Like many Americans I watched the Presidential debate last night and my overall impressions of the debate was that John McCain was more knowledgeable then Barack Obama on the issues, but Obama was on his game with his populist talking points and is very good at engaging the camera. So basically both played to their strengths and like many pundits have said there was no clear cut winner.
However, there was a brief exchange in regard to North Korea policy that readers of this blog should find of interest. Here is the transcript of that exchange:
Again, it may not work, but if it doesn’t work, then we have strengthened our ability to form alliances to impose the tough sanctions that Senator McCain just mentioned.
And when we haven’t done it, as in North Korea — let me just take one more example — in North Korea, we cut off talks. They’re a member of the axis of evil. We can’t deal with them.
And you know what happened? They went — they quadrupled their nuclear capacity. They tested a nuke. They tested missiles. They pulled out of the nonproliferation agreement. And they sent nuclear secrets, potentially, to countries like Syria.
When we re-engaged — because, again, the Bush administration reversed course on this — then we have at least made some progress, although right now, because of the problems in North Korea, we are seeing it on shaky ground.
And — and I just — so I just have to make this general point that the Bush administration, some of Senator McCain’s own advisers all think this is important, and Senator McCain appears resistant.
He even said the other day that he would not meet potentially with the prime minister of Spain, because he — you know, he wasn’t sure whether they were aligned with us. I mean, Spain? Spain is a NATO ally.
MCCAIN: Of course.
OBAMA: If we can’t meet with our friends, I don’t know how we’re going to lead the world in terms of dealing with critical issues like terrorism.
MCCAIN: I’m not going to set the White House visitors schedule before I’m president of the United States. I don’t even have a seal yet.
Look, Dr. Kissinger did not say that he would approve of face-to- face meetings between the president of the United States and the president — and Ahmadinejad. He did not say that.
OBAMA: Of course not.
MCCAIN: He said that there could be secretary-level and lower level meetings. I’ve always encouraged them. The Iranians have met with Ambassador Crocker in Baghdad.
What Senator Obama doesn’t seem to understand that if without precondition you sit down across the table from someone who has called Israel a “stinking corpse,” and wants to destroy that country and wipe it off the map, you legitimize those comments.
This is dangerous. It isn’t just naive; it’s dangerous. And so we just have a fundamental difference of opinion.
As far as North Korea is concerned, our secretary of state, Madeleine Albright, went to North Korea. By the way, North Korea, most repressive and brutal regime probably on Earth. The average South Korean is three inches taller than the average North Korean, a huge gulag.
We don’t know what the status of the dear leader’s health is today, but we know this, that the North Koreans have broken every agreement that they’ve entered into.
And we ought to go back to a little bit of Ronald Reagan’s “trust, but verify,” and certainly not sit down across the table from — without precondition, as Senator Obama said he did twice, I mean, it’s just dangerous. [Kansas City Star]
Notice how Obama is trying to take the position that talking with North Korea is good, but tries to gloss over the fact that once again the six party talks failed and he tries to blame it on reports that Kim Jong-il is sick. Like McCain said, how does Obama know Kim Jong-il is sick? Even the NY Times has said that speculation about Kim’s health “thrives in a factual vacuum”:
The absence of facts is fertile ground for unrestrained speculation. News reports citing unnamed sources — or no sources — have proliferated. “At least North Korea doesn’t sue you,” journalists in Seoul say. [NY Times via One Free Korea]
No one knows for sure if Kim is really sick or this is just a ruse so people like Senator Obama can make excuses for North Korea violating the Agreed Framework agreement. Plus to further show how absurd this is, North Korea rengged on the Agreed Framework 2.0 because they would not allow the verification protocols necessary to confirm they were keeping their end of the bargain. The North Koreans simply took all the money, aid, and concessions they could get from these negotiations and reneged on the deal in typical North Korean fashion. Obama also missed the fact that North Korea was proliferating nuclear technology to Syria during the six party talks and even after signing the Agreed Framework 2.0. The reneging on the deal all has nothing to do with Kim’s health even if he is sick.
The fact of the matter is that North Korea has no intention of giving up their nuclear weapons for a variety of reasons I have stated before. Flying into Pyongyang to meet with Kim Jong-il without preconditions as Obama has consistently stated he would do, is not going to change anything other then to provide the ultimate propaganda boost for the North Korean regime. This is because the regime propaganda apparatus can say that the US President has come to Pyongyang to officially apologize for imperialism, starting the Korean War, or whatever propaganda taking point they want to insert for example. That is why Kim Jong-il will not visit Seoul because it makes him look weak compared to watching former Korean President Roh-moo do everything possible to arrange a second inter-Korean summit in Pyongyang. A visit by the American president to Pyongyang only makes Kim Jong-il look even more powerful to the people he oppresses.
