashman’s grand reconstruction project ended with the Yankees’ failing to make the postseason for the first time in fourteen years.

Which brings us to this off-season. The Yankees are dropping several huge contracts: Jason Giambi, Mike Mussina, Andy Pettitte, Bobby Abreu (who has implied he’d like to return come back, but probably not at a discount), Ivan Rodriguez, and (finally!) Carl Pavano. Pettitte is expected to return, and Mussina might retire, but the rest of those guys are gone, leaving holes at first base, corner outfield, and possibly catcher. (Jorge Posada being healthy for opening day is far from a certainty.) Sure, they could have filled two of those spots with current Rays (and former Yankees minor leaguers) Carlos Peña and Dioner Navarro. But they let them go. And the rotation is a mess of busted options; Chamberlain and Chien-Ming Wang are penciled in, but they come with glaring question marks themselves. (Adjusting to a full-time spot and recovering from injury, respectively. Oh, and don’t let Joba drive the bullpen car.) The Yankees are further away from a playoff spot right now than they were going into 2008. Cashman’s plan hasn’t worked.

So the Yankees, to steal a phrase, are going to have to spend, baby, spend. The only way out of this mess is to do what got them into it. The free-agent market is loaded this year with exactly what the Yankees need in the short term. On a fantasy shopping list, Mark Teixeira would look gorgeous at first base. Orlando Hudson could push Cano into a utility role. C. C. Sabathia, Ben Sheets, and old tormentor Derek Lowe would be all too willing to cash in and head to the Bronx. If the Yankees are feeling particularly frisky, they could even bring Washington Heights’ Manny Ramirez back home. All of these are options. They’ll probably even take one or two of them. The problem is that, to solve all the Yankees’ short-term problems, they have to do almost all of them.

This, obviously, is not what is best for the long-term health of the Yankees franchise. Ideally, they’d resist overpaying for “name” players and promote from within. But the young players just aren’t there and game-ready; Cashman hasn’t fixed that problem yet. There is no time for that. There’s a new stadium opening, the team has fallen behind the Red Sox and the Rays (and the Blue Jays are closing), and Yankees fans are unlikely to tolerate missing another postseason. Sure, it’ll leave the team hamstrung with awful Pavano-esque contracts in a few years. But they might have no choice, unless they want to throw Kennedy and Hughes to the wolves again. And hey, fans, wouldn’t it be fun to see Manny in pinstripes? It’d certainly drive the papers nuts.

...are condemned to buy old.

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IT'S THE ANTI-PERVERSION PARTY:

What's A Perverse Voter To Do?: Vote McCain to advance top liberal initiatives and the Democratic Party; vote Obama for the health of the GOP and the vindication of Bush. (Jonathan Rauch, 10/25/08, National Journal)

Suppose, then, that you are a perverse voter and in 2008 you want to...

* Give liberals two historic policy victories. Vote for: John McCain.

For liberals, climate change and health care are the overarching priorities of our era. (Good-government types would add entitlement reform, but who cares about them?) Like Social Security and immigration -- only, if anything, more so -- global warming and health care are too large and too politically sensitive to handle on a one-party basis. Both parties must have their fingerprints on any major reform.

If Obama wins, Democrats will be inclined to ram through legislation on their own terms. If so, they would likely fare no better than President Clinton did with one-party health reform in 1993, or President Bush did with one-party Social Security reform in 2005.

If they did manage to enact something without Republican support, chances are it would be unpopular, short-lived, or both. The Republican half of the country would have no stake in making the reform succeed, and the Democratic half would be blamed for whatever went wrong.

To get a new brain, a zombie party usually needs to lose power.

McCain is running on carbon-emissions limits that are not much different from what Democrats want, and his health plan's focus on reducing costs nicely complements the Democrats' focus on expanding coverage. Put him in the White House, and bipartisan action on both fronts is all but guaranteed. Big winners: liberals.

* Restore the Republican Party's health. Vote for: Barack Obama.

