The Horse Race So Far

John McCain’s major intent in rushing his announcement of Governor Sarah Palin to be his veep last Friday, despite the paucity of vetting, was to steal the limelight from Barack Obama after his stirring convention speech and deny him any bounce coming out of his convention. It broke new ground for being classless but it was a clever strategy to get the jump on an opponent McCain knew would be eloquent and inspiring to the millions who turned on their TVs to watch him. Unfortunately, the Hail Mary pass proved to be too clever by half.

Sarah Palin did indeed dominate the news coverage over the weekend leading into the Republican convention. In fact since the GOP had to pretty much cancel their first night, Palin got more airplay than they bargained for and little of it very good. The lefty blogs excoriated her for her lack of experience and then came the pregnant daughter announcement, which caused even the mainstream media and ordinary moms to question her fitness for the VP office and McCain’s judgment for choosing her.

A quick glance at the polls also show that it didn’t even deny Obama his bounce coming out of Denver. Perhaps it could have been even bigger if not for McCain campaign’s determination to grab all the attention. But Obama has broken ahead, depending upon which poll you believe, by anywhere from 5 to 8 points. Here are the breakdowns from Lowell at RK.

Meanwhile, in a demonstration that the once straight talker and his campaign staff haven’t yet sunk to the lowest level of cynicism (the pit is apparently bottomless), Rick Davis, his campaign manager, has actually announced that they intend to make the election about personality rather than issues.

Rick Davis, campaign manager for John McCain's presidential bid, insisted that the presidential race will be decided more over personalities than issues during an interview with Post editors this morning.

"This election is not about issues," said Davis. "This election is about a composite view of what people take away from these candidates."
Davis added that issues will no doubt play a major role in the decisions undecided voters will make but that they won't ultimately be conclusive. He added that the campaign has "ultimate faith" in the idea that the more voters get to know McCain and Barack Obama, the better the Republican nominee will do.

So much for their hapless supporters in the blogosphere who have been begging the lefties to ease up and go back to discussing issues.

Actually, it’s what we prefer to do. Democrats are more comfortable being policy wonks than cutthroat go for the juggler attack dogs in the Rovian mode. And in an election where the general population is worried about the economy, unhappy about the war in Iraq, believes they are doing worse today than they did four or eight years ago, and wants to see the country go in a different direction, don’t you think it would actually be to the Democrats’ advantage to focus on issues not personality?

But I guess if Rick Davis forces us to, we’ll just have to keep talking about the airhead Alaska governor, her family soap opera, her lack of actual qualifications, and her beauty queen past. And her growing troopergate scandal. And the fact that she once was a member of a weird secessionist group and headed a committee to raise money for Ted Steven's Excellence in Public Service 527 fund. And actually never opposed the Bridge to Nowhere because she wasn’t yet governor when Congress cut off its funds.

Rick, Sen. McCain are you sure you don’t want to discuss the issues instead?