Plus such a meeting would accomplish nothing because as I have been saying over and over again Kim Jong-il will not turn over the nuclear weapons he currently possesses. However, the propaganda generated from it would be powerful. Just imagine if you are the average North Korean and you see not only multiple presidents of South Korea toasting Kim Jong-il and now the US President is toasting him too? Such a meeting would effectively destroy any domestic opposition to Kim Jong-il. Is it any wonder why the North Koreans have endorsed Barack Obama?
I went to Obama’s website to find even more details on his North Korea policy in the foreign policy section of his website and found he has no policy. It is pretty obvious considering Obama’s statements and the fact that he has surrounded himself with North Korea appeasers, that in an Obama Presidential administration expect more of the same in regards to North Korea, which is ironic from someone claiming we don’t need four more years of more of the same failed Bush era policies which in regards to North Korea is what the US people would get under an Obama administration.
McCain on the other hand pointed out how flying into meet dictators without preconditions is “dangerous” as well as pointing out that North Korea has violated every agreement they had signed. However, McCain does not articulate what his North Korea policy would be? It is fine to criticize Obama for his misguided policy but what is yours? That is what I was waiting to hear, which he provided no clue what it would be.
Also notice how not one of them mentioned one word about North Korean human rights. McCain could of really pounded Obama on North Korean human rights considering how Senator Obama sold out one of his own constituents who’s husband was kidnapped and killed by the North Koreans for simple political expediency.
So overall I was disappointed with the level of debate in regards to North Korea policy and how the moderator Jim Lehrer spent no time trying to get them to articulate their North Korea policies. You would think that a country that has the potential to kill thousands of US troops, is threatening to turn a US ally into a “sea of fire”, is advancing both ballistic and nuclear weapons programs, is aiding Iran with their nuclear program as well as having proliferated nuclear technology to Syria would get more time and focus during the debate then what occurred.
So like I said this debate with extremely disappointing in regards to North Korea policies of each candidate and if either of these candidates wants to offer a meaningful North Korea strategy they could start with reading Plan B right here.
Popularity: 4%
9:07 am on September 27th, 2008 1
You read all of that from the statement “although right now, because of the problems in North Korea, we are seeing it on shaky ground”?
Yes, most people would see “problems” in connection with the uncertainty of leadership up there, but that is not what he said. Since he chose not to be explicit, I don’t think it’s useful putting words in his mouth. We went through this exercise, speculating on the health/death of Fidel Castro, last year.
As far the New York Times comment, even though the senator hasn’t spent much time in Washington this year, as a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he is probably privy to more information than most of us.
9:09 am on September 27th, 2008 2
Senator Obama (or should I call him “Barrack,” since he was obviously playing some kind of intimidation tactic with “John”) needs to realize that there is no magic bullet or magic anything when it comes to fixing North Korea. Barrack talks like he’s got radical new ideas on North Korea… tell that to “Madeline” and “Bill.”
9:35 am on September 27th, 2008 3
I won’t get into a NK policy debate here except to note that the NK-Syria connection is alleged not proven, and I think Obama even inserted a qualifying adverb like “purportedly” during the debate when mentioning that particular issue.
In any case, McCain has been running as the national security Jedi master for the past year and in a sense his whole career had been leading up to this foreign-policy debate. Yet he failed to own Obama last night which can only be counted as a loss for McCain, considering the remaining debates where Obama will be on more solid economic ground. This was McCain’s one and only real chance to deliver a knock-out punch to Obama but he certainly missed in that respect. Many polls indicate that Obama is perceived to have won but even if we consider it a tie that is still ultimately a loss for McCain.
Next up is Palin and Biden. If Palin can’t handle Katie Couric, she’s going to be begging for mercy from Biden. Perhaps she’ll even cry “uncle” on national TV. Should be quite fun to see.
The remaining two debates will be focused largely on economics and as I write McCain is getting hammered in the polls on the economic issues. Obama should be able to handle them just fine.
Thus, it seems the old soldier had already lost this war. Obama’s poll numbers keep going up and up (check out Intrade if you don’t believe me) and McCain will be unable to use the remaining debates to stop his own hemorrhaging in the polls. Continued sleazy ads against Obama will only turn off more voters, as did his mean-spirited behavior during the debate last night. Perhaps we’ll see a few more instances of reckless brinksmanship from the former jet fighter in order to try to distract voters, but I think the American people are getting tired of that as well. I’ve already voted for Obama myself, so all that remains is to just enjoy the rest of the show.
A new day in America will begin soon, and I’m sure the rest of the world will be very pleased and relieved as well.
Time to get the country back on the right road! My faith the American people is restored.
Peace and out, y’all.
10:08 am on September 27th, 2008 4
Don’t count the old soldier out. He’s come from behind many, many times. He doesn’t have the rock star appeal of his younger rival who is so eager to speak at the Brandenburg Gate to adoring fans in Europe, but he’s a fighter, particularly when he’s an underdog. You might even say that unlike his rival he has a record in that department too.
7:32 pm on September 27th, 2008 5
Thanks for posting this; I didn’t watch the debate, but right now I would say that foreign policy is firmly second to the economy. So maybe McCain pulled his punches. I suspect his strategy has been to let Obama talk himself into a corner, and for this week that may all he can do with foreign policy.
It’s always been obvious to me that NK will work these cycles of negotiation and provocation regardless of what’s “achieved”. NK put the nuclear issue on the table because it pushed human rights off of it. The US blew all of its leverage on some reactor seals and an old cooling tower, strictly according to plan. Campaign rhetoric about how the US caused these events sounds narcissistic to me.
3:04 am on September 28th, 2008 6
DunkinDokdo @5 said:
“I suspect his strategy has been to let Obama talk himself into a corner, and for this week that may all he can do with foreign policy.”
So you think McCain has a strategy? As a student of messages, information, and communication, I often like to examine the use of words.
Some say that McCain has proven his leadership ability because of the success of the Surge strategy. I am not willing to concede that the Surge was a success or even that it was a strategy. Before you have a strategy, you have to clearly define your objectives. Just reducing violence was not the original ultimate objective of the Surge. I am still waiting for someone to define what “success”, “winning”, or “victory” means in Iraq. Even Gen Petraeus said:
3:05 am on September 28th, 2008 7
I see I screwed up the blockquotes there.
5:26 am on September 28th, 2008 8
I just found out that we can now add gambler to the list of attributes.
5:29 am on September 28th, 2008 9
Get rid of both guys and write-in someone who really cares about American and the working class. I personally don’t feel comfortable with either man.
8:34 am on September 28th, 2008 10
Remember how I said the Republicans today are no longer true Republicans?
They’re actually Communists!:
kr.youtube.com/watch?v=gvHq2hMNz9M
Now it all makes sense!
2:31 pm on September 28th, 2008 11
#2. When senator Obama was speaking to Senator Mccain by using his first name he was not trying to intimidate Mccain. He was doing exactly what the moderator of the debate wanted them both to do by trying to engage with each other. The moderator even noticed how senator Mccain had a very hard time with even looking at senator Obama directly when conversing.
2:39 pm on September 28th, 2008 12
Asfar as North Korea is concerned i’m glad that the topic of the Korean peninsula was even brought up. If anything it may have spurred interest for some Americans to finally google the Korean peninsula and learn about the circumstances of both Korea’s.
3:39 pm on September 28th, 2008 13
It’s strange that a debate that was about “foreign policy” didn’t even once venture into a discussion about China.
Yes, Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, and a resurgent Russian are important foreign policy matters. But one would think that China merits as being “important”.
8:22 pm on September 28th, 2008 14
“It’s strange that a debate that was about “foreign policy” didn’t even once venture into a discussion about China.”
That’s very true. Neither candidate seems particularly focused on Asia which is the most economically dynamic region in the world nowadays. I think it’s called denial or something like that.
A friend of mine in Japan was shocked that Palin has never visited Japan or Korea, considering how much trade Alaska does with both countries.
10:58 pm on September 28th, 2008 15
To amplify further on Gaetano Calebrisi’s point about China, in the video I link to above, financial journalist Max Keiser notes that while on the one hand the US wants China to continue buying more US bonds in massive quantities (in order to help us keep on deficit spending), on the other hand China, Russia and Iran are aligned with each other and have a mutual defense pact. Thus, if we continue to provoke Iran and Russia with threats of military action, it’s hard to see how China would be very sympathetic to that.
It seems to me that this is a contradiction that John McCain needs to be able to explain to the US people, since he is the one who is posturing for more a more confrontational approach to both Russia and Iran.
A further contradiction in McCain’s platform is how he thinks $300 billion in tax cuts for coporations and the rich can be reconciled with his apparent endorsement of continued US military adventurism abroad. We are currently spending $10 billion a month in Iraq, and McCain has offered no timeline for withdrawal there; a war with either Iran or Russia would further strain our coffers, of course.
How are we going to keep paying for all this, especially if we alienate countries like China who are essentially helping prop up the US economy?
7:55 am on September 29th, 2008 16
You bring up some good points King Baeksu. I find it odd that a potential $700 billion bailout for Wall Street financial institutions elicts such howls of protestations while the US government spending over $600 billion dollars toward defense gets a scant three paragraphs buried in the New York Times.
No ever seems to ask how the US as a nation is going to pay for all this let alone whether it’s all even necessary.
Finally, your point on Russia, China, and Iran being allied and in a mutual defensive pact I think are factually incorrect. Russia and China are both memebers of something called the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) but Iran has only observer status. Moreover, while SCO member countries engage in bilateral military training missions, it can hardly be said that such actions constitute the sort of defensive pact on the level of NATO.
8:46 am on September 29th, 2008 17
GC, thanks for the clarification. There is also the 2001 Sino-Russian Treaty of Friendship which includes provisions that have been described as an implicit defense pact. From Wikipedia:
“The treaty outlines the broad strokes which are to serve as a basis for peaceful relations, economic cooperation, as well as diplomatic and geopolitical reliance. Controversially, Article 9 of the treaty can be seen as an implicit defense pact, and other articles (A7 and A16) point at increasing military cooperation, including the sharing of “military know-how” (A16), namely, Chinese access to Russian military technology.”"
There is also this:
“Iran makes move to join SCO”
Mon, 24 Mar 2008
“Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki says Tehran is prepared to join the intergovernmental Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).
“The SCO has been formed to oppose US interference in Central Asia by developing regional security cooperation between member states - China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
“Iran currently has observer status in the organization.
“On Monday during his official visit to Tajikistan, Mottaki said Tehran has already applied to join the organization.
“”Tajikistan has given us its support in the membership bid,” said the Iranian minister after a meeting with Tajik President Emomali Rakhmon.”
9:42 am on September 29th, 2008 18
During the debate, McCain also failed to address another contradiction in his foreign policy: How a confrontational approach towards Russia undercuts US efforts to have Russian support in helping to contain Iran.
From The New York Review of Books (”Georgia and the Balance of Power by George Friedman”):
“Resurrecting the Russian Sphere”
“Putin did not want to reestablish the Soviet Union, but he did want to re- establish the Russian sphere of influence in the former Soviet region. To accomplish that, he had to do two things. First, he had to reestablish the credibility of the Russian army as a fighting force, at least in its own region. Second, he had to establish that Western guarantees, including NATO membership, meant nothing in the face of Russian power. He did not want to confront NATO directly, but he did want to confront and defeat a power that was closely aligned with the United States, had US support, aid, and advisers, and was widely seen as being under American protection. Georgia was the perfect choice.
“By invading Georgia as Russia did (competently if not brilliantly), Putin reestablished the credibility of the Russian army. (It was no surprise that its operations would render thousands of people homeless and cause civilian casualties.) But far more importantly, Putin’s invasion revealed an open secret. While the United States is tied down in the Middle East, American guarantees have no value. This lesson is not for American consumption. It is something that, from the Russian point of view, the Ukrainians, the Balts, and the Central Asians need to digest. Indeed, it is a lesson Putin wants to transmit to Poland and the Czech Republic as well. In July, the Czech government signed an agreement with the United States to set up a ballistic missile defense installation in the Czech Republic, and in August, days after the conflict in Georgia began, the Polish government announced that it has agreed to allow the Americans to build an anti-missile base in Poland. The US–Polish agreement was hurriedly signed as a gesture of defiance to the Russians. The Russians responded with threats that Condoleezza Rice dismissed as “bizarre.”
“The Russians knew that the United States would denounce their attack. This actually plays into Russian hands. The more vocal senior US leaders are, the greater the contrast with their inaction, and the Russians wanted to drive home the idea that American guarantees are empty talk. The Russians also know something else that is of vital importance. For the United States, the Middle East is far more important than the Caucasus, and Iran is particularly important. The United States wants the Russians to participate in sanctions against Iran. Even more importantly, it does not want the Russians to sell weapons to Iran, particularly the highly effective S-300 air defense system. Georgia is a marginal issue to the United States; Iran is a central issue. The Russians are in a position to pose serious problems for the United States not only in Iran, but also with weapons sales to other countries, like Syria.
“Therefore, the United States has a problem—either it must reorient its strategy away from the Middle East and toward the Caucasus, or it has to seriously limit its response to Georgia to avoid a Russian counter in Iran. Even if the United States had an appetite for war in Georgia at this time, it would have to calculate the Russian response in Iran—and possibly in Afghanistan (even though Moscow’s interests there are currently aligned with those of Washington).
“In other words, the Russians have backed the Americans into a corner. The Europeans, who for the most part lack expeditionary military forces and are dependent upon Russian energy exports, have even fewer options. If nothing else happens, the Russians will have demonstrated that though they are not a global power by any means, they have resumed their role as a significant regional power with lots of nuclear weapons and an economy that is less shabby now than in the past. Russia has also compelled every state on its periphery to reevaluate its position relative to Moscow. That is what the Russians wanted to demonstrate, and they have demonstrated it.
“The war in Georgia, therefore, is Russia’s public return to great power status. This is not something that just happened—it has been unfolding ever since Putin took power, and with growing intensity in the past five years. Part of it has to do with the increase in Russian power, but a great deal of it has to do with the fact that the Middle Eastern wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have left the United States off-balance and short on resources. This conflict created a window of opportunity. The Russian goal is to use that window to assert a new reality throughout the region while the Americans are tied down elsewhere and dependent on Russian cooperation. The war was far from a surprise; it has been building for months. But the geopolitical foundations of the war have been building since 1992. Russia has been an empire for centuries. The last fifteen years or so were not the new reality, but simply an aberration that would be rectified. And now it is being rectified. Whether the US and its allies can mount a coherent response has now become a central question of Western foreign policy.”
—August 27, 2008
Source: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/21772
9:52 am on September 29th, 2008 19
During the VP debate on the 2nd, I would be interested to know what Palin thinks of the above analysis, followed by Biden’s response to her considered evaluation.
5:45 pm on September 29th, 2008 20
Both candidates claim they will be able to bring the country together. Their slogans are bipartisanship and ‘reach across the aisle.’ But as the Bailout vote just proved, it won’t be that simple. It is not just republicans against democrats.
The New York Times has a useful tool that allows you to see graphically on a map how the representatives voted. Click on the ‘On A Map’ tab. The representatives are color coded by party and how they voted, and you get to see where their districts are located. You can also filter the districts to geographic regions, predominant income, predominantly white districts, or whether they voted for Bush or Kerry in the 2004 election. I think the more useful view is to look at the whole big picture map with no filters.
It’s confusing at first but I think I started to recognize certain patterns based on my understanding of the country. Disclaimer here: this is only my view and everyone else will probably have completely different interpretations or see no meaning at all.
First of all, I believe that the representatives were voting the interests of their constituents. That provides a higher resolution picture of our country than just Red and Blue states. You get more information when you get down to the detail level of districts. But looking at clusters of votes on that map, you also get regional views. When you look at densely populated regions of the country, you generally see support for the bill, regardless of party.
Looking closer, there is strong bipartisan support for it in the New York area, of course. We also see clusters of bipartisan support in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Silicon Valley. There are clusters of bipartisan support in the Dallas Houston area. There is strong support in the Chicago area but mixed support in the Detroit area. All of this makes sense to me. I even understand the large cluster of support in central Florida with large retiree populations living off investment income. Look at that solid block of republican support in Las Vegas. I won’t pretend to understand the South very well so I don’t know what favored the Bailout in places like Arkansas, Alabama, and South Carolina.
It is obvious, by looking at the map where most of the opposition for this Bailout came from; the heartland and plains of the country. The places far removed from Wall Street and the gobbledygook of capital investments.
Here is where I go out and give my interpretation of what this means. There are divides in the country that don’t always cleave between democrats and republicans. They are not even only as simple as conservative and liberal. This financial crisis shows that the divides are much more complex. There are parts of the country where people have to look at the financial crisis from a more practical and personal point of view. They have large amounts of commercial investments. Their businesses, their jobs, their personal investments and their communities are at stake. Then there are those areas where they don’t feel they have much at stake.
It’s easy to understand why representatives from commercial centers, republicans and democrats voted Yes. The more interesting part comes from the reason for voting No.
Non stake holding, white collar, fiscal conservatives have the luxury of standing on ideology and the principles of market economics. They believe the government should stay out of it and let the market correct will itself. Non stake holding, blue collar, liberals and those who believe they have already gotten a bad deal from market economics feel it’s payback time. This is justice for those people who foreclosed on their neighbors homes and drove down their property value. This is what they deserve for shipping our jobs overseas.
