Rep. Chris Shays (R-New England) is co-Chair of John McCain’™s Presidential campaign in Connecticut. That didnt stop him yesterday from commenting on the tenor the Palin/McCain campaing has taken this year. He also predicted an Obama win for next Teusday. Here’™s his words from CNNPolitics.com:

New England’™s lone House Republican appears to have publicly broken with his party’™s standard-bearer, saying John McCain has not run a clean campaign and is likely to lose his bid for the presidency.

‘œI just don’™t see how [McCain] can win,’ Connecticut Rep. Chris Shays told the Yale Daily News earlier this week. ‘œHe has lost his brand as a maverick; he did not live up to his pledge to fight a clean campaign.’ Shays, who in 2006 became the only Republican congressman from New England, perennially finds himself in a heated re-election race.

When even your own supporters are claiming that you’™ve run an awful campaign, both dirty and disorganized, you’™ve got problems. Yes, McCain has problems, and some of them are in his own camp. It appears from some comments, for instance, that Sarah Palin is using the next five days as a leg up to GOP leadership. But more important is that John McCain has lost almost every connection to objective ethics and truth. For instance, he’™s spent several weeks implying and overtly stating that Barack Obama is a socialist. Last night on Larry King he’™s asked point blank if Obama is a socialist. The answer? ‘œNo.’ Yeah, John McCain has been lying for weeks.

This last bit is not sensational or a ‘œgotcha.’ It has to do with journalistic ethics. If it gets any traction on the campaign trail, then you’™ll hear a lot more in the next couple days. Both Sarah Palin and John McCain are referring to the LA Times in their speeches, claiming the Times has a video where Barack Obama attended a party also attended by a former spokeperson for the PLO. Clearly they think they can sway Jewish voters if it turns out there’™s a picture of Obama hugging Rashid Khalidid, a friend. There are three problems here. First, this is another fishing expedition by the Palin/McCain campaign, and it is designed to make people think something more nefarious went on than a friendship. Maybe Palin and McCain don’™t understand that people actually do have friendships. Yes, even Barack Obama, who they also claim has been aiming to run for President for years with a blind ambition, stopped along the way to have friendships with people the Republicans could use for smears. Ho hum.

Second, the Palin/McCain team is contending that if the LA Times refuses to uphold journalistic ethics and the law, then they are in the tank for Obama. Yes, the Palin/McCain camp is overtly asking for violations of journalistic ethics that will get the LA Times in trouble legally. Ethics, evidently, equals ‘œliberal’ to the Palin/McCain campaing. Here’™s the LATimes on the subject of journalistic ethics:

Authorities on journalism ethics generally urge news outlets to share as much original source material with their audiences as possible. Two experts said Wednesday that The Times seemed to have gained information for its readers by agreeing to keep the tape confidential, while another expert said she would have recommended the paper push hard at the time of the original reporting to allow for it to be shared with the public.

All three said that once the agreement to keep the tape confidential had been struck, the newspaper had both ethical and legal reasons for abiding by it.

‘œThe calculus a reporter is making is: ‘What is the public good of getting the information and does it outweigh the limitations that the source wants me to put on the information?’™ ‘ said Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism. ‘œIn this case, knowing about this event and being able to describe it to readers seems like a pretty good trade-off for not being able to release the video.’

Bob Steele, a journalism values scholar at the Poynter Institute, agreed that the deal seemed sensible, though he advises reporters to avoid such agreements if possible.

‘œBut once you make the promise to protect a source or to protect information,’ Steele said, ‘œyou do not go against that promise, barring the most exceptional of cases, and this would not seem to be such a case.’

In 1991, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the 1st Amendment does not protect the media from breach-of-contract claims by sources with whom it makes confidentiality agreements.

It is not unusual, of course, that a Palin/McCain campaign with so little in the way of ethics itself would try to coerce a newspaper from violating its own code of professional ethics.

Hey, he’s got Bill Frist and Lamar Alexander in his pocket, does Hank Williams, Jr., or so it is reported by Country Music Television. The word out there is that Hank Williams, Jr. is going to run for Senator Corker’s seat in Tennessee in 2010. No word on whether he will be using this picture for campaign material.

My goodness. Yeah, Williams is bound to appeal to the base there in Tennessee, but the Republicans sure are scraping the bottom of the barrell here. It isn’t just the hard partying image Williams has nurtured for 30 years that they might want to avoid at all costs. It isn’t even those pictures of Hank with naked women, or the videos that are bound to come out of extreme drunken fans at his concerts. The guy seems nuts to me! How could a party be so irresponsible as to run a nut for Senate? I mean, come on! The guy reworked his song that celebrates drug and alcohol abuse, as well as family, “Family Tradition,” into a song of praise for the McCain/Palin campaign – that isn’t what I’d call good political instincts.

To set the record straight, Real Clear Politics is reporting that there’s been no decision made as to whether Hank will actually run for the Senate in Tennessee:

It was reported recently that country music singer Hank Williams Jr. plans to run for a U.S. Senate seat in Tennessee in 2012 – the next time a Senate seat is up in the state. An intriguing notion to say the least, but no announcement has been made yet, according to Williams’s publicist.

When reached for comment by RealClearPolitics, a spokesman for Williams’s publicist, Kirt Webster, said Williams “has talked about it, but no announcement has been made.”

That this story actually made the light of day is a measure of the kind of desperate straights the Republicans are in. Very, very desperate.

Until just over a week ago John McCain was the darling of the Republican Party. He was their leader, and was applauded even when making decidedly poor decisions, such as the appointment of Sarah Palin as the GOP Veep nominee. That has changed. In a slap in the face to McCain, the Republicans have now filed lawsuits to gut the McCain Feingold Campaign Finaince provisions. Here’s the article from the Washington Times:

The Republican Party will file federal lawsuits Thursday seeking to overthrow the McCain-Feingold federal campaign finance regulations, Republican National Committee Chairman Robert M. “Mike” Duncan revealed Wednesday night at a private dinner with the nation’s Republican governors.

The move is considered a slap in the face of the Republican Party’s failed 2008 presidential candidate, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, who was dramatically outspent by Democrat Barack Obama, and of President Bush, who signed McCain-Feingold into law in 2002.

“We will bring two federal suits tomorrow to strengthen the Republican Party,” Mr. Duncan told The Washington Times.

Mr. Duncan said one suