Obama Bull

The title refers both to Obma's empty victory speech last night, and to the mainstream media reaction to the Obama victory.

I made the mistake of looking at Fox News (huge part of the manstream media problem, and no part of the solution--not worth watching) after the Obama victory had become clear, and McCain had conceded. I never heard such bull in my life. I can only imagine it was worse on the blatantly leftist networks.

There was all of this talk about Obama governing from the "center". Gag. Read last night's entry for the ocrrect slant that Fox News, and establishment Republicans, will not give you. Mark my words (to quote Joe Biden): This will be the most leftist government ever elected in this country. Now the mainstream media view (not quite yet the Fox News view, but they are getting there) view of the "center" of this country is what used to be regarded as the extreme left. That is what Obama tried to do in his empty speech and the election: to define the center as where he is, where extreme leftist policy is fine so long as it is accompanied by non-leftist words.

I kept gagging as all of these people described how "brilliant" the Obama campaign had been, and began distorting the reasons for the McCain defeat. I flashed back to a CSPAN pre-election talk I had heard a few weeks ago, where the speaker accurately predicted that the campaign of the winner of this election would be over-praised, while the campaign of the loser would be over-criticized. While that may be human nature, it sure is Hell on the gag reflex. Consider these factors:

1. The President, Republicans, the mainstream media, leftist Democrats, and McCain all agreed that this was the worst economic mess since the Great Depression (probably not true, with the panic those very same people caused being mainly responsible for how close to true it may have become). McCain never made the case (there to be made) that the economic mess was mainly created by Democrats, and their central planning, leftist idea that everyone should have a house--whether able to afford it or not. Republicans, including McCain, seemed to almost accept the idea that they would be blamed for the economy. This pretty much doomed McCain, no matter how badly Obama ran his campaign. The Obama campaign was not, in fact, particularly effective, in light of this advantage, other than Obama avoided a truly huge error. Remember, that stiff, John Kerry, with his "terrible" (over-criticized?) campaign, almost won the Presidency in a good economy--albeit a worse Iraq War. John Kerry would have won this election. Hillary Clinton would have won it by 10 to 15%, instead of 5 to 6%.

2. Obama was facing a candidate (McCain) who seemed to be talking a foreign language when he talked about the economy. Once foreign policy was effectively off of the table (see item 1), McCain seemed to almost concede defeat. His only coherent message was provided by Joe the Plumber, at the end, as McCain had no real message. It is sad when a plumber articulates the anti-Obama, pro-conservative position on the economy better than the Republican candidate.

3. The entire mainstream media was campaigning for Obama--refusing to scrutinize him and covering up the mistakes Obama and Biden made.

4. McCain gave three lackluster debate performances, and never seemed to really believe he would win.

5. Once foreign policy was "off the table", McCain had no real issue--being unable to really pursue the normal conservative issues because McCain is not really a conservative.

6. McCain is not a very good speaker.

7. McCain (and this is a big one), because of both the Republican down cycle/defeatism and McCain's own choice to stand by his promise on public financing, even as Obama violated his promise, was outspent 2 to 1. That alone would have won John Kerry and Al Gore their respective elections.

8. Because of his self-imposed "restraint", McCain let Obama get away with actual lies about McCain (Medicare, taxing healthcare benefits, etc.), even while Obama was calling his opponents liars (with less reason than McCain would have had to call Obama a liar).

With all of the above, just how bad did Obama's campaign have to be to only win by the margin by which he won? By no means was it a "brilliant" campaign. The best that can be said, as stated, is that Obama did nothing to blow it. While that is an accomplishment for a leftist Democrat, it is hardly high praise. Yes, Obama's organization (registering voters, etc.) was impressive, but it was unimpressive how little advantage he really got out of both that and the massive racial (African-American) vote that Obama received. Obama had the money. That is the irony of this campaign involving McCain (the poster child for opposing money in politics). This campaign guarantees that all future campaigns will be based totally on raising, and spending, massive amounts of money. Money and the economy are more than enough to explain the Obama margin, without any "brilliance" on Obama's part (other than the ability to raise money being a talent)

No, this stuff on the media, including Fox News, is all bull. There is not a shred of value or insight in it.