The end result is we have a country divided in strange ways. We have people from opposite ends of the political spectrum coming together and people within parties coming apart on contentious issues. We have gridlock and ineffective government. So for the next president, it’s not going to be as simple as being bipartisan and reaching across the aisle. He will have to dig down in these details and find some core elements that we all share as Americans if he is going to make this country work again.
6:32 pm on September 29th, 2008 21
BTW, the “a useful tool” phrase in the second paragraph is a hyperlink, but they don’t highlight well on these gray backgrounds.
6:52 pm on September 29th, 2008 22
JoeC, it’s the corpocracy versus everyone else.
They own Bush, they own McCain, they own Obama. They own the Iraq War.
Aristotle observed long ago that the next stage after democracy is oligarchy.
Welcome to the New World Order.
9:06 pm on September 29th, 2008 23
“Aristotle observed long ago that the next stage after democracy is oligarchy.”
This is an interesting thought; although, I doubt Aristotle would have envisioned the type of democracy established in North America at the end of the 18th century. Still, the thought might be somewhat prophetic.
9:15 pm on September 29th, 2008 24
In modern Western-style “representative” democracies there are actually two democratic forces at work, one de jure and one de facto.
In the US, for example, there is a de jure congress in which the people vote for their local and national representatives.
But then there is a virtual or de facto congress in which the only voting that goes on in which companies and lobbyists give money to which politicians.
Guess which congress actually has the most power — the de jure one or the virtual, de facto one?
9:17 pm on September 29th, 2008 25
EDIT, 3rd para.: “on in which” = “on is which.”
1:58 am on September 30th, 2008 26
From today’s New York Times:
“…the McCain campaign appears to be leaving nothing to chance. Ms. Palin will spend her preparation time at Mr. McCain’s vacation compound in Sedona, with her husband and children. She is practicing for the debate with Steve Beigun, a former staff member of Mr. Bush’s National Security Council; Randy Scheunemann, Mr. McCain’s chief foreign policy aide; Mark Wallace, a deputy campaign manager for Mr. Bush’s 2004 re-election campaign; and Ms. Wallace, who was a communications director in the Bush White House.”
OK, we know Randy Scheunemann is an arch neocon and all her talking points on foreign policy and national security will come straight from him.
The task for Biden, then, will be to probe the key contradictions in the neocon agenda: How are we going to keep paying for a hyperaggressive, expansionist military policy? We are currently spending $16 billion a month in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the Washington Post puts the overall cost of the Iraq War at $3 trillion. Meanwhile, the US economy is facing deep recession at home.
If we get dragged into a third war with either Russia or Iran, can we even afford it? The answer is no. It then becomes clear that such bluster, which we cannot back up financially, will only undermine US credibility even further by exposing the hollowness of our rhetoric, and consequently make us even less safe.
McCain’s whole platform is all about “keeping the US safe,” but the details just don’t add up either ideologically or practically. It shouldn’t be too hard for Biden to hammer Palin hard on this basic point.
5:40 am on October 2nd, 2008 27
From today’s Washington Post:
“How They Can Win”
Thursday, October 2, 2008; Page A23
The Post asked political analysts, pollsters and others what Joe Biden and Sarah Palin need to do in tonight’s debate. Below are contributions from: Ken Duberstein, Carter Eskew, Lisa Schiffren, Robert Shrum, Ed Rogers, Jeremy Lott, Mary Beth Cahill, Michael Feldman, Greg Mueller, Douglas E. Schoen.
KEN DUBERSTEIN
White House chief of staff to Ronald Reagan; chairman of the Duberstein Group
This debate is 90 percent about Sarah Palin and 10 percent about Joe Biden. This is her SAT, not a pop quiz or a “gotcha” exam. Gov. Palin must seize the opportunity to speak compellingly about John McCain’s vision on national security and economic policy, not in sound bites but in well-constructed, thoughtful paragraphs. This debate is not a forum for Alaska stories but for a McCain worldview, carefully articulated for the independent voter, not simply for the conservative base. Palin should not be an attack dog but should dissect the consequences of Barack Obama’s promises. She should focus on Obama’s vision and not on Joe Biden’s record. She needs to grow before our eyes, in stature, soundness, judgment and temperament. Does she have the capacity to be next in line for the presidency — that’s the high hurdle she must clear.
