Presidential Round Table Discussion

Jeff (The Economist): Heed my words: We're about one week away from the pendulum swinging back to the sympathetic coos of, "Oh, poor Sarah Palin. She is being treated so unfairly." Don't get me wrong--I'm positively GIDDY for the Veep Debate on Thursday. It's going to be like watching the Cowboys host the Bengals. But, once her boat is capsized--and Biden WILL capsize it--everyone's going to strike up the sympathy thing again.

You know what this election cycle is like? It's like mini golf, when you can only get the ball past the Dragon when his mouth is open. The pendulum is going to swing every few weeks, and I just hope on Election Day, it happens to be in the "Sarah Palin Is a Nitwit Don't Feel Bad For Her" position.

Luke (The Christian Science Monitor): The pendulum is a pretty good metaphor. The initial nomination of Palin was super exciting; everybody loves the instant celebrity. Did anyone REALLY know who Usain Bolt was two months ago? But there's a difference between being popular and effective. Palin can still be really popular, but not have the support as a national leader (I just got a chill, by the way). There is such a thing as being popular for being an idiot. But, sticking with the pendulum theory, I think it is far more likely that it keeps swinging the direction it's going.

John: McCain has become Quiet Rage. His inner monologue during the debates seemed to be, "Don't look at the Obama. Don't look at the Obama. The Obama is not there. Keep your eyes off the BLACK MUSLIM. AAAAAAARRRRRGGGGG." Imagine him trying to negotiate with foreign leaders. Well, I suppose he's already said he's not the negotiating kind.

And he must be nervous about the VP debate. Reasonably so. Ever since Couric, I have no doubt Palin has been undergoing boot camp for debating tactics and leadership composure, but is there enough tactic to make Hockey Mom graceful on the podium? Truly, I mean that not as a jab--Palin has been experiencing a whole new world for the past month, and we have plainly seen her thrust out of her element. Governor of Alaska to VP nominee must be a gargantuan sea change.

But the surprise tactics employed by the McCain campaign are annoying.

It makes game-playing more important to them than the next four years, and--worse for them--makes Obama look like he's calmly walking to home plate. It's the desperate nature of the acts that worries me, since it means they could still have yet to unleash the most undignified surprises.

Luke: The Republican ticket is teetering on the edge of being an absolute joke. If Palin doesn't put in a fantastic, educated, learned performance on Thursday, the gates could open up and swallow that ticket whole. She REALLY needs to show us something to change the direction of the national conversation. Ostensibly she had a sense of the questions being asked in those three interviews, who knows what could happen when she doesn't.

Speaking of which. Biden, please, I'm begging you. Be nice, answer the questions directly, and do not engage.

Ryan: Biden reads these things? Hey Joe!

John: I am on the internet!

Seattlest: Would you agree with the notion that Republican candidates are adored by blue-collar workers, whereas Democrats are all painted with the same elitist brush?

Luke: I don't know if that's necessarily the case. The Democrats seem to pull more of the Labor Union crowd.

I think there is a psychological connection between the demographic of blue-collar workers and the hardline foreign policy of the Republican party. It seems like the blue-collar crowd drifts slightly more to the Bush Doctrine mentality. I don't know why that is. Or maybe it's simply the number of blue-collar workers that also happen to live in rural areas where gun ownership is more common. Maybe that's the tie to the Republicans. I don't know, I'm searching for an objective connection, but I might be reaching.

Mark: I'm always puzzled by how easily we've let our political parties define us.

Republican = Big Military, Lower Taxes, Jesus, Trucks & NASCAR & Country Music

Democrat = Peace, The Environment, Human Rights, Lattes, and Sushi

My Dad, a life-long Republican, thought Iraq was a terrible idea, but still couldn't back Kerry in 2004 because it would be like an identity crisis. He was never a devout believer, but it doesn't bother him when Bush tries to push ridiculous religious measures.

I'm a Dem, and I love cappuccinos and sushi, but I don't support gay marriage. I don't support protective tariffs for American steel and auto to protect American jobs, and I like the rodeo.

Still I reluctantly agree to go along with Dems....

Jeff: I think there's a white elephant nobody wants to acknowledge. So I'll be the bad guy and bring it up: Y'ever look at a political map, by education level? If more college professors worked in coal mines, the Republicans wouldn't be the blue-collar party. Oh, now I'm the bad guy for pointing that out?

How hard of a formula is it to figure out for the Democrats: If you want to win, nominate a Southern (aka "blue-collar") Democrat. Clinton, Carter, LBJ. Ever since the breakup of the solid south, this has been the ONLY way Democrats have won. If we lose this year, it's going to be the exact same reason we lost in 2004, 2000, 1988, and 1984. You can't win with a big city Democrat. I don't care that Obama has reached god-like levels in Europe. It doesn't matter that
Gore/Kerry/Obama/Dukakis/Mondale are polling at 90% levels in New York City and Los Angeles; it's not like we get "extra electoral votes." If they're polling at 51%, we get the same number. It's a frackin' game.

The Electoral Vote Game. And the Democrats suck donkey dick at it.

Tom (NPR): It's actually a black elephant.

