and the repeal of Glass-Steagall into play

don’t knock the glass-steagall repeal. that’s what allowed b of a to buy merrill this weekend, which staunched the bleeding at least a little bit. glass-steagall was a real mess in any case, the problem is that no good replacement was put in place and both parties were asleep at the wheel. and now “the power of the market” needs to be restored by “big government”.

i am betting that mccain/palin will try to reignite culture war stuff in some way shape or form. they need their base to be baying for blood, and eager to show up on nov 4, and that’s the only way to do that.

I suspect the culture war well is spent at this point, the results already built into the polls. In tough economic times, he can stroke some xenophobia about jobs going overseas but Obama and the dems are way ahead on that issue, having expertly stroked those fears during the primary and convention. Anyway, the economy trumps everything, even culture, as clinton proved. If mcCain losses on the economy he loses period.

My advice to McCain is to go on the attack and hit Obama for his connections to Frankin Raines and Jim Johnson. Both are Obama campaign advisors and contributors and led their companies to the biggest taxpayer bailout in history. Ken Lays tenure at enron pails in comparison and there was no bailout. tie obamam to them the way the dems tied lay to bush. throw rangel in the mix as part of the culture of corruption. doubt it’ll work, but worth a shot. if he lets Obama own the economy the game is up.

but his path to victory appears clear now.

i am betting that mccain/palin will try to reignite culture war stuff in some way shape or form. they need their base to be baying for blood, and eager to show up on nov 4, and that’s the only way to do that.

I am curious to know if the Obama camp still intends to redraw the electoral map, using their money advantage to register new voters and challenge McCain in states that were once firmly red.

there were multiple reasons to spend in red states. they were hoping that they would have such a huge money advantage as to force mccain to burn money on states that he would otherwise not have spent in, and to set up a firm base for the dem party itself to be more successful in state level and non presidential elections. i dont think the money advantage is substantial enough at this point – thanks to palin and rnc warchest – to do the former effectively, and, right now, trying to change the game in historically red states isn’t as important as obama getting to the white house. i still think they have an ability to put a large number (~5-6) states in play so they have multiple paths to electoral college victory, and that’s what they will focus on.

one thing though: the obama team’s tactical acumen, and focus on the long game is really really impressive. especially the latter, in a world of hour to hour news cycles, where it is so easy to get distracted by transient crap. in the primaries, they did a very good job with their focus on caucus states and a full 50 state strategy, and now too, they’ve done very well by strategically limiting fire even when all the dems were worried that obama wasn’t attacking enough and thought that he seemed weak, and making it clear that mccain is the one trying to drag things into the gutter (hlike in 2000, mccain unleashed nastiness when his situation became precarious, but this time he seems to have been hurt by it, at least a little). also, they have some interesting state-by-state stuff going on, which shows they really understand their demo stuff very well, another area where obama completely outclassed hillary when it came to understanding delegate apportioning by district. excellent stuff – obama and his advisors have an excellent head for details, and how to analyze them.

I am curious to know if the Obama camp still intends to redraw the electoral map, using their money advantage to register new voters and challenge McCain in states that were once firmly red. But Palin has obliterated the money advantage and can challenge Obama’s identity base with her own. It seems not taking public financing was a mistake, since he doesn’t have a cash advantage and now has to spend time raising money. He looks exhausted.

Hitler.

What did I do now?