Also titled: Maverick = erratic, New Hampshire kind of sucks at picking winners, the death of the GOP as we know it, and do I actually miss Bush’s spokespeople?  2008 predictions (96.5% accurate since 2004!!)

The 2008 election season is coming to a close, (sad, because I actually enjoy this stuff immensely) and there are a few things that I’ve noticed after carefully watching my surroundings over the past few months: Politics is not as unpredictable as many would think. I remember when John McCain chose Sarah Palin as his running mate, not because she was the second woman to be on a major ticket (Is there a prize for second place?) but rather because it was the day that I realized John McCain would never be President of the United States. He’s such a Maverick!!! Aside from the joy that will come from Obama winning the Presidency and the good that will untimely come from such a thing, nothing makes me happier than knowing that I probably won’t hear the term “maverick” for quite some time.

For one, I don’t really understand what a maverick is. I know it was a TV show starring my boy James Gardner, and then a movie starring my enemy Mel Gibson (Jews did what?!). It was Tom Cruise’s lesser talented piloting ability to over-actor Val Kilmer, but Top Gun’s maverick was erratic and unpredictable, which in the end helped him kill people but made him a crappy leader and an undependable wing man…and he killed Goose. Is a maverick someone who hates “earmarks?” Is it Maverick-y to talk at length about earmarks and not really tell people what they do? Sure, they may cost taxpayers from money, but they also create jobs. It’s the governments personal welfare check to help people get re-elected. Earmarks are the reason you can’t go anywhere in West Virginia without seeing something with Senator Byrd’s name on it. But hey, the people of West Virginia got a paycheck for building something, and maybe even a better road too. When I look at the cost of a war and the overall cost of all the earmarks in America, I say end the war and build some better roads. I’m a freedom lover, what can I say?

Is a maverick someone who’s best argument against his opponent, on a political level, that he is more qualified because of his years of service, who then turns around and chooses someone for complete shock value that he doesn’t know that well, obviously didn’t vet, and has less experience than your opponent? Seriously, you didn’t know she was under investigation for abusing power? That’s just poor staff work! That’s not a maverick quality; it’s the quality of an old person, an erratic angry old person, which to anyone who follows this was not the quality that we liked about John McCain.

Moving on.

I was thinking the other day about the breakdown of primaries and states and voting blocks and what not (yes, I think about this stuff when I play video games) and I realized something incredibly interesting about the state of New Hampshire and its primary: It has a history of picking Presidential losers. Here me out:

In 2000, New Hampshire Democrats picked Al Gore and New Hampshire Republicans selected John McCain. In 2004, since Democrats were the only party really having a Primary (since Bush was selected by default, some would say), they selected John Kerry. In this election, New Hampshire Democrats surprised many by selecting Hillary Clinton, and McCain began his “comeback” by winning the Granite State. What is interesting to me is the idea that this primary means so much to not just the people of New Hampshire (96% are White, compared to 86% in Ohio and 81% in Florida or 74% in Virginia) but also to the media, even though it has a history of not being “with the nation.”

New Hampshire either “seals the deal” for a candidate, or is a good rebound state. For example, in 2004 John Kerry put all his eggs in the Iowa basket believing, correctly, that winning in Iowa would change the polls in New Hampshire. In 2008, both McCain and Clinton lost in Iowa but New Hampshire gave them motivation, and money, to move on to other states. I still don’t believe that John McCain was the best the Republican Party had to offer, but Republican voters, much more so than Democratic Voters, like to vote for those they know rather than get to know someone new. (Case in point, the political novice we used to call Gov. George Bush vs. the media darling spry newcomer McCain in 2000.)

Republicans, in order to have any chance in 2012 or future national elections, need to find a bright, shining, preferably young star to compete against Democrats.