Luke: So let's get at the root of this: Why the connection between being non-educated and the Republican party? Is it strictly policy? Or do they simply do a better job at creating emotional attachments to issues? We know that they love to have "enemies," they run on "fear"-based platforms. Are they really that short on objective, rational, educated positions?

Jeff: Here is a quote I read in a Salon.com article about what's on the minds of small-town Americans, "[Palin] kinda relates to us common folk...she's got a family, she's got problems."

As opposed to Obama who was engineered in a family-less laboratory and has led a life of luxury and decadence.

This is what really irks me. Isn't "kinda relates to us common folk" sort of code for--"looks like me.", i.e., is white. I don't think it's intentional--but this is just a form of racism. People don't see Obama reflected in themselves. Of course the guy has a family. Of course he has problems. He's had it rougher than Sarah Palin his whole life. But he's black.

"...you're not going to agree with everything, so you've got to overlook a few things."

Like race.

Seattlest: How do you view the heat that McCain is taking over the failed bailout plan earlier this week?

Jeff: I blame the debate. If John McCain had been in Washington, doing the people's work, instead of getting dragged to Mississippi, the bailout failure would have never happened. In fact, had John McCain suspended his campaign in March, as I suggested, Wall Street wouldn't even NEED a bailout. In fact, had John McCain not accidentally stepped on that butterfly in 1977, 9-11 would never have happened.

John: People--and I don't think I can just say Republicans exclusively--love a good ol' boy (Bush) or socker mom (Palin) as their leader, and this is where the whole Dem-elite thing comes from. The psychology seems to be: If I know the person, or could see them running the grill at my community BBQ, then I want them in the most complicated office in our country.

Luke: First off John (commoner), it's SOCCER.

Second off, get a haircut.

John: Attention Luke The Elitist:

First, screw you.

Second, if you'd been paying attention to the new Alaskan commoner's game of 'Socker,' the new combination of soccer and brutal punching, you'd be Vice Presidential timber. But you're not, so go back to your JOB and your STOCKS and your WEALTHY FRIENDS and your EXPENSIVE PARTIES WHERE WOMEN WEAR DIAMOND THONGS AND MEN DON'T EAT and read your NEWSPAPERS WITH TITLES because I have no use for them.

Third, I'll get a haircut.

Luke: Cute little plain John,

First off, it's "TIMBRE."

Second off, everything I have in life I worked for. Except for my amazing body and superior intelligence, those were given to me by Jesus in return for a left fielder and two draft picks to be named later. And no, [Seattlest David] Swidler did not write that joke for me.

Speaking of Swidler, fuck that guy. If I hear "That's not the way they do it in England" one more time, I'm going to puke. I'm going to puke Red, White, and Blue because I ate an American Flag and that's how we do it in America.

Third off, John, this goes way back to 1998, when you wrote that movie about a horse with dyslexia and I told you it was stupid. You never let that go. So fine, let's do it. Let's make that movie. Is that what you want?

DMV - DAY
HORSE: I'm here to renew my license.
AGENT: You can't drive, you're a horse.
HORSE: I have dyslexia
END

John: Timbre? No French-speaking here. USA! USA!

Ryan: Fellas, fellas, relax. You're both douchebags. But I think we can all agree with Luke about one thing, fuck David Swidler. I was (for the 9,000th time) born in The South, and the simple fact that I can love both guns and support gay marriage at the same time (shame on you Siano, you bigoted prick) shows that these moronic simpletons in the "red" states are perfectly capable of thinking for themselves, but they just don't want to.

Gasp! Yes, I said it. Being a racist idiot is a CHOICE.

Ryan: In our hearts, deep down, I think all of us have a little Half Breed Muslin.

Jeff: I call mine Al Quato.

John: Start the reactor...free Mars...I'm curious to know how many of us are intending to watch the VP debates? I skimmed through the Prez debates on YouTube the day after, but I'm quite keen to catch Thursday's spectacle. I become a little ashamed when I acknowledge that I'm eager to watch it not for the policy weighing (I know who I'm voting for in November), but for the Palin Titanic to crash into the Biden Iceberg.

Mark: I think Palin will probably come out of debates OK, the expectations couldn't be any lower.

But yeah, everyone's gonna be tuning in looking for new Palin mockable material.

John: But I want my train wreck! Oh, you're right.

Jeff: I watched the entire Obama-McCain debate. Honestly, I was disappointed in Obama's safe rhetoric. (Jim Lehrer's insistence that the candidates address each other was somewhat amusing...but besides that, yawn.) I realize pundits gave it marginally to Obama by decision, but the fact that I was expecting a HUGE blowout, sort of means in my brain that McCain came out ahead. Similarly, all Palin has to do is be adequate, and people are going to think she won, "Oh well, she didn't stick her foot in her mouth and her answers were safe...that's all she had to do."

Luke: I agree. If she doesn't mess up, she wins. Unfortunately. I think Obama clearly won the debate. My friend Darryl put it perfectly a couple of months ago. "I'm voting for Obama because I like to be talked to like an adult." I think that sentiment was very present in the way each of them handled themselves in the debate.

John: This is irrelevant, but hey.

Seattlest: Thank you for your time.