What was most telling about McCain's surprise choice of Sarah Palin as his running mate was not the Alaska governor's own qualities or the gamble that McCain took in choosing her; it was the Republican base's uncritically adoring reaction. Republicans who might once have wondered where a potential president stands on major issues found it more than enough to know that Palin is a pro-life hockey mom who makes liberals angry and can field dress a moose.

Palinmania was the clearest indication yet, though not the only one, that the GOP is a zombie party. Unable to articulate any coherent or workable governing philosophy, it mindlessly pushes cultural hot buttons, repeats hardwired tropes ("cut taxes cut taxes cut taxes"), nurses tribal resentments, and ostracizes independent thinkers (including, for quite a while, McCain).

Not that the GOP doesn't need some re-focusing, but what the Beltway types can never seem to grasp is that defending the culture is a governing philosophy, indeed the philosophy of the majority. And what the Left wants to do is destroy the culture in order to make people dependent on the State.

Republican leaders--Sarah Palin, Jeb Bush, Bobby Jindal, Mitch Daniels?--will spend the next couple years dragging the party back to the compassionate conservatism that provides social security without exacerbating statism: SS reform; universal health care based around HSAs; personalized unemployment insurance; etc.

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ONLY THE VOTERS AND THE ADVERTISERS LIKE HER:

Palin won't go away: If you imagine she's going to settle for quiet obscurity in Alaska after the election, think again (Jonathan Freedland, 10/23/08, guardian.co.uk)

Here are just some of the reasons why she would begin out in front. First, whatever the rest of America thinks of her, she has clearly excited the Republican base – and they are the people who vote in Republican primaries.

Second, she has powerful backers among one faction at least of the conservative intelligensia, namely the men who marked her out as McCain's VP in the first place. They don't mind her obviously limited curiosity or qualifications: they see a willing vehicle for their own ambitions, a woman who has the single quality that no politician can learn or acquire – star power. Besides, she can use the next four years to mug up on, you know, facts and things.

Third, there will be a wave of anger in a post-defeat Republican party and much of it will be directed at the "Washington establishment" types who sided with Barack Obama (from Colin Powell downwards) or at least criticised McCain (such as former Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan). Palin will be a perfect receptacle for this anger, because she is the reason so many elite conservatives have broken with McCain.

Her chief problem will be visibility. Alaska is very far away: how can she stay in people's minds, especially in the minds of the media, think-tankers and donors who she would need to start building a campaign operation?

She's ratings gold--tv, radio, and print will trip over themselves to cover her. Just watch what she gets offered for her book.

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DOES THE CREDIT CRUNCH MAKE HIM NOT McGOVERN?:

The Next New Deal: The huge opportunities—and huge risks—of a possible Obama administration. (John Heilemann, Oct 26, 2008, New York Magazine)

It requires no prodigious feat of memory, of course, to see how this dream could come a cropper. Back in 1993, Bill Clinton surfed into Washington on a similar wave of enthusiasm and expectation. Democrats then, too, controlled both the upper and lower chambers on Capitol Hill. The party’s agenda was bold, ambitious, far-reaching. And then everything fell to pieces. In something like a heartbeat, Clinton’s reputation as a Third Way centrist was reduced to rubble. The degree of Democratic political malpractice was so severe that it enabled the GOP, in 1994, to snatch the reins of the House and Senate simultaneously for the first time in four decades. [...]

Late in the afternoon on the second day of the Democratic National Convention, several dozen contemporaries of Obama’s from Harvard Law School more than twenty years ago gathered in a private room at the Denver Ritz-Carlton for a cocktail party–cum–reunion. The mood was warm and convivial but sober in every sense. There was no high-fiving, no backslapping, no whooping or hollering. The bartender reported that he’d never served so few drinks at an open bar; Pellegrino was the only beverage in short supply.