No, I’m not thinking Sarah Palin (although it does look like she’s thinking 2012 already…someone already said that, oh yea, it was me a few weeks ago…once again, The Seminal leads the way!) but perhaps a Bobby Jindal of Louisiana or a Charlie Crist of Florida. The country appears to be moving away from the GOP talking points of the past, and in order for the GOP to remain competitive I see greater tensions between moderates and the religious right (although the tensions appear to be pretty obvious with McCain). They’re going to have to choose one way or the other: Either keep getting beat in elections, or make a new argument outside of “values,” which I think is code for guns and religion.

The main problem with the GOP is the lack of message. McCain’s use of tactics week to week is hurting him (what a maverick!) because voters are unable to see what he really stands for when he appears to be standing all over the place based on current information and polling data. Say what you will about President Bush, but his line, “You may not agree with me but you know where I stand,” was pretty damn solid, and you have to give his people credit for it.

Bush 2004, like Obama 2008, was a well-oiled machine of message discipline. So yes, I do miss Bush’s spokespeople. Ed Gillespie, where art thou? Matthew Dowd? Dan Bartlett? Enjoying the private sector? Good for you. I just wanted to see how you are. Who the hell is Tucker Bounds and why is he so dumb? Would you guys have allowed Sarah Palin? Was she the most qualified woman in the Republican Party? What about Susan Collins or even, gasp, Kay Bailey Hutchinson? Nancy Pfotenhauer, McCain’s chief spokesperson, is in way over her head. She should be leading the message for Michelle “McCarthy had some good ideas” Bachmann.

So here’s my prediction for the whole show:

Obama: Max Electoral Vote 390 – Minimum Electoral Vote 302
McCain: Max Electoral Vote 236 – Minimum Electoral Vote 148

Senate: Democrats + at least 7, 9 is a stretch in my opinion. (But you never know, state elections are different from national elections. California elected Schwarzenegger twice, people.)

House: Democrats + anywhere from 15-24

I’ll break it down like this: If your campaign, in it’s final week, is moving from one red state to another in order to “hold on” to what you had 4 years ago, you’re in bad shape. The only “blue” state McCain is campaigning in is Pennsylvania, and I feel it’s just to save face. Indiana, Missouri, Ohio, Virginia, North Carolina, Montana, Florida, Colorado, Nevada, and New Mexico all voted for Bush over Kerry, and Obama is leading or tied in all of them. If your final week is defense, you’re probably going to lose. It’s not a surprise really, Republicans in most of these states either got tossed in ‘06 or are about to get tossed in ‘08. It’s called a trend, it’s called message building, and it started the day after Kerry lost in ‘04. It’s called strategy. (Thank god Bob Shrum retired and let “the kids” take over elections in America.)

I hope you vote. In Washington I voted by mail. It was, well, surreal and made me feel like a maverick (I don’t vote like the rest of y’all, I’m different!). I hope to have a post-election breakdown for you, but chances are, either way it turns out, I’ll be drunk for one reason or another for a few days. I may be wrong, but you know where I stand, and I’m just a guy who’s currently tied for 5th in his fantasy football league. I got’em right where I want ’em!!!

“Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer is no. That’s not America. Is there something wrong with a seven-year-old Muslim-American kid believing he or she could be president? Yet I have heard senior members of my own party drop the suggestion that he is a Muslim and might have an association with terrorists. This is not the way we should be doing it in America.

I feel particularly strong about this because of a picture I saw in a magazine. It was a photo essay about troops who were serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. And one picture at the tail end of this photo essay, was of a mother at Arlington Cemetery and she had her head on the headstone of her son’s grave. And as the picture focused in, you could see the writing on the headstone, and it gave his awards - Purple Heart, Bronze Star - showed that he died in Iraq, gave his date of birth, date of death, he was 20 years old. And then at the very top of the head stone, it didn’t have a Christian cross. It didn’t have a Star of David. It has a crescent and star of the Islamic faith.

And his name was Kareem Rashad Sultan Khan. And he was an American. He was born in New Jersey. He was fourteen years old at the time of 9/11, and he waited until he could serve his country and he gave his life.”