CARTER ESKEW
Chief strategist for Al Gore’s 2000 presidential campaign
Too often, vice presidential candidates think that their debate is about them. Really, it’s about the guy on top of the bumper sticker or, in this case, at the top of the polls. Obama has opened a meaningful lead, driven by the economic crisis. The election is now on his field of play. The debate should be all about Obama. Palin’s job is to do what vice presidential candidates never want to do in a debate: the wet work of gutting the other party’s presidential candidate. Repeatedly attacking Obama for being out of the mainstream may do nothing to advance her reputation, but it’s the best way she can help stop Obama’s rise and protect her own glaring weaknesses. Biden’s job is to reassure voters that Obama has a clear sense of where he will take the country that comports with their values. In other words, do more forcefully what Obama did not do in the first debate.
LISA SCHIFFREN
Speechwriter to Vice President Dan Quayle; contributor to National Review Online’s “The Corner” blog
Palin started strong but has become a lightning rod for liberal contempt. She needs to speak directly to viewers and address, obliquely, the criticisms of her qualifications and intelligence. She wins by demonstrating relevant experience, solid gut and inner steel. It should sound like this:
I am a mother of five, like the speaker of the House. And yes, I hunt. But my political qualifications stem from my political experience: I am a sitting governor. I was elected governor because I took on a corrupt political machine and sent fellow Republicans to jail, not because I am “cute.” Like the other 49 governors, I am accountable for dozens of state agencies. I manage a workforce of tens of thousands. I run an entity with a budget in the hundreds of millions. What has Joe Biden managed? How many people are on his staff?
I do not have foreign policy experience. As Govs. Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan did, I will learn the names of foreign leaders and the conventions for discussing foreign policy. Here is what you need to know: My instincts are sound. Like John McCain, I recognize our adversaries for who they are. I can tell who the aggressor is in a conflict. I don’t have a lot of patience for dictators, radical Islamic terrorists and leaders who threaten America or our allies. I am a fighter, and I will fight for you.
ROBERT SHRUM
Senior adviser to the Gore and Kerry presidential campaigns; fellow at NYU’s Wagner School of Public Service
Palin has her marching orders: Don’t answer the question that’s asked but shift to attacks on Obama, Biden, the Washington elite and the “Bridge to Nowhere.” After debate camp, she probably has 15 or 20 such deflections in the can, an easier task than filling in her chasm of substantive knowledge. And she has always her value-oriented homilies to fall back on.
The format is rigid, at the insistence of the McCain campaign, with no chance for the kind of back and forth in last Friday’s debate. Biden won’t strain to trip up Palin or take the bait when she assails his record. He has two strategic objectives: defend and advance Obama, and go after McCain. That’s the choice in November, and even if Palin survives this encounter better than she did Katie Couric’s interview, it won’t matter that much if Biden has strategic focus and discipline. Palin may blow herself up, but Biden can’t spend his time trying to light the fuse.
Moderator Gwen Ifill may play a decisive role. It was Sander Vanocur, a panelist from NBC News, who asked Nixon in 1960 why President Eisenhower couldn’t name a single idea of Nixon’s that he had adopted. Ifill can push past Palin’s syntax-challenged generalities by pressing her instead of moving on to another issue. The right is attacking Ifill because she has a book coming out in January called “The Age of Obama” — which is actually about the rise of a new generation of African American politicians. I have no doubt Ifill will be fair; I’ve watched her discomfort candidates on both sides, including mine. I don’t know how tough she’ll be — and that will matter — because Palin has to do more than meet the low expectations she’s set. Voters want to measure whether she’s up to the job; if they think she isn’t, McCain’s judgment will suffer another blow.
ED ROGERS
White House staffer to Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush; group chairman of BGR Holding
It’s time for the McCain campaign to turn mama’s picture to the wall and get rough. Palin needs to attack Obama for being the extreme liberal that he is. Attack, attack, attack. Ignore Biden and put the McCain campaign on offense. Republicans will love it and breathe a sigh of relief. Independents need to hear the truth about what a cliche orthodox leftist Obama is. She needs to attack, with ferocity, real facts and a smile. If this becomes a geography bee or a “name that foreign national anthem” show, we are in trouble.
Biden needs to say nothing — a great challenge for him. It will be hard for him to show subtle expertise without looking smug, to flaunt his experience without talking too much. It is impossible for him to present himself as a credible agent of change. He should stay quiet and sit back while Obama allies in the media create a misstep and then take Palin apart in the coming days.
JEREMY LOTT
Author of “The Warm Bucket Brigade: The Story of the American Vice Presidency”
Many pundits say Joe Biden and Sarah Palin need to appear “presidential” tonight and therefore less combative. The advice is high-minded but dead wrong. They’re not running for president, and voters probably don’t want another powerful vice president. The vice president was never supposed to be a chief operating officer but, rather, someone who would preside over the Senate in good times and step into the executive position if something awful happened.
