Right now, a lot of people are scared, and there are plenty of reasons why. The question is what this fear has motivated us to do and how certain people are using it to achieve their own ends.

The responses to these challenges have run the gamut. Some point to our new charismatic leader as the beginning of the “change we need.” Others suggest clinging to traditional political or economic philosophies, from Reagan to FDR, Friedman to Marx. Others claim that the differences are too great, and that the Union is no longer worth saving.

The measure of a nation is its ability to innovate. When a country stops creating it dies. This is not limited to commerce or science. It is a political and economic matter as well. History does not repeat, it varies on common themes and precludes common responses.

But the premises that some are adopting, of dissolution or blind allegiance described as “post partisanship,” is unwise. Our union is cantankerous and disagreeable. But it is through our disputes and our compromises that we find our strength. No side of the political spectrum is right all of the time, and it is through conflict that we avoid bipartisan mistakes.

It is with this in mind that we have to turn to the official beginning of the Obama administration; the stimulus bill. It is representative of the stalest type of thinking. Keynesian economic theory is nothing but a justification for the argument that if you can’t work your way out, buy your way out. Government spending to “beef up” GDP is nothing more than a cheap parlor trick to scam the masses, much like dishonest CEOs used accounting rules to bump up earnings. These would be the same CEOs that President Obama railed against as a candidate, and still vilifies today.

But even if I were a staunch Keynesian, this bill represents a type of political cowardice that makes its passage unpalatable. There are plenty of provisions within that are stimulus related. I have nothing against those provisions. Granted I would not necessarily vote for them, but those provisions belong in such a bill.

However there are other provisions which are included, not because of their potential to stimulate the economy, but because these programs will be easier to pass while hidden in a “needed bill.” Because time is limited, there will be less debate than would otherwise be generated if the provisions stood alone. One initiative I find especially repugnant deals with health care.

Contained within the stimulus bill is an initiative to create a unified electronic system for the transfer of medical records. While seemingly innocuous on its face, the bill makes participation mandatory with fines being assessed for those who refuse to join. The privacy concerns involved for those who do not want to participate are deemed irrelevant by the party that is supposedly privacy’s champion. Further, the initiative also creates the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology, which will assess a doctor’s treatment to make sure it is “efficient and effective.” Essentially, it creates a Big Brother for doctors in determining how to treat people. It has all the worst traits of socialized medicine, without the benefits.

Instead of having the courage to separate these more controversial provisions from the stimulus, and permitting the debate that these proposals deserve, President Obama hides the ball and then calls those that would oppose him foolish and mean spirited for holding up needed aid to America’s most desperate citizens. I call that politics as usual.

President Obama ran on a promise that he would elevate public discourse, change how politics is done in Washington, and then challenged us to do what is hard and right as opposed to the expedient and insubstantial. This is a promise and a challenge that did not even last 30 days. Not only did President Obama fail to achieve these goals in his first major piece legislation, he took the opposite approach and revealed himself to be just another politician. Those that would throw on the brakes in an attempt to form a better bill, to point out these distinctions, are drowned out by those that are paralyzed by fear or by those that would capitalize on other’s fear. Either way, legislation that should at the very least be highly scrutinized is being fast tracked merely so people can believe that “something is being done.”

One president told us that there is nothing to fear but fear itself. Our current president wants to use fear to achieve his own ends. By allowing President Obama to dictate the agenda by playing on our fears, we sacrifice any semblance of personal autonomy. President Obama should either stop lecturing about sacrifice, courage and innovative thinking or start living it. Either way, it is time for a change.

Editor’s Note: George Will came out with a column today playing with the Fear Itself quote, and talking about the stimulus package. I considered not posting this, but hell, I wrote it before Will posted his stuff, and I bring the cowardly comment, so screw it.

The Fed lowered its rate to 0% as part of the government’s continued plan to bastardize Friedman and Keynes to sacrifice long-term stability for short-term gains, and come up with a whole new way to screw up the economy. The market, with its scared and biased traders, rose 396 points today because that is what you do when the interest rates drop.