- Colin Powell

WIth McCain pulling out of Michigan (essentially declaring it an Obama state) and moving his campaign to PA (the next state he’ll probably drop out of in my opinion) and, for some reason, Maine, something caught my eye.  Apparently Governor Sarah Palin sent an email to the McCain camp and asked, “Do we have to go?”

I find this interesting, and my guess is that Sarah Palin is, and has from the start, been preparing for her own White House run in 2012.  Call me crazy, but Gov. Palin rose quickly and became a darling before it all went nuts and she started, gasp, talking to reporters.  Also, given her media slam during her closing remarks in the debate last night, this is a woman who doesn’t want to be VP, she wants it all.  If she starts going further right, my guess is that we won’t see the last of her after the election is over (even though I think it’s over).

My electoral prediction?  Landslide Obama, somewhat like Clinton in 1992.

I’m rarely shocked in politics anymore.  It all seems so, well, scripted.  When I woke up this morning here in Seattle to see that Senator John McCain had picked someone other than Mitt Romney as his VP pick, and that his pick was A) a woman not named Kay Bailey Hutchinson and B) a less than one-term Governor and C) from the state of Alaska, I was, and still am, shocked. This is not a wise choice Senator.

I try to be fair and impartial when looking at campaigns since I’ve worked on them for so long. I like to think I’m the first to point out when someone said something smart or made a good move, but this is not one of those times. For one, Governor Sarah Palin’s complete lack of experience pretty much eliminates McCain’s most effective attack against Barack Obama. Also, a pro-lifer who wants to teach creationism alongside evolution in our public schools doesn’t reach Clinton supporters, and think that’s the tactic McCain was going for.

This woman is technically a heartbeat away from the presidency, if it comes to that, and just looking at the 72-year-old McCain makes that statement more than just a figure of speech. If Obama’s four years in the Senate aren’t enough, then how is 20 months as Governor of a sparsely populated state that’s (according to my friends that live in Alaska) as disconnected of a state as you can get while still being an American help you pass the so-called “McCain Test?”

With all this, the VP technically has two jobs until the election: Be an effective surrogate and do somewhat well in a debate against the other VP candidate. The only question now is whether Joe Biden will be seen as a bully for knowing a lot more than Governor Palin does on, well, everything. In the sharpest critique of Governor Palin, my girlfriend (who thought McCain was President Bush’s VP right now) upon hearing the Governor speak stated, “She sounds like a librarian,” and then upon seeing what she looked like said, “She doesn’t look like she can be in charge of anything.”  Take it from me, trust everyone who knows nothing about politics. These are the people who vote and these are the people that politicians are talking to in those boring speeches.

I do find McCain’s choice interesting, but only in the sense that he’s blatantly pandering to Clinton voters.  My words for McCain? Palin is no Clinton. McCain doesn’t need Clinton voters, he needs his evangelical base. Why he isn’t pandering to them (since his lips are securely fastened to Pat Robertson’s genitals) is beyond me. Or, since this election is obviously about the economy, something McCain admittedly knows nothing about, why he didn’t pick a candidate with strong economic credentials? This pick makes me question his overall judgment in a time of crisis. Is winning more important than being right? Apparently so, in the mind of John McCain, but I doubt that this horrific choice for VP does anything to rally the faithful, and will probably leave more people shaking their heads after the convention.

Let’s look at it this way: John McCain’s first big decisions so far have been to allow his economic policy to be written by a man who called us a “nation of whiners,” and choosing as the potential 2nd most powerful person in the world someone who agrees with McCain on pretty much everything and really, really wants to be the Vice President. If he wanted a woman for shock value, he should’ve chose Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson. The only problem is that people actually like her more than McCain, and his biggest fear is being thought of as weak. So he chose a weak VP to make him look tougher, but it just makes him look older.