That Obama’s impending coronation as the Democratic nominee occasioned no boisterous celebration on the part of some of his oldest friends was a function of many factors—their Harvardian, type-A tightassedness not least among them. But for some, a deeper source of reserve was a stubborn sense of doubt: not over whether Obama was equipped to be president but whether he could do, would do, what it took to capture the prize. “I was scared,” says one Obama classmate and Democratic activist. “A friend of mine, a big supporter of his all along, wrote me an e-mail that said, ‘Oh, my God, he is McGovern!’ ”

But then came the fall of Lehman, the implosion of AIG, and the constriction of the global credit markets—and the race began to turn. By the end of last week, Obama had assumed a commanding lead in almost every significant national poll. [...]

For Obama, doing the converse—widening the margin, running up the score—is more than a matter of political pride. The scale of his victory will determine the size and scope of the mandate that he can legitimately claim. If Obama racks up the totals currently projected by FiveThirtyEight’s resident numbers guru, Nate Silver, his Election Night tally will be impressive indeed: 52.2 percent of the popular vote (making him the first Democrat to break 50 since Jimmy Carter) and 354 electoral votes (a modest landslide). But equally critical in terms of governing will be another metric: the length of Obama’s coattails when it comes to the House and Senate.

Nobody understands this better than Obama—and so he has been applying ample pressure on the relevant players. “Obama has said to me, ‘If you guys don’t pick up a significant number of seats, it will be far more difficult for me to accomplish the kind of change America needs,’ ” Chuck Schumer tells me. “And he’s right. If we don’t, he would probably have to limit his proposals, let alone what he could reasonably expect to pass.”

For the second election cycle in a row, Schumer is at the helm of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. Two years ago, he was widely credited for the party’s success in recapturing control of the upper chamber. Today, his eyes are firmly fixed on a grander prize: picking up the nine seats that Democrats would need to get them to 60, a filibusterproof majority.

On a recent Sunday, I drove out with Schumer to the annual bivalve festival in Oyster Bay, where I watched him both schmooze the crowd and chomp on an ear of corn with equally obscene gusto. When I asked him to rate his party’s prospects of reaching the magic number, Schumer cited—what else?—FiveThirtyEight: “They said there’s an over 50 percent chance that we pick up seven seats, 40 percent that we pick up eight, and 30 that we pick up nine, and that’s probably about accurate.”

Though 60 is Schumer’s holy grail, he contended that getting to 58 or 59 would be almost as good. “Every seat in the Senate makes a difference,” he said. “On an issue like taxes where the Republicans are all locked in together, like the Bush tax cuts, you might need 60. But on an issue where you can pick off one or two, like the Iraq war, you don’t. There are a large number, fifteen or twenty, of what I call traditional conservatives: John Warner, Kay Bailey Hutchison, Dick Lugar, Johnny Isakson, Bob Corker. I think they went along with the hard right for the past eight years grudgingly, because they felt the hard right had the upper hand. But if we get to 57, 58, 59, they’re going to smell the coffee. They’re going to be more pliable than before, more open to our arguments.”

On the House side, Rahm Emanuel radiates a similar brio about the Democrats’ outlook for November. Emanuel ran the party’s Congressional Campaign Committee for 2006, and although he’s graduated to chairman of the caucus, he remains neck-deep in data concerning competitive House contests. “North of 20 and less than 30,” is how Emanuel answers when I ask how many seats he expects his side to gain. “Yesterday I would have said 22, today I’m at 26. The way things are going, I need to keep opening up a bigger band.”

If Emanuel and Schumer are right in their estimations of what’s likely to play out on Election Day, the Democrats will enjoy commanding majorities in the next Congress. So commanding that the temptation will be nearly overwhelming in some quarters to declare 2008 a realigning election: the end of the Reagan-Bush era, the start of the Obama epoch.

It’s worth pointing out that the postulated Democratic numbers for 2009–11—57 to 59 seats in the Senate, 253 to 263 in the House—aren’t all that different from those that obtained in the doomstruck 1993–95 session. [...]

Obama advisers make no bones about why they see all this as essential: Given the unusually crisis-plagued environment into which Obama will be stepping, he will want to move quickly, especially when it comes to selecting his Cabinet. Almost certain to come first, perhaps within days, will be his economic and national-security teams. And with those choices, they say, he will want to send a message of centrism and bi-partisanship. It’s conceivable that Obama will ask Bob Gates to stay on as Defense secretary; Chuck Hagel, too, might find a place high in the administration. But although there has been chatter that Obama might also retain Hank Paulson at the Treasury, the inside betting is on a Larry Summers encore. “They’re gonna want somebody who knows the building, knows the economy, has been confirmed before and been advising them on economics,” says the former Clinton aide. “I’d be flabbergasted if they chose somebody else.”

Once the Cabinet is in place, Obama will turn to congressional relations, and here too the contrast with Clinton is likely to be pronounced. From the get-go, WJC and the Democratic leaders in the House and the Senate were at loggerheads. The old bulls regarded him as an outsider, an interloper, a president elected with just 43 percent of the vote—as someone to be pushed around. They informed him in no uncertain terms that they wouldn’t help him pass his promised package of political reforms. They pressured him (along with his wife) to put health-care reform ahead of welfare reform, a fateful blunder.

But Obama has no inbuilt animosity toward the congressional leadership. Sure, he vowed to transform Washington, but he did not run against it. He is surrounded by people—Emanuel, Podesta, former Tom Daschle aide Pete Rouse, and Daschle himself, who stands a reasonable chance of being Obama’s White House chief of staff—steeped in the legislative culture and masters of the legislative arena.

Not that dealing with a pair of institutions led by Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid will be any kind of picnic. “They’re incredibly weak leaders running a Congress with 12 percent approval ratings,” one Democratic think-tank maven says. “They’re not people with much of a record of, you know, actually getting things done.” Making matters worse, Obama will be hounded constantly by the old-school liberal interest groups, with all their bottled-up desires and demands. The unions, the health-care groups, the teachers, and so on: Everyone will have their hand out.

It's natural to focus on the hash that Bill Clinton made of the Democrat majorities, but at least he was re-elected himself. The prior four Democrats to win the presidency couldn't get re-elected. In a conservative country a Democratic presidential victory -- with the exception of FDR's -- is just a way of hitting the pause button.

N.B.: Making Tom Daschle, another legislator, his chief of staff would be disastrous. He needs a strong executive to run his presidency for him, since he probably can't.

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IF THERE WERE A BETTER IDEA WE'D BE DOING IT:

The Robot Proxy War: Bush's man-hunting machines—and Obama's. (William Saletan, Oct. 27, 2008, Slate)

In less than three months, Barack Obama will be president of the United States. How will he change our border war in Pakistan? Not much. We'll keep fighting insurgents there the way we're fighting them today: with aerial killing machines.

Last year, Obama declared that under his presidency, "If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won't act, we will." John McCain criticized Obama's policy as rash, suggesting it would undermine the Pakistani government. The United States should try covert action in Pakistan "before we declare that we're going to bomb the daylights out of them," said McCain. A month ago, in their first debate, McCain again condemned Obama's position, arguing that the next president should "work with the Pakistani government," not "attack them."

Today, the New York Times reports what's actually going on along the Pakistani border. The report, based on interviews with U.S. and Pakistani officials, exposes the Obama-McCain debate as a charade. We're already getting actionable intelligence about terrorist targets in Pakistan. We're already blasting them. And the Pakistani government is working with us to facilitate these attacks. The covert action, the cooperation, and the aerial assaults aren't competing options. They're the same thing.

This is another one where Sarah Palin was right and Maverick wrong.

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YOU SOMETIMES SEE PEOPLE WEARING "I'M WITH STUPID" T-SHIRTS...:

Call It 'The Obama Effect': Why undecided voters will swing to McCain. (Arnon A. Mishkin, 10/27/2008, Weekly Standard)

McCain should win a larger share of undecided voters than Obama, but it has little to do with race.

