“The images are as wholesome as a Hallmark card—Caroline Kennedy and her little brother John-John gracing the White House. When their father was elected President, Caroline was only 3; her brother, just a baby. Their father would face great challenges during his brief time in office—the Cuban Missile crisis, civil rights, Vietnam. Yet, no one seemed to question whether he could handle the job with a toddler and a baby in the family.
Amy Carter was in third grade when her father Jimmy moved the family into the White House. According to whitehousehistory.org, Amy missed her home in Georgia after she was uprooted to Washington, D.C. Still, political pundits did not spend airtime wondering how Jimmy Carter would cope with his tween-ager’s angst.
When she was 12 years old, Chelsea Clinton became a resident of Pennsylvania Avenue. On the verge of becoming a teenager, Chelsea certainly had reason to feel a bit out of her element. She probably needed her father more at that time than at any previous point in her life. However, no one pondered whether Bill Clinton could be a leader of a Superpower and a Super Dad, too.
Now, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin arrives on the scene. She’s not vying for the number-one office in the land—she’s battling for number-two. Yet, journalists openly question whether Alaska’s chief executive can handle being a Mom and the Vice-Presidency, too…”
Jenny Hatch

The Democratic streets, anyway, as Jim Wooten writes:

“Democrats know something, and desperation is setting in. They have a novice campaigner who wanders off message. With every advantage in the primaries, Obama couldn’t win the big states — New York, New Jersey, Ohio and Pennsylvania — against Hillary Clinton, even when he got to define the rules for running against him. She could never risk alienating the base she’ll need in 2012; John McCain and Sarah Palin have no such constraints — hence the panic. For a “change” candidate, Obama appears to be a man locked in time, unable to move past criticism, unable to move from the grip of the Democratic left, unable to adapt to the changed reality that the campaign is not the referendum on the war in Iraq or on the administration of George W. Bush that he’d envisioned. …

The Democratic left is still seething from the Kerry campaign’s loss and is determined to see Bush expelled from the White House in disgrace — the reason it is locked in to making this a referendum on the administration now ending.

It barely worked when the maverick McCain, no darling of the Bushites, got the nomination. With Palin, the Washington outsider, the “third term” argument is plainly absurd. But Obama can’t let go, just as the lefties can’t let go of the Swiftboat Veterans for Truth defeat of Kerry. He can’t move on. …

Obama will lose because with less than two months remaining voters won’t be able to get comfortable with him. He can’t stay on message and he can’t avoid sending signals that interfere with the message when he does.

That’s right, I think. No doubt surprises are in store between now and November, and we are witnessing an unprecedented effort by the national press to drag their candidate across the finish line at all costs. But the only events between now and November that are foreseeably likely to change the momentum of the race are the debates, and Obama is a bad debater. When he is not reading from a teleprompter, he is hesitant, often incoherent, and prone to gaffes that, if people are paying attention, may make him a laughingstock. So there is good reason for the panic that is now spreading among Democrats.

PAUL adds: I see it a little differently. The momentum in favor of McCain might well be changed if Obama simply gets back on message. There are reasons why he was leading until recently, and they mostly have to do with the perception that an adminstration McCain generally supported was bad for the country. I don’t assume Obama will fail to return to this theme and avoid distractions.

If McCain’s momentum is stopped (not even reversed, just stopped), the race will remain close until the debates. I agree with John that McCain has the edge in the debates. He’s been answering questions from reporters non-stop for almost a year-and-a-half; Obama’s view on questions from reporters is that eight is enough. In addition, McCain can project an authenticity that Obama will be very hard-pressed to match.

But debates are unpredictable; there’s a long history of pre-debate favorities coming out second best. One mistake can determine the outcome, and anyone can make a mistake.

Assuming Obama gets back to his basic anti-Republican message, and assuming the debates don’t produce a clear victor, the election probably will be decided in the final week or two when swing voters figure out which scares them more, another Republican administration or an inexperienced leftist Democrat in the White House. For these voters, it may be a close call.”

I was part of the Mothering Political Chat Room during the 2004 election before they banned me for speaking my mind. If you scroll down that thread you can read my moniker UC mom and some of the chat I had with conservative friends on the day we voted.
It was so fun talking to the many many liberals on that site. They accused me several times of being a freeper man in his fifties trolling on the site. I had a devil of a time convincing them that I was a legitimate Natural Family Living Mothering who ate my veggies and gave birth at home. But I never quite fit in with that crowd, even though I made wonderful friends on the conservative side of things.
That being said, it was amazing to see the state of delusion most of those gals were in as we chatted about politics. I kinda feel sorry for them, with Palin on the ticket the blowout is going to be so severe and the fallout so damaging to liberal causes…well, it is not going to be a pretty site.
Sometimes I wonder if any of them will have the humility to admit that there is something real, good, and empowering about a freedom message. But they seemed to like the looting and slavery that defines Collectivism. I learned alot participating on the Mothering Discussion boards and when I was banned shortly after the election, it was then I decided to go all out as a blogger, because I was tired of being chased out of chat rooms for my political views.
(Latter Day Family Resources simply pulled the politics board after I started posting, and my LDS UC board imploded politically after 9-11 and I found it impossible to chat with so many who knew so much that wasn’t so). Please note these were both forums for mormon homeschoolers and homebirthers. I just figured if we could not talk reasonably together about politics without personal attacks, there was little point in debating and talking about much of anything. Funny thing was, they always assumed that me attacking their political views was me attacking them, and they most especially did NOT want me quoting the prophets and scriptures who have waxed eloquent over the years on all things political.
Oh Well. I know what I am about and Blogging satisfys my heart. Nobody can edit, ban, or spin my words.
It is going to be fun watching the implosion of the democratic party these next two months.
Jenny Hatch

Continue reading “Power Line blog: Panic in the streets” →