Heck of a job there, Brownie. There’s about 60 days left to go in this election and McCain’s going to spend more time selling his #2 then talking about why he should be #1. Excellent “judgment.”  Is she ready to lead on day one, and if so are you ready to admit that, then isn’t Obama is also ready to lead? Are you a hypocrite, or just stupid?

That’s my two cents. I’m glad to be back.

I’ve been reading a lot lately about some sort of “progressive voter” outcry that Obama isn’t “progressive enough” and that he needs to move farther to the left in order to win some magic number of votes that have been “silent” for the past two elections.  I say baloney…or is it bologna?  Nonetheless, Senator Obama is wise to move to the center, since this is where elections are won and lost.

Senator Obama is the best hope that progressive politics has towards, well, anything.  The more blogs I read each day that criticize inconsequential comments made a long time ago or hypothetical running mates makes me concerned:  Is Obama the candidate progressives believe in, or is Obama the candidate that progressives need now?  I find myself leaning towards the latter.

Honestly, are “hardcore progressive voters” (whomever they may be…and what makes them different from me I have no idea) completely disengaged with what is going on in the world?  Do they not see that one candidate wants to end a war and bring troops home whereas another speaks of (and often jokes of) staying and perhaps starting another war in another country?

Why attack Obama for not being progressive enough when these writers know damn well they’ll be far better off with him in office than Senator McCain?  Remember when Al Gore wasn’t “progressive enough” in 2000 so people decided to explore their options?  8 years later, who’s more popular amongst not just progressives but Americans in general?  Al Gore or George Bush?

In short, what I’m saying to liberal concernicists (yes, that’s a word) is that Obama may not, and probably isn’t the answer to every problem facing America.  Hell, he may not even make a dent in domestic policy. But isn’t not making a dent better than  getting worse on the domestic side and the possibility of not just a longer war in Iraq, but  another war somewhere else?  It’s not a lesser of two evils argument, but a realistic argument.  Maybe Obama is a bright shining knight in armor that will rescue us all from all the problems we all face, but America isn’t built for one man to fix all of our problems, and to think one man (or one woman, or one person or whatever) has the power to fix anything on their own is unrealistic.  Public officials are officials elected by the people.  They represent the views of their constituents in accordance with their own views and their constituents’ views.

America is a diverse and beautiful place.  Change can happen, but it happens at it’s own pace.  So, if Obama isn’t progressive enough, then who is?  And could that person possibly win a Presidential election?

I’m a big fan of the Vice President’s office, and you should be to. 

I mean, you get a lot of cool stuff like a Secret Service code name, your own plane, tons of free dinners, and the right to pretty much be a jerk during every campaign season. In The Daily Show’s Book “America,” they pretty much hit the nail on the head when it comes right down to the qualifier for being Vice President…live somewhere geographically different than the President.

Democrats, however, have gone weak the past 2 times in their choice for VP: Senator Joe “pretty much a Republican” Lieberman and Former Senator John “I can’t be a dick and smile at the same time” Edwards. Here are my choices for Obama’s VP (not really in any particular order):

• Former General Wes Clark (D-AR)
• North Carolina Governor Mike Easley
• Ohio Governor Ted Strickland
• Former Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack (return of the SACK!)

All for of these men, yes I chose all men, have a few things in common: They’re all older than Obama, they’re from so-called red states, they all have executive experience…oh, and they’re all Clinton Supporters. Granted, I hear a lot of folks talking about my girl Sebelius (look back a couple of months, I’ve mentioned her in the past for other reasons), but lets not kid ourselves, a Democrat won’t win Kansas…and you can’t tell me that Obama/Vilsack wouldn’t be the GREATEST bumper sticker ever.

As for the Republicans, who are slightly more predictable, here’s the four I see:

• Former Mass Governor Mitt Romney
• Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee
• Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush (which would be the best choice I think, if I gave a shit about who Republicans Pick)
• Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour.

Yup, Governors…best choices by far, especially if the top of the ticket is a Senator with a voting record.

Any thoughts? Feel Free to share!