This allows us to arrive at the first lesson that I have gleaned from these few months. It has long been held that no one party, no one person can control a market. The information is diffused and individuals too concentrated to actually control. This was what the failure of socialism taught us. However, the market can be swayed and controlled through ideas, specific ideas that permeate the market. When they are good ideas, this is a good thing. When they are bad ideas, as the current market has shown us, it is catastrophic.

Free money means more money, and more money means inflation. A lot of inflation. The market may go up, but the market is denominated in dollars, so any “growth” that we will see will be effectively nothing. We are essentially adopting the Chinese model, which is premised on throw money at everything that the government feels is important, and hope that enough “stick” to make up for the incredible waste of government resources. This is a process that I have criticized in the past, but at the least the Chinese have a populace that are net savers and have a hard time spending due to their peg. For the United States, with their debtor citizenry, this is an even worse idea.

I was disheartened, although not surprised, to see President Elect’s choices for economic advisors. The Agent of Change picked the Stalwarts of the Status Quo and the Architects of the Bailout that Wasn’t. Being condemned to follow what has been done is no surer way to kill the economy, both here and abroad.

This is not a political question; it is a generational one. The progeny of the Greatest Generation may be condemned to being the worst. The turning points of our recent history will not be the election of Obama, as much as certain parties want it to be. It corresponds to the rise and fall of the interest rate the Dow Jones. The great events of history do not begin with a leader, it begins with poverty. These events are going to cause a hell of a lot of poverty.

Tom has foresworn, at least temporarily, his tendency to make dire predictions. I will pick up where he left off. The inflation that will result from this will more than offset any market gains created by the lower interest rates. All the political stuff that is enrapturing the general public will not be as important as they think. The credit market will not improve until the fundamental flaws are corrected, because even free money is not enough to clear the fear in the markets. And finally, there is going to be a drastic reorganization of the American workplace that will be painful and expensive. And delaying the obvious adjustment that will have to be made is just going to make it worse in the long run.

As a means of providing context, here are some songs from the last time the Dow was at this point.  Songs that I find to have some particular significance in this particular economy.

Mo Money. Mo Problems.

Tubthumping

Is this a crisis? You betcha. But as is generally the case it is looking more and more like the cure will be more deadly than the disease.

It has been suggested that if the United States just nationalize the banks by buying a shares in an effort to “fix” the banks and to instill confidence in the banks, much like Buffet has done in the past. Josh referred to an idea a while back in another post.

This is a horrible idea and I attribute the widespread economist support to hysteria and overreaction. It comes down to a basic reality; a government entity bears little to no similarity to a common place investor. Whereas an ordinary investor has finite resources and time which she uses to profit, the government arguably has infinite resources, has a much better survival rate, and its main purpose is not profit. So thinking that the government could “act” like a common investor is ridiculous.

The next question is whether this would necessarily be a bad thing. After all, capitalists are bastards and government is good. Except we have already tried a variation of that strategy: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

An organization that existed with the government’s approval and oversight, but supposedly without its funding or the benefit “guaranteeing” its loans, it was an organization dedicated to creating a secondary market for loans with the hope of lowering the cost of borrowing money to expand home ownership. That would have been great, except for the government’s excessive exuberance in pursuing that goal contributed to the government adopting a ton of loans that defaulted. While there was a statutory disclaimer that the government would not guarantee those loans, Congress ultimately did bail out Fannie and Freddie, which had the same practical effect as a guarantee.

While the preferred shares the government will get would technically prevent the government from having an active management shares, the government’s past history and all of the contractual requirements placed on banks for accepting this money reveals that this distinction is a mirage at best. The government is getting its hand in not only regulating, but in managing banks. This will lead to the nation’s banks having a Fannie/Freddie like crisis in a few years.

An inflow of cash through governmental investment could conceivably stabilize the market in the short term (1-5 years). What is driving the precipitous drop in the market, similar to the Depression, is the slow down in the capital market. No capital, no expansion, no jobs, etc., and thus the connection to the fear of a widespread recession. More money infused into the banks would open up the credit markets, and voila, disaster is stymied.

But what happens during the next crisis, when the fundamental issues are still there, undiagnosed and unfixed? Only now, the government has less economic resources, a further depleted workforce due to boomer retirement, and increased burdens stemming from its social welfare services. The government will be in a much more difficult place to do anything to combat the problem then, and will probably fall back on the tired platitudes and half baked Hail Marys. Whereas now we are in a position to avoid a Depression but fix the inherent problems, in a couple years we won’t be that lucky.