With Obama outspending McCain by upwards of 4 to 1, getting enormous traction with newspaper editorial boards, generating the enthusiasm to bring out crowds measured in the tens of thousands, and with Palin treated as more of a punch line than a candidate by the press--it seems likely that if voters are not ready to tell a pollster that they are with Obama, they are unlikely to get there.

But the phenomenon of undecided voters' breaking for McCain need not be called the "Bradley effect." Call it the "Bloomberg effect"--where after $100 million of spending, his mayoral challenger was able to capture essentially all of the 10 point undecided vote. Or call it the "Clinton effect"--where almost all the undecided vote swung away from the popular incumbent and went to Bob Dole. Or call it the "Reagan effect"--where even during the Republican 1980 primaries, voters were apparently reluctant to say they were going to vote for the "elderly washed up actor" and he got the preponderance of the undecided vote.

They all amount to essentially the same pattern. Call it "the Social Effect." Where there is a perception that there is a "socially acceptable" choice, respondents who do not articulate it, are likely not to agree with it. Are they lying? Or just genuinely torn about taking that route or another? I am not going to psychoanalyze what is going on in their heads, but in the end, the pattern tends to be that those undecided voters vote against that "socially acceptable" choice.

In fact, we saw a preview of this during the Democratic primaries this year. Typically, Hillary Clinton won substantial majorities of all late deciders (those who decided in the last three days of the primary)--i.e. Obama tended to lose the "undecided vote."

...seldom wearing one that says, "I'm Stupid"

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HEY, POT, YOU'RE BLACK:

ROMNEY ANTI-PALIN (The Prowler, 10/27/08, American Spectator)

Former Mitt Romney presidential campaign staffers, some of whom are currently working for Sen. John McCain and Gov. Sarah Palin's bid for the White House, have been involved in spreading ant-Palin spin to reporters, seeking to diminish her standing after the election. "Sarah Palin is a lightweight, she won't be the first, not even the third, person people will think of when it comes to 2012," says one former Romney aide, now working for McCain-Palin. "The only serious candidate ready to challenge to lead the Republican Party is Mitt Romney. He's in charge on November 5th."

Romney has kept a low profile nationally since being denied the vice presidential nomination. He is currently traveling for the National Republican Congressional Committee in support of some House members, and has attended events for a handful of other House members who have sought his support, but he has traveled little for the McCain-Palin ticket. "He said the only time he'd travel for us is if we assured him that national cameras would be there," says a McCain campaign communications aide. "He's traveled to Nevada and a couple other states for us. That's about it."

Should McCain-Palin not win next week, Romney is expected to mount another presidential run, though it isn't clear that he has handled himself particularly well since losing the nomination.

Mr. Romney couldn't even win re-election as governor, got buried by a senator in his 70s during the presidential, and is maybe the only MA pol ever to lose the NH primary. He's a non-starter for 2012.

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LET'S FACE IT...:

Senator helped fund organization that rejects 'racist' Israel's existence (Aaron Klein, 10/26/08, South Florida Sun-Sentinel)

The board of a nonprofit organization on which Sen. Barack Obama served as a paid director alongside a confessed domestic terrorist granted funding to a controversial Arab group that mourns the establishment of Israel as a "catastrophe" and supports intense immigration reform, including providing drivers licenses and education to illegal aliens.

The co-founder of the Arab group in question, Columbia University professor Rashid Khalidi, also has held a fundraiser for Obama. Khalidi is a harsh critic of Israel, has made statements supportive of Palestinian terror and reportedly has worked on behalf of the Palestine Liberation Organization while it was involved in anti-Western terrorism and was labeled by the State Department as a terror group.

In 2001, the Woods Fund, a Chicago-based nonprofit that describes itself as a group helping the disadvantaged, provided a $40,000 grant to the Arab American Action Network, or AAAN, for which Khalidi's wife, Mona, serves as president. The Fund provided a second grant to the AAAN for $35,000 in 2002.

...no one is voting for Barack Obama because they think it will be good for Israel.

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ARMING THE OUTPOSTS OF THE ANGLOSPHERE ISN'T PROLIFERATION:

Widespread fallout from India-US pact (Brad Glosserman and Bates Gill, 10/28/08, Asia Times)

More profoundly, many European officials and defense specialists see the US-India deal as part of a broader effort to reshape the Asian balance of power. Many of them believe the agreement is an attempt to forge a new relationship with a regional power that ultimately aims at balancing China. The perception that Washington is willing to use the NPT as a pawn in a geostrategic game undermines US leadership and diminishes the status of the NPT. Rather than serving as the cornerstone of the global nonproliferation order, the NPT now looks like just another item in a great power's diplomatic toolkit.

The only justification for transnational institutions -- like the World Trade Organization -- is that they are mere tools in our kit.

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ONE FOR THE GOOD GUYS:

Anand,Vishwanathan - Kramnik,Vladimir (FIDE World Chess Championship Bonn, Germany (9), 26.10.2008)
World Chess championship: Anand a step closer to the title (Times of India, 27 Oct 2008)

World Champion Viswanathan Anand took another step forward to retain the world crown by taking another draw with challenger Vladim

Anand retained his 3-points lead following the draw with white pieces and is now just a draw away from retaining the crown he won last year in Mexico. The scoreline now stands at 6-3 in Anand's favour with three more games to go.

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IF WAGES AREN'T RISING/PRODUCTIVITY FALLING, THERE IS NO INFLATION THREAT:

Financial woes push Fed to eye interest rate cut: Drop would be lowest since '04 (Jeannine Aversa, 10/27/08, ASSOCIATED PRESS)

So far, Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke and his colleagues haven't been able to break the vicious cycle, despite hefty rate reductions and a flurry of unprecedented steps aimed at getting credit flowing more freely again.

Mr. Bernanke says he'll use all tools to battle the crisis.

To that end, Fed policymakers are widely expected to lower the central bank's key interest rate at the conclusion of a two-day meeting Wednesday - their last session before the November elections.

Investors and some economists predict that the central bank will drop the rate by half a percentage point to 1 percent. If that happens, it would mark the lowest rate since the summer of 2004. Others, however, think the rate will be cut by a smaller, quarter-point to 1.25 percent.

In turn, rates on home equity, certain credit cards and other floating-rate loans tied to commercial banks' prime rate should drop by a corresponding amount.

A half-point reduction would leave the prime rate at 4 percent; a quarter-point cut would drop the rate to 4.25 percent. Either way, the prime rate would be the lowest in more than four years.

The Fed hopes that lower rates will spur people and businesses to spend again, helping to brace the wobbly economy.

"I think it would be a good faith psychological move," said Richard Yamarone, economist at Argus Research.

With the cost of everything dropping, 4% is usurious,

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IT ALL COMES DOWN TO...:

Democracy's beacon (Arnold Beichman, October 27, 2008, Washington Times)

"Decadence begins," wrote the French thinker, Denis de Rougemont, "when people no longer ask, 'What are we going to do?' but rather ask, 'What is going to happen to us?' "

...Freedom vs. Security.

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COUNTRY BOY

Mystery writer Hillerman dies at 83: His novels offered vivid descriptions of Indian rituals and the Navajo reservation. His heroes struggled to bridge the divide between Anglo society and the Dineh people. (Bruce Desilva, 10/26/08, The Associated Press)

Lt. Joe Leaphorn, introduced in "The Blessing Way" in 1970, was an experienced police officer who understood, but did not share, his people's traditional belief in a rich spirit world. Officer Jim Chee, introduced in "People of Darkness" in 1978, was a younger officer studying to become a "hathaali" -- Navajo for "shaman."

Together, they struggled daily to bridge the cultural divide between the dominant Anglo society and the impoverished people who call themselves the Dineh.

Hillerman's commercial breakthrough was "Skinwalkers," published in 1987 -- the first time he put both characters and their divergent world views in the same book. It sold 430,000 hardcover copies, paving the way for "A Thief of Time," which made several best seller lists. In all, he wrote 18 books in the Navajo series, the most recent titled "The Shape Shifter."

Each is characterized by an unadorned writing style, intricate plotting, memorable characterization and vivid descriptions of Indian rituals and of the vast plateau of the Navajo reservation in the Four Corners region of the Southwest.

The most acclaimed of them, including "Talking God" and "The Coyote Waits," are subtle explorations of human nature and the conflict between cultural assimilation and the pull of the old ways.

"I want Americans to stop thinking of Navajos as primitive persons, to understand that they are sophisticated and complicated," Hillerman once said.

Occasionally, he was accused of exploiting his knowledge of Navajo culture for personal gain, but in 1987, the Navajo Tribal Council honored him with its Special Friend of the Dineh award. He took greater pride in that, he often said, than in the many awards bestowed by his peers, including the Golden Spur Award from Western Writers of America and the Grand Master Award from the Mystery Writers of America, which elected him its president.

Hollywood was less kind to Hillerman. Its adaptation of his 1981 novel, "Dark Wind," with Lou Diamond Phillips and Fred Ward regrettably cast as Jim Chee and Joe Leaphorn, was a bomb.

Tony Hillerman, novelist, dies at 83 (Marilyn Stasio, October 27, 2008, NY Times)

Hillerman's evocative novels, which describe people struggling to maintain ancient traditions in the modern world, touched millions of readers, who made them best sellers. But although the themes of his books were not overtly political, he wrote with a purpose, he often said, and that purpose was to instill in his readers a respect for Indian culture. The plots of his stories, while steeped in contemporary crime and its consequences, were invariably instructive about ancient tribal beliefs and customs, from purification rituals for a soldier returned from a foreign war to incest taboos for a proper clan marriage.

"It's always troubled me that the American people are so ignorant of these rich Indian cultures," Hillerman once told Publishers Weekly. "I think it's important to show that aspects of ancient Indian ways are still very much alive and are highly germane even to our ways." [...]

Joe Leaphorn, seasoned and a bit cynical, has a logical mind and a passion for order that reflects his upbringing in the Navajo Way. His code of behavior is dictated by a belief in the ordered, harmonious patterns of life that link man to the natural world. But he is not a fundamentalist in terms of religion; the grizzled skeptic is the holder of a master's degree in anthropology.

Younger and more idealistic than his pragmatic fellow police officer, Jim Chee seeks a more spiritual connection to Navajo tradition. Over the course of several books, he studies to become a hataalii, a singer or medicine man. This ambition often creates friction between the religious faith he professes and the secular rules of criminal justice he is sworn to uphold. Chee first appears in "People of Darkness," Hillerman's fifth novel, as a counterpoint to Leaphorn's cynicism.

Leaphorn and Chee appear in separate novels of Hillerman's Navajo Tribal Police series , each novel challenging them with a crime that seems to be entangled in the spirit world yet at the same time starkly rooted in the modern reservation life Hillerman knew so well.

In "Skinwalkers" (1986), Hillerman first brought Leaphorn and Chee together on the same case to offer a fascinating interplay of two different representatives of Navajo culture. In "Skinwalkers," the police officers investigate three murders on the reservation linked only by pellets of bone associated with the murder weapons. Is this an indication that the murders are the work of skinwalkers, witches who can fly and take the shapes of dogs, wolves or other animals? Leaphorn hates witchcraft and holds superstition, unemployment and whisky responsible for much of the suffering endured by his people. But Chee knows the power of forces the science of the white man cannot explain. The detectives blend their special views of the world to solve the case.

In addition to his complex heroes, Hillerman also wrote compassionately and with intimate knowledge of a great range of clansmen from the Navajo, Hopi and Zuni tribes, people with whom he felt a deep affinity because he grew up among those very much like them. "When I met the Navajo I now so often write about, I recognized kindred spirits," he wrote in an autobiographical essay in 1986. "Country boys. Folks among whom I felt at ease."

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