Not a Big Truck

I was supporting Obama before this speech.  But, after this speech, I was totally in the tank…as the pros seem to say.  Coming off a completely devastating and disappointing loss, to deliver this speech required a confidence and political skill that I was definitely not accustomed to.

Expectations for him are so high. This speech on Tuesday will need to be amazing simply to meet those expectations. Even if the speech is mediocre, let’s hope he succeeds in governing competently.

Some liberals have been grumbling in recent days that Barack Obama seems to be throwing his “change” mantra out the window.  He has named several disciples of centrist Robert Rubin, Bill Clinton’s Secretary of the Treasury, to his financial team.  Hawkish, pro-Iraq War Hillary Clinton appears likely to be his pick for State.  And — horror of horrors! — GWB’s Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, will be invited to stay on for at least another year.

Keith Olbermann undoubtedly spoke on behalf many of his viewers tonight when he asked one of his guests something along the lines of, “What’s going on here?  Didn’t we win?  Isn’t it time to wipe the slate clean?”  A lot of people seem to be of the opinion that Obama’s call for “change” meant that he would bring in entirely new people no one had ever heard of, all of whom would be very liberal and diametrically opposite to the members of the Bush administration.

As someone who held this view earlier in the campaign, I feel some obligation to stand up and clarify things.  Anyone who believed that “change” necessarily means starting from scratch and tacking as hard to the left as possible misunderstood Obama from the start.  (Glossing over what he knew to be this sort of misunderstanding was part of Obama’s skill as a campaigner, I think.)  Obama’s call for change was not simply about throwing the bums out — although that is a sentiment that he pushed more softly and that won him a lot of votes.  Change, to Obama, was about ending the Bush governing style of demonizing those with different political views, and of ideology over pragmatism.

Obama’s picks thus far are consistent, I believe, with this brand of change.  Of course, he hasn’t even been inaugurated yet and much could (and surely will) change.  People were still thinking that Bush would govern from the center at this point in 2000…

Looks like it has gone for Obama.  Congrats to WashingtonRocks for being the only one in our pool to predict it.

Wolf Blitzer suffers from an affliction that my high school English teacher would’ve called “diarrhea of the mouth and constipation of the brain.” He has no insights to share, so he repeats obvious and vacuous statements and sprinkles in unnecessary narration of on-screen graphics, seldom pausing to organize his verbal mayhem into sentences but instead using “um” and “uh” to keep the stream of shit flowing without interruption.

Here he is during the seconds leading up to the polls closing on the West Coast last Tuesday night.

Transcript of his remarks:

So in a few seconds, those states will be closing their polls and uh, presumably we’ll be able to, uh, see what’s going on and uh, make uh, perhaps a major projection at that point, uh, this is a moment that a lot of people have been waiting for.  This is a moment that potentially could be rather historic.

“Potentially could be rather historic.” What a dolt.

Just want to follow up on the electoral pool (which I most clearly didn’t win).

If we use electoral votes as the criteria: RedLine wins, unless Missouri goes for Obama (in which case Ying wins)

If we use state as the criteria: RedLine wins, unless Nebraska second district goes for Obama (in which case WashintonRocks wins) or if Missouri goes for Obama (in which case Ying wins)

It’s truly amazing how much better McCain looks as he is giving his concession speech than he ever did during the campaign.  Physically, his face looks relaxed; he isn’t grimacing and he looks comfortable.  He isn’t making Frankenstein faces and herky-jerky motions and he appears to be at peace.  He looks more like the John McCain we all used to know.

It’s roughly 9:40pm Eastern Time…the election is basically over since Ohio and New Mexico (and Pennsylvania) have been called for Obama. But a quick visit to www.barackobama.com directs you to a page begging you to call voters in swing states. Someone tell these guys its over

(Well, at least they realize it’s election day, doesn’t look like McCain’s site has changed other than a small link to a find your polling place part of the site).

As Obama continues to hold onto his leads in national and swing state polling and expands the playing field into what were expected to be solid GOP states, the emails from the Obama campaign pleading for money are starting to make me chuckle. See this bottom-of-the-barrel-scraping email from yesterday evening:

Our spending plans have been stretched by John McCain’s negative attacks and the overwhelming resources of the Republican National Committee. … [J]ust this week, we’re facing new and unexpected spending against us in Montana and West Virginia.

Oh no!  The Republicans are having to defend Montana and West Virginia, states that the Democrats never expected to have much of a chance of winning!  I’m surprised they didn’t mention that McCain is having to spend money on robocalls in Arizona now.

Saw this at the Dish.