Palin should be vicious. She needs to go after Barack Obama and his gaffetacular running mate with a ferocity that got her that “Barracuda” nickname, tearing into them on energy exploration, social issues, spending and their party’s complicity in creating the economic conditions that helped cause our current market turmoil.
Palin needs to attack, full tilt, to help the Republicans get their groove back and to further her own political future. The Alaska governor could one day end up on the top of a Republican ticket, whether or not the GOP holds the White House this November. She won’t get there by playing nice.
MARY BETH CAHILL
Manager of John Kerry’s presidential campaign; former chief of staff to Sen. Edward Kennedy
Palin has an instinctive ease with television cameras and the ability to deliver a killer shot to her opponent. However, she has the higher bar to clear as a newcomer to international affairs with little experience of sustained discussion of America’s diplomatic and economic place in the world. Viewers will judge her a success if she exhibits reasonable knowledge of our allies and the challenges that confront the nation without losing her composure.
Biden will achieve success by defending his running mate from every charge and by attacking McCain, not Palin. If he is concise and polite in this moment of maximum attention, he will vindicate Obama’s choice of him as a running mate.
MICHAEL FELDMAN
Former senior adviser to Vice President Al Gore; founding partner of the Glover Park Group
Joe Biden’s mission tonight: Don’t screw it up. The economy has returned as the dominant issue, voters are paying attention and they like what they’ve been hearing from the Obama campaign. There is no doubt that Biden is qualified to be president, the single most important quality of a VP candidate, so he doesn’t have anything to prove. He should answer the questions and let his knowledge and experience speak for themselves. His opponent still has a lot of work to do. He doesn’t have to question her abilities; an increasing number of Americans are already doing that. To the extent that he directly engages her, it should be to remind voters that Palin and McCain are running to offer a third term of the Bush administration.
He should articulate his campaign’s vision for change on the economic crisis to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — in other words, don’t pass up this opportunity to remind voters what is at stake in this election — defend his running mate from unwarranted attacks (there will be many) but stick to the substance and don’t get drawn into personal attacks. This is not the time for point-scoring. The McCain campaign will be poised to jump on anything that gives it the opportunity to change the subject and distract the American people.
GREG MUELLER
Republican strategist; former senior aide to Steve Forbes’s and Pat Buchanan’s presidential campaigns; president of CRC Public Relations
If Biden does not achieve clear victory, Palin wins just by talking issues with a veteran Beltway politician. Palin must face down criticism that she does not have a command of the issues while maintaining the genuine, Washington outsider, reform image that makes her popular in the heartland. She can do this by going on offense on energy issues and the economy. She can define the Obama-Biden energy and economic programs as out of touch with working and middle-class Americans, who want drilling, lower taxes and fiscal responsibility. She can showcase her populist conservatism by articulating how the high-spending, high-tax Obama-Biden economic agenda fuels opportunity for corruption.
Joe Biden is simply the other character on the stage. He is a skilled debater and has a deep command of the issues, distinct advantages. His challenge is to showcase his experience — the sole reason Obama chose him — and try to trip up Palin without appearing patronizing or condescending.
DOUGLAS E. SCHOEN
Democratic pollster and author of “Declaring Independence: The Beginning of the End of the Two-Party System”
As smart and talented as Biden is, he invariably has to prove that he is the smartest guy in the room. He must hold this aspect of his persona in check and avoid at all costs appearing as though he is beating up on Palin.
His single greatest challenge will be to emphasize that he and Obama have the breadth and depth of vision to lead America out of the economic and foreign policy crises the country faces.
Palin must demonstrate that she is qualified to be president — both by appearing to understand the country’s domestic and international problems and by articulating clear policy prescriptions to address them. If she can connect with ordinary Americans the way that she was able to do in her convention speech — something Biden has never been particularly successful at — she can win.
8:44 pm on October 2nd, 2008 28
Gov. Palin rose above rather low expectations and did a good job in the debate of looking competent and assured of herself. There were no majors gaffes as has often been the case with her recent interviews in the national media.
However, if this were a boxing match, Biden landed so many crushing body blows that it was a massacre, and Palin’s tendency to dodge and avoid answering many questions only added to the lopsided score.
We’ll see if average Americans were able to see this as well. Despite all the rhetoric, if you want a ticket that represents the working and middle classes, vote Obama-Biden. If you want more of the same that we’ve seen over the past 8 years, vote McCain-Palin.
The choice is very simple.