However, I do not think nationalization of banks will fix the economy even in the short run under the idea of “too little, too late.” If a government is going to intervene, especially in matters of confidence, it needs to do so quickly and effectively. The world wide response has been neither.

While the nations’ governments have recently promised money and there was significant growth in the stock market, the one did not necessarily cause the other. Two weeks ago was one of the worst weeks for the global economy ever. After such a steep drop, the mere absence of bad news would be enough to cause the markets to rebound. Add in that the governments did do something and stated a big number (granted without a lot of details), and the markets were due for a rise. I don’t think it will last long term. And today was another pull back.

So short term prediction is this, and it is something we are already starting to see. Given the world market’s voracious appetite for American debt and their enabling attitude, the world market is going to have hard hit recession (hardly a shocker). Unfortunately for us, world investors will back out of the emerging markets because emerging markets are not trusted, driving the dollar up in value. So now we have to pay off our debts using more expensive dollars and exports go down, exacerbating unemployment while minimizing inflation. The stereotypical response, decreasing interest rates, won’t help, because people are so petrified of the debt system and don’t trust it that loans won’t go out at the rate we need and unemployment and decreased production will persist. Given that the stock market grew based on playing popular perception as opposed to market fundamentals, the exacerbated growth of the 90s and early 2000s, will be met with exacerbated drops based on hysteria.

The interesting things to watch will be to see how Europe responds, given their fragmented economic system (one central bank, many treasury departments, many different views on how to do things with mirrored circumstances to the US). Will this be a serious blow the Union? Will investors break the “playing the table” strategy and start playing their cards? And will the United States begin to address the fundamental problems, or merely stick with the well known platitudes that make great copy, but crappy solutions?

Most people I told this to either laughed at me or told me to “put my money where my mouth was.” That was rather hard to do as a guy just starting out, making a comfortable amount of money but not nearly enough to justify placing a bet by short selling an index.

There has been a lot of articles written about how the current economic environment came to pass, most of which were highly colored by the author’s political predilection. If you were a liberal you screamed about lack of governmental oversight, despite the fact that it was democrats who prevented the creation of new oversight organizations for Fannie and Freddie in the name of protecting “affordable mortgages.” If you were a conservative, you explained that the fundamentals were sound and we needed more tax cuts, although empirical evidence suggests that the tax cuts did not pay for themselves and conservatives failed to match those tax cuts with spending cuts as promised, exacerbating the debt level.

This current environment was born in the 1980s, after the last significant economic crisis, and was cultivated during the 90s during our economic apex. It is the curse of Gordon Gekko coming to settle accounts now. For far too long, both government and citizens have abandoned fiscal responsibility in exchange for shiny objects. So long as the economy kept rolling, no one wanted to look behind the curtain.

The current bailout is the bastard child of Keynsian economics, which allowed us our justification of deficit spending, and the Chicago School, which tells us the Fed is evil and government should get out of the way. The bailout in, its entirety, is meant to prevent another depression and uses the lessons we learned in the last. Keynes taught us that a government should deficit spend to protect jobs, so we are doing that. And Friedman taught us that the government’s influence during the depression contracted credit market which exacerbated it, so instead the government is acting to expand those markets. Combine that with talk of punitive measures as opposed to considering effective preventative regulations, and you have a typical heavy handed governmental instrument trying to regulate the economy.

So as a result, we have this abomination of a bailout. I cannot really blame the government for it, as the people’s demand for safety and desire for punishment of the perceived guilty is insatiable. As a republic, it is Congress’ job to give the people what they want. However, it is a Hail Mary pass in the dark. Who knows if it will work?

