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The Note: McCain Takes Fight to Obama’s Turf
September 05, 2008 9:05 AM
ABC News' Rick Klein reports in Friday's Note:
ST. PAUL, Minn. --
In honor of these two weeks that brought us two new faces and two unusual conventions, there are only two possible paths out of the Twin Cities:
1. Everything is different. (Palin’s pop + Biden’s bite = Increased enthusiasm / changed perceptions.)
2. Everything is the same. (Bounce - Rebound = Right where we were before.)
The 60-day sprint upon us, the contrasts offered by the compelling candidates and their extraordinary running mates are stark and clear. In an election defined by voters' desire for change, Sen. Barack Obama offers himself up as the embodiment of the possibilities, while Sen. John McCain casts himself as the one who can actually get it done.
“It's almost as if the two contenders are running in different races,” writes USA Today’s Susan Page. “Democrats calculate that the presidential election will turn on bread-and-butter issues. To judge by their speeches at the convention, Republicans are convinced it will be defined by questions of character and trust.”
“Advisers to McCain and Obama foresee the same competitive race, but with some of the battle lines redrawn,” Dan Balz writes in The Washington Post. “It was McCain, through his selection of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate, and an acceptance speech that included challenges to his own party, who clearly sought to shake up the race and force voters to see it from a new angle. Republicans said Thursday that they think the gamble could pay off.”
Read the rest of The Note -- and get all the latest on the 2008 election, Congress, the White House and the wide world of politics every day -- from Rick Klein by bookmarking this link.
Surely the talk of change means something has changed -- unless it hasn’t.
“After watching two political conclaves the last two weeks, it would be easy to be confused about which was really the gathering of the opposition,” Peter Baker writes in The New York Times. “As Sen. John McCain accepted the Republican nomination for president, he and his supporters sounded the call of insurgents seeking to topple the establishment, even though their party heads the establishment. ... But as a matter of history, it is easier to run as the opposition party, if you actually are the opposition party.”
“A generation apart, both are proclaiming themselves agents of change -- each of a different variety,” Patricia Lopez writes in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. “McCain says the change he will bring is the kind born of a lifetime in the trenches, of knowing how reform happens and how hard and incremental it can be.”
As we return to the real world ... it would not be a race -- not this year -- without the mention of a Clinton.
It takes a woman to take on a woman: “Sen. Barack Obama will increasingly lean on prominent Democratic women to undercut Gov. Sarah Palin and Sen. John McCain, dispatching Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton to Florida on Monday and bolstering his plan to deploy female surrogates to battleground states,” per The New York Times’ Patrick Healy and Jeff Zeleny.
(Ceding ground? “David Axelrod, the Obama campaign’s chief political strategist, said Mr. Obama would not raise questions about Ms. Palin’s experience,” they report.)
Just as it would not be a race without the mention of a Bush.
Continue reading today's Note by clicking HERE.
ABC News' Hope Ditto contributed to this report.
September 5, 2008 in Biden, Joe, McCain, John, Obama, Barack, Palin, Sarah, Paul, Ron, Vote 2008: Democrats, Vote 2008: Republicans | Permalink | User Comments (164)
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Please wake me up on November 4th, so I can go vote..OBAMA 08.. I'M GOING BACK TO SLEEP!!...
Posted by: Lawrence | Sep 5, 2008 9:19:03 AM
Obama isn't going to mention Palin's experience anymore. Gee i wonder why??
Posted by: s.b. | Sep 5, 2008 9:19:26 AM
Well last night the big blow of hot air arrived and now on the election of Obama/Biden 2008 and the defeat of Popeye & Olive Oil who it now seems had an affair with her fisherman husbands business partner(true Republican family values)
Posted by: Gomer Pyle USMC | Sep 5, 2008 9:20:09 AM
The hillarious thing is now they are criticising her for giving a good speech written with a speech writer. At least it wasn't a recycled speech of someone else's.
Posted by: s.b. | Sep 5, 2008 9:20:23 AM
s.b. You can't mention what doesn't exist.
Posted by: Gomer Pyle USMC | Sep 5, 2008 9:21:05 AM
s.b. what do the initals stand for (stupid basterd?)
Posted by: Saddlesablazing | Sep 5, 2008 9:22:35 AM
Of course, Obama doesn't want to question Palin's experience. How can you whine about someone else's lack of experience when you have none of your own? BTW, Cindy McCain certainly put Obama in his place last night. She made sure everyone knew that her family started out with nothing, built a business, and lived the American dream. Kind of makes you wonder why Obama would mock the McCain wealth. What does Obama have against living the American dream? My family is Democratic, and we believe in the American dream. We work toward it every day, and we don't expect someone to hand it to us. AND I NEVER ONCE WHINED ABOUT PAYING BACK MY STUDENT LOANS. Hear that, Michelle?
Posted by: Carrie | Sep 5, 2008 9:22:40 AM
Carrie hear this your boy and his new found sex object he's eyeing real close are not going to get elected so all your spinning this and that will be for naught in November.