(On a completely different note, I recently rented the new Rambo movie. If you have 85 minutes to spare and feel like watching so many people get shot that it actually makes you laugh I highly recommend it.)

In an interesting turn of events, Senator McCain’s senior media adviser (the adman), Mark Mckinnon (who was President Bush’s adman in 2000/04) has stepped down as McCain’s advisor because, get this, he “doesn’t want to campaign against Barack Obama.” As a political guy who actually knows who Mark Mckinnon is I must say I’m completely shocked by his apparent desire for, as he put it, “change.”

Mckinnon still plans on being a “cheerleader” for McCain, but he’s not going to actively participate in any campaign strategy against Senator Obama. For what it’s worth, I think Mckinnon is one of the best in the business when it comes to persuading voters through ads and crafting a campaign vision, so this is an incredible blow to the McCain campaign.

I’m quite stunned, what do you think?

Well folks, it’s been about two or three months since I’ve really written anything so I’ll try to be as brief as possible…for I know how distracted y’all get some long rants, so a few quick user friendly thoughts:

Does anyone else think that both Bill and Hillary Clinton have destroyed everything we liked about them during the 90s? They really will do anything to win and they never accept defeat. It’s sad to watch them…it’s like watching American Idol auditions: Sometimes you laugh but most of the time you just feel bad for them then you hate yourself for actually watching it…but hot damn that Simon Cowell is quite the witty Brit. I’m developing a drinking game around American Idol, and it mostly involves guessing what sedative Paula Abdul is currently taking.

Speaking of the Clintons, is anyone else as sick of Terry McCauliffe as I am? He never campaigned as hard for John Kerry in 2004 when he was the freaking Democratic Party Chairman…it makes you wonder about all those Clinton “rule the world” conspiracy theories…someone call Mel Gibson, it’s time to make a movie!

Was anyone else NOT shocked with the startling revelation that voters in West Virginia are *gasp* racist? I mean, why is the Clinton camp so happy with the fact that their voters are racist idiots? Also, if any Democrat thinks they’re actually going to win West Virginia in November then give me some of what they’re smoking. Obama was smart to skip it, just a waste of time.

So, I know you’re all wondering what ole Jake has been up to in his absence right? Well, not a whole lot. I pretty much avoided talking about politics as much as possible…especially after Obama lost Ohio and Texas…that was the last straw. Bartenders remember that night, how bad is that? Other than that, my band just finished recording a new album and it’s being mixed as I type, so that’s cool. My mom visited Seattle and, at the age of 55, finally started her first bar tab…and had I not paid it for her she would’ve walked out on her first bar tab and been 86’d from her first bar. After a 6 month boycott I finally got my hair cut…I was starting to look like a West Virginia voter, but hot damn did my mullet blow in the wind!

That’s all I have for now, but I plan on writing more frequently now that things are finally not boring in the world of Politics…I’m sure McCain will say something that pisses me off in no time. So be prepared for a VP candidate breakdown for both parties, tales from the bars of Seattle, and other tidbits I feel like sharing with the interweb (it’s a series of tubes!)

I just watched Senator John Kerry on Larry King…how come this guy makes a better case for why Obama should be President than any other Obama surrogate?  If Obama wants to win PA, he should enlist Senator Kerry’s help.

Anyone else agree with that?

No Presidential Candidate is going to bring jobs back to Ohio unless they re-develop education and re-educate 50 year old factory workers that have just been laid off.  The only way for new jobs to appear in Ohio is to either a) eliminate NAFTA and global trade or b) invent something new.  No candidate has sponsored either of these.

Ohio is screwed, more so than most states, and I hate to say it because I’m a buckeye and Ohio is my home, but in order for Ohio to find salvation it will take more than a person in the White House…especially when the person who wants the White House only cares about Ohio when Ohio’s primary is next on the calendar.

Tell me, Senators Obama, McCain, and Clinton: In what way are these jobs going to be created? Out of thin air?