The crisis has been good for disabusing popular conceptions, at least if one pays attention. There is one notion in particular that people need to be disabused of: that the world economy, particularly China, has moved beyond the United States. While China has been talking a big game about “not helping out the US,” at least one fifth of their currency reserves are denominated in Fannie and Freddie Mac bonds. That was probably an oopsie on their part. All of Asia’s and Europe’s markets took a big hit and it appears that their own banks are facing large burdens, so Europe is beginning to push its own bailouts. In my own mind, it probably represents the first true, significant economic test for the Euro. We are already seeing the Euro drop precipitously against the dollar, and according to the geniuses on CNBC it should drop further. This is due to missteps by the European Central Bank which is exacerbating the crisis in the EU zone, and hurting Asia. As a result, despite the crisis in the US, it is the dollar that is becoming the global safe haven.

As a result of this high priced government intervention, the majority of the big ticket presidential campaign promises are probably not going to happen, at least not in the near future. No matter who is elected, look for stiff cuts in spending.

Now that I have provided the whiff of brimstone, here comes the glimpse of light.

We have learned from prior economic recessions and the Depression. One of the major issues that contributed to the Depression was run on the banks because people feared their money wouldn’t be available and currency concerns based on a fear of a sudden revaluing of the dollar in comparison to gold. By insuring deposits and decoupling the dollar from gold, the risk of a run has significantly decreased. Further, during the Depression the US and other nations closed off their trade to bolster national production. We now know that this does not work and will not make the same mistake twice. Granted this allows us to make a whole new range of mistakes, but you have to start from somewhere.

This is going to be harsh, but it is highly unlikely we are going to have soup lines on every corner and I don’t plan on practicing my sales pitch for pencils. While McCain’s “fundamentals” comment lacked sophistication and nuance, it was not entirely wrong. The same infrastructure and work force from the 1990s is still in place now, and in some respects it is even better. Our workforce and infrastructure will prevent us from toppling into a third world economy, as some have direly predicted.

While many believe that this crisis, combined with the Iraq War, and the American decline in influence (whatever the hell that means), represents the beginning of the fall of the United States, I do not believe that is necessarily the case. As noted in the Globe and Mail by Marcus Gee, this is hardly the worst of times for the United States. We have bounced back from worse. You think Iraq and the market is bad? Mainland China going communist was bad. Korea was bad. Vietnam was worse. Having run away inflation and unemployment at the same time was mind boggling.

That being said, it is not a sure thing. Absent significant steps to change the underlying issues that caused the problem, excessive debt on all level and poor regulation, we are just setting ourselves up for another comparable economic downturn in two decades. While a business cycle is a necessary evil, it can at least be mitigated to some extent by taking simple, common sense steps. If these issues are not addressed, all the bailouts in the world will not help.

Game 1: Derek Lowe (14-11, 3.24 ERA) vs. Ryan Dempster (17-6, 2.96 ERA)

Derek Lowe has a 4.42 ERA on the Road, and opposing batting averages is .251 vs. lefties and .240 against righties. So look for Fukudome and Edmonds to start, especially with DeRosa having a sore leg. Lowe has 45 BB to 147 SO, so it looks like he will tend to throw a lot of pitches. This is a guy who can be worked to knock him out of the game early to get to the Dodger bullpen, and set up the next game.

Ryan Dempster has defended his house. .243 against lefties, .213 against righties. The Dodgers have have decent lefties in Eithier and Loney. Dempster has a 2.86 at home, so he is pretty consistent. Uncle Lou is putting up his best home pitcher to start the series so look for them to start strong.

Game 2: Chad Billingsley (16-10, 3.14) vs. Carlos Zambrano (14-6, 3.91)

Another righty, Billingsley has a .274 opp ba against lefties (.225 against righties), so maybe we’ll see some pinch hitting by Fontenot. He is 3.33 on the road with 58 walks from 59 strikeouts. Cubs can generate some walks against this guy. Patience is going to be a virtue, with Edmonds and Fukudome probably playing again due to their lefty bats.

Zambrano is Zambrano. A 3.77 ERA at home (3.18 ERA at night), this is a great place for him to pitch. We hope that the playoffs and the emotion of Wrigley will allow him to be in control as opposed to him getting freaked out. The person who will be the most responsible for keeping Zambrano in line is Rookie of the Year Geovany Soto, who has been handling this pitching staff well all summer. If he can keep Zambrano dialed in, look out.

Game 3: Hiroki Kuroda (9-10, 3.84 ERA) vs. Dick Harden (10-2, 2.07)

Hiroki Kuroda is the weak link of their three man rotation based on the numbers. Another righty, look for the Edmonds and Fukudome to play again. ERA at home is 3.68 with opp BA is .264 for lefties, .250 for righties. 42 BB, 113 SO, should throw a lot of pitches, another opportunity to get to the bulllpen early. However, after Kuroda allowed just two hits over five scoreless innings today, that makes eleven straight starts in which he hasn’t allowed more than four earned runs. Over those eleven starts his ERA is just 2.58, and he’s LA’s third starter at best. How many teams would kill for a first starter with those numbers? Granted, those starts were against Pittsburg, San Diego, and San Francisco, who were hardly offensive juggernauts, so we’ll see.

Dick Harden is the man. 2.50 ERA on the road, with a .198/.168 for opp BA, lefty/righty. His issue is throwing a lot of pitches and getting rest between games. Don’t anticipate that being an issue this game or going forward, given how much rest he will get due to the four man rotation and the days off for travel between games.

Game 4. Lowe vs. Charles Manson I mean Ted Lilly (17-9, 4.09 ERA)

Lowe is much better at home, with a 2.50 ERA. Still a righty.

Ted Lilly eats babies. And then he comes to the ballpark. His 4.09 reflects a slow start; he is 3.52 in the last 10 starts. He pitches better on the road (3.77 ERA vs. 4.50). He devours righties with a .219 right opp BA, vs. a .309 against lefties, so Ethier and Loney will have to be treated with care.

PITCHING STAFF ANALYSIS FOR DODGERS: The big news is that Kuo, one of their better relievers, will be out for the series, which is nice. The most likely remaining eight are Takashi Saito (2.49), Jonathan Broxton (3.13), Joe Beimel (2.03), Cory Wade (2.15), Chan Ho Park (3.23), Scott Proctor (6.05), Greg Maddux (4.22) and Clayton Kershaw (4.30). Their lead guys are pretty scary, but if we get to the bullpen early, we might be able to rope a dope these guys. Also, the Dodgers played the majority of their games against a few of worst producing teams in the majors, so those numbers might be a little deceiving.

PITCHING STAFF ANALYSIS FOR CUBS: Obviously the hub of this staff is Wood (3.26) and Marmol (2.68). If our starters can go 7 innings, we feel comfortable. After Wood and Marmol, we got lefty Marshall (3.86), lefty Cotts (4.29), Wuertz (3.63), Samardijia (our preferred 7th inning guy probably at 2.28), Marquis (4.53), and either Howry (5+) or Gaudin (4.40). So I would like to think overall we would have the advantage on paper pitching wise, but who knows.

COMPARATIVE OFFENSES We scored 855 runs to their 700 runs. So one would think that we are the more productive team, but Manny does change the complexion of the team. They have been scoring around 5-7 runs per game, against relatively decent pitching. So there is that.

INJURIES: As I mentioned, Kuo is out, which is a big deal. Soto and DeRosa haven’t played recently but Uncle Lou has explicitly stated that Soto’s injury is not that bad, and DeRosa’s probably isn’t, but they are just playing it safe. Either way, I think the Cubs, due to them clinching early, will be going into the playoffs as healthy as they can possibly be, probably in much better physical shape than any of their NL opponents. All catchers get beat up during the season, and Soto has got to be the freshest of the starters given the rest.

SUMMATION: Anything can happen in the playoffs, and the regular season don’t mean squat. But on paper, one would think the Cubs would have the advantage. We’ll see. Long story short, we shouldn’t look past this team. On paper, we are better, but this is the playoffs.

This should have been a moment not to win one election, but to firmly establish the Democrats as the dominant party for at least a decade. The Republican base was disillusioned, disheartened, and disinterested in this election. No one gets excited about a blow out.

Up to this point, while Barack Obama might have claimed to be an agent of change, the true Agent that led to the brink of a democratic renaissance was George W. Bush. Say what you will about John McCain’s acceptance speech, he was correct in his assessment when he said that the Republican Party pursued power over principles and alienated their base. George W. Bush was not responsible for all of this, but he is the face of the conservative movement of the past decade. In his ability to mobilize the Democrats and compel people to reassess liberal principles, President Bush was the agent of change.