Posted by: depravedmaniac | Sep 5, 2008 9:25:44 AM
Obama is going to have to hire a few thousand more paid Obama bloggers to argue his case on the internet. He's already hired, at last count, THREE THOUSAND. Wonder where he gets his money? Oh, right. He's collected half a billion - from African Americans and college kids on the Internet.
Posted by: Carrie | Sep 5, 2008 9:27:02 AM
Depravedmaniac - your name says it all. And just keep telling yourself McCain's going to lose. If you say it enough times, you might actually begin to believe it.
Posted by: Carrie | Sep 5, 2008 9:28:41 AM
At this stage of the race ... Kerry was leading by about 6% over Bush before the RNC Convention ... we know the outcome of that race.
Obama should be worried, very worried.
Posted by: McCain/Palin 2008 | Sep 5, 2008 9:29:03 AM
Lots of paid Obama bloggers out in force today. More and more saturation of the Internet in the next 60 days. Fear not, Republicans. Not all Democrats have boarded the Obama train wreck. Lots of us don't trust Obama, and can't stand his mean-spirited wife. The "experts" keep saying all the Hillary supporters will line up behind Obama. I'm one of those Hillary supporters, and so are most of my friends. We know better than that.
Posted by: Carrie | Sep 5, 2008 9:31:09 AM
One does not need any Military experience to be Commander in Chief, since the President is the Civilian Head of the Military and he has full access to the General staff which are at his disposal 24/7/365. What he must have are excellent organizational skills and the ability to delegate work to others as the work of the President is more than anyone person can handle alone. The President wears many hats in his job and Commander in Chief is only one of many and two of our countries finest, Lincoln & Roosevelt, never served a day in this countries military.
Posted by: General Douglas McArthur | Sep 5, 2008 9:31:30 AM
Carrie a bit of Summers Eve might brighten your day LOL.
Posted by: depravedmaniac | Sep 5, 2008 9:32:58 AM
Palin is no fool, even if they try to make her one. Comparing Palin to Dan Quayle, saying even she was worse than Quayle did not sit well with me. Was she worse because she's a woman? Very sexist. Shame on those journalists.
Dan Quayle misspoke and made idiot spelling errors which made his name synonym for being stupid. Nothing warrant such a comparison on Palin. Biden on the other hand, he's goodlooking and he's known to say the wrong thing. Biden is the one you should compare with Quayle.
Highlighting Palin studies and eagerness to travel to different colleges and publishing a picture of Palin from the 80ties, what characterizations are they trying to sell? Everyone has an embarrassing hairstyle from the 80ties and the sexist attacks on Palin are uncalled for. You don't have to be stupid white trash, just because you didn't go to IVY-league top schools. Is media and Obama really this uppity?
Posted by: Sylvia Johnsen | Sep 5, 2008 9:33:32 AM
Lets see Palin's ego is so big she drags her pregnat daughter and boyfriend on stage before the entire nation, how humiliating is that, I felt for them. Now it seems McCains vetting staff may have missed the fact she did the the husbands business partner on the side as well as firing two police officasls for personal family reasons. FYI to all you idiots these facts are coming via people in Alaska who are getting the truth out about Ms Palin.
Posted by: ronnieraygun | Sep 5, 2008 9:38:17 AM
So Obama is relying on his non-running mate Clinton to shore up the women vote?
Posted by: geevill | Sep 5, 2008 9:41:26 AM
Palin claims to be against ear marks yet when she was Mayor of that tiny town in Alaska she flew to Washington to ask for 27 million dollars in ear marks for her town. Now if that being against ear marks pig fly. Fact when she ran for mayor she only received about 1600 votes and Biden in his run for the Democratic nomonation got over 80,000 votes so that also was a lie nice try dip sh*ts no cigar.
Posted by: depravedmaniac | Sep 5, 2008 9:42:46 AM
how about the fact that Rick davis argued against Plain actually doing interviews.
actually answering questions?!!!
the stark differenc eis Palin was gimmick and read someone else's words with the right intonation and has never shown an understanding of the issues we face...
and now McCain is showing his judgment and deicsion and governement will be exactly like Bush Cheney
make a mistake...hide it...call the press unpatriotic and sexist...
all the while covering your tracks and hiding the candidate out the back dorr who can't answer the questions
this person who will need to know the effects if like Cheney in the first year she has to make decisions about shooting down plane fulls of Americans knowing the fdifference between a couple of Sunni passengers, southeast asian terrorist, georgian individuals, etc.
and what will be the effects in southeast asian villages? or in Africa?
or how does that effect negotiations with iran or Russia?
what is our history with China and what effect would shooting down those planes effect historically?
this woman is the worst decision and most brazenly self helping choice...in the history of our country.
and now like Bush Cheney Rumsfeld, Rove
they are going to hide it.
the dark lord is
Posted by: dl | Sep 5, 2008 9:45:08 AM
She's tackled tough problems like energy independence and corruption,"
Energy independence: Palin wants to drill drill drill. Oil is jesus juice in the ground to make our SUVs go, and it's our job to get it out.
Corruption: After trying to tackle corruption for years, Sarah Palin finally feels like she's got a handle on how to be really good at it. Fire anybody who disagrees with you, and once you have the federal money you never give it back.
Posted by: killthewolves | Sep 5, 2008 9:45:19 AM
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