But at that point where Senator Obama should have stomped on the collective throats of the Republicans and finished President Bush’s job, he slipped on the figurative banana peel. It was then that he began to live up to his moniker of agent of change. Just for the wrong people. He was an agent of change for the Republican Party.

Senator Obama started playing it safe. For a man whose candidacy was built on audacity and boldness, this was the worst thing he could do. I will not criticize the Senator for not picking Senator Clinton as his running mate; in many ways I want to shake his hand and buy him a drink. There were a lot of reasons not to do so. However, by succumbing to pressure to pick Senator Biden as opposed to a younger choice like Governor Kaine, Senator Obama began to sell out his message.

Senator Obama continued to do this with his convention speech, where he dialed back the oratory and ramped up the attacks and the stale ideas. While some of the more slavish followers might believe that Senator Obama’s performance was great, the memories of speeches past made it look pale and weak. While I have it on good authority that those in the convention found the speech very inspiring, I doubt whether it played as well to those 40 million plus that watched it at home.

Senator Obama’s choices opened the door for Senator McCain and Governor Palin. I will not recap my thoughts on those choices as they have been summarized on this site earlier. However, Senator Obama’s choices have allowed Senator McCain to make moves to revitalize the base, distance the party from President Bush, and transition the party from the Republican Revolution of 1994 to the next stage in its evolution.

If Senator Obama loses this election it will be because of his screwups. The latest gaffe, his “pig with lipstick” comment, I think will hurt Senator Obama due to his platform of being “above it all.” Combine that with the deliberate care he uses when choosing his words, and Senator Obama doesn’t even have the excuse of “I just chose the wrong words.” While hardly a crushing blow, it is just one more misstep, in a campaign where mistakes are accumulating to a dangerous level for him.

Win or lose, Senator Obama has already lost the larger political struggle by not blowing out the Republican base. In 2010 and forward, the Dems are going to have to face a stronger, more unified Republican party than they would have had to if Senator Obama had done his job right. And in that, Senator Obama and President Bush bear a strong resemblance in their roles of agents of change.

Soaring oratory. Biting and pithy. Eloquent. A straight up partisan speech. Humorous. A perfect speech.

To me, this is not necessarily a bad thing.

Here is what McCain’s speech was; a good speech where he achieved his goals and provided a good foundation for the next two months. His goals were the following; to divorce himself from George Bush and the failures of the Republican Party and provide a narrative that is not just “I was a POW.”

Halfway through the speech John McCain confessed to the failures of the Republican Party and sought to distance himself from it. “I fight to restore the pride and principles of our party. We were elected to change Washington, and we let Washington change us. We lost the trust of the American people when some Republicans gave in to the temptations of corruption. We lost their trust when rather than reform government, both parties made it bigger. We lost their trust when instead of freeing ourselves from a dangerous dependence on foreign oil, both parties and Senator Obama passed another corporate welfare bill for oil companies. We lost their trust, when we valued our power over our principles.”

This was greeted with dead silence by the convention and was a decisive break from the party. Even Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann saw it as such, so it is ludicrous to think that Senator McCain “lacked the guts” to break from the party.

As for adding in the “policy” issues after his concluding story, I think this demonstrates why Brian won’t be a political speech writer anytime soon. The point of the story was to describe his evolution from a me-first young kid to a country first individual. You do not clutter up the message by tacking on some heavy handed policy positions. I think he effectively told a story that described his theme of country first, explained his personal connection to that theme, and conveyed it effectively. Yeah, it was a POW story again, but when you have an event like that, that is that important in your development, it bears repeating. It wasn’t just repeating “I was a POW,” but it described how he was broken and vulnerable and a lot of the less pleasant aspects of his imprisonment.

As for people like Brian being bored, I am not overly concerned because he isn’t indicative of the target audience. Brian prefers the high flying oratory of Senator Obama, and Senator McCain didn’t try to do that. Besides, Brian is dedicated to Senator Obama, so there is nothing McCain could have said that would have impressed him. This deliberate decision to not attempt eloquent oratory is a good thing, because any attempt to do that would be a pale imitation and make Senator McCain look desperate.

Instead Senator McCain tried to have a conversation with the American people. Those that were disinclined to listen because they already decided who they were going to vote for probably found the speech boring because Senator McCain didn’t grab their attention. Those that were interested in what he had to say because they were undecided probably found it a bit dry, but thought there was more content in it. I find it unlikely that the speech made up the independents collective mind, but I think it provided inroads for them to listen to Senator McCain more down the road.

Anyway, time will tell. I think the bounces will cancel each other out and at the end of the day (that day being Tuesday or so, once all the tracking polls cycle through), the race will still be close, if not a statistical tie. Everyone will pause and catch their breath and wait until the end of the month. All these conventions will do is hype up the excitement and attention that this election will garner; something I thought before the elections was impossible.

Stay tuned.

Soaring oratory. Biting and pithy. Eloquent. A straight up partisan speech. Humorous. A perfect speech.

To me, this is not necessarily a bad thing.

Here is what McCain’s speech was; a good speech where he achieved his goals and provided a good foundation for the next two months. His goals were the following; to divorce himself from George Bush and the failures of the Republican Party and provide a narrative that is not just “I was a POW.”

Halfway through the speech John McCain confessed to the failures of the Republican Party and sought to distance himself from it. “I fight to restore the pride and principles of our party. We were elected to change Washington, and we let Washington change us. We lost the trust of the American people when some Republicans gave in to the temptations of corruption. We lost their trust when rather than reform government, both parties made it bigger. We lost their trust when instead of freeing ourselves from a dangerous dependence on foreign oil, both parties and Senator Obama passed another corporate welfare bill for oil companies. We lost their trust, when we valued our power over our principles.”

This was greeted with dead silence by the convention and was a decisive break from the party. Even Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann saw it as such, so it is ludicrous to think that Senator McCain “lacked the guts” to break from the party.

As for adding in the “policy” issues after his concluding story, I think this demonstrates why Brian won’t be a political speech writer anytime soon. The point of the story was to describe his evolution from a me-first young kid to a country first individual. You do not clutter up the message by tacking on some heavy handed policy positions. I think he effectively told a story that described his theme of country first, explained his personal connection to that theme, and conveyed it effectively. Yeah, it was a POW story again, but when you have an event like that, that is that important in your development, it bears repeating. It wasn’t just repeating “I was a POW,” but it described how he was broken and vulnerable and a lot of the less pleasant aspects of his imprisonment.

As for people like Brian being bored, I am not overly concerned because he isn’t indicative of the target audience. Brian prefers the high flying oratory of Senator Obama, and Senator McCain didn’t try to do that. Besides, Brian is dedicated to Senator Obama, so there is nothing McCain could have said that would have impressed him. This deliberate decision to not attempt eloquent oratory is a good thing, because any attempt to do that would be a pale imitation and make Senator McCain look desperate.

Instead Senator McCain tried to have a conversation with the American people. Those that were disinclined to listen because they already decided who they were going to vote for probably found the speech boring because Senator McCain didn’t grab their attention. Those that were interested in what he had to say because they were undecided probably found it a bit dry, but thought there was more content in it. I find it unlikely that the speech made up the independents collective mind, but I think it provided inroads for them to listen to Senator McCain more down the road.

Anyway, time will tell. I think the bounces will cancel each other out and at the end of the day (that day being Tuesday or so, once all the tracking polls cycle through), the race will still be close, if not a statistical tie. Everyone will pause and catch their breath and wait until the end of the month. All these conventions will do is hype up the excitement and attention that this election will garner; something I thought before the elections was impossible.

Stay tuned.

While not delivering a knock out, Governor Palin delivered some serious body blows and bloodied the nose of the Democratic presidential nominee. And the thing of it is, a significant portion of the damage was caused by serious mismanagement by the Obama campaign.

The days since the VP announcement have not been kind to the McCain/Palin ticket. The stance taken by the Democrats had taken was this; Sarah Palin is not a serious candidate. She is a cynical choice and does not have the chops to work at this level. She doesn’t know what she is doing, and she cannot and will not build in roads to women because she is prolife. This will ultimately backfire and she will wilt.

Now in the Dems defense, the bar was set almost absurdly low for Governor Palin going into the speech due to over enthusiasm by the Left. But that is their fault for over pursuing, not Governor Palin.

Objectively, Governor Palin gave a very good speech in terms of delivery and rhetoric. The content was neither surprising or off topic. Governor Palin showed she was a team player by not straying. She was Senator McCain’s running mate and stuck to his message and played the role of pitbull well.

And what a pitbull she was. Again, the tactics and arguments she provided were not new. But the delivery of and the genuine character of the candidate evident during the speech made those arguments land in such a way that Senator Clinton and Senator McCain could not match. She was funny and delivered the blows with a smile. She had memorable lines (mayor is community organizers with responsibilities, promising change to promote career vs. career to promote change, when Reid said he can’t stand McCain he meant can’t stand up to, etc.) She took it to Obama and reminded the audience of all the reasons that they were starting to fall out of love with Obama.

Governor Palin was not all about just ripping Senator Obama and the Democratic Party. She reestablished her roots, her connection with rural America, and interestingly, her commitment in pushing for a better world for special interest children. She began to flesh out as a candidate.

Also, I thought it was a nice tactic to link the media with the old boy network in Washington. I think she did that quite effectively. If effective, any further attacks by the media is seen as a ploy by the establishment who fears the maverick ticket of McCain/Palin. This is especially effective given that 49% of people believe that the media is actively trying to help Senator Obama win.

After the speech I turned on MSNBC, which is probably the closest thing we have to Pravda here in the United States. I watch MSNBC because it gives me a better read on what the Democrats are thinking than anything else. Also, that station was more likely to give serious criticism to Palin than anyone else. (The other stations I flipped through were pretty positive about the speech, although George S. on ABC said it could be considered shrill, but even that sounded half hearted).

The official response from the Obama/Biden ticket was announced, but it was pretty much the same old tired line of McCain=Bush, and not a whole lot about Governor Palin. It is still early, but it showed she didn’t make any immediate overwhelming gaffes that anyone could capitalize on.

Buchanan went over the top in the praise, but that is negligible because his role is to be the sole GOP cheerleader and so he has to be positive.

Matthews said the speech was very well done. Olbermann struggled and came up with three criticisms. 1) She announced when her son was deploying which might be against Army regs, but then said that the date she revealed was the deployment ceremony and not actual deployment, but it could be against the law, but he didn’t know. Well, ok, sure. But that sounds like a reach if she just announced when the ceremony was, which sounds like a public event. 2) The community organizer crack might offend some people. Probably will, but I hardly think its going to be that big of a ripple. 3) Was a comment that she was sarcastic and could be considered “elitist” as a result. Although how that works since she spent most of the time emphasizing her humble roots and accusing Obama of elitism is a tad difficult to follow.

I then watched some Larry King who had on all Democrats who pretty much said she was not explicit enough about her view of America, that she did not have a plan, and was just “fear mongering.”

But no one, no one, no one, questioned her ability any more. No one questioned her ability and referred to her as pandering. Sarah Palin stepped up and showed that she was for real at least tonight. While the arguments that she is not ready will persist for the rest of the campaign, those complaints have lost their luster and will fade to the background barring a major gaffe by her later on. In addition, she has put the heat back on Obama, dragging him back into the spot light to answer questions to which there are no easy answers (George S. line, not mine). For this and this alone, the first round goes to the Republican ticket.

Now, please note, this does not mean that I am predicting a Republican win. It is still early and there are a lot of things that can go wrong on either side. However I think it is a much closer race this morning than it was yesterday.

In conclusion, Governor Palin has set the table for Senator McCain. McCain has to answer and provide a concrete and clear vision of a McCain presidency. He must do several things tonight. First he must not fall into the trap of trying to match the drama that was Governor Palin’s speech last night, or trying to use the soaring rhetoric that is Senator Obama’s wheelhouse. Trying to be something you are not is not going to work. Governor Palin showed being genuine gets you much farther than thesaurus does.

Second, do not be baited into giving a dense, complicated, detail oriented speech. The debates are for details, the convention has to be about the candidate. Sell the vision, and give the broad strokes of the plan, but don’t bog down the speech with the details.

Finally, McCain just has to give a very good speech. McCain has to match Palin’s speech tonight, but he needs to scale back the commentary on Senator Obama and instead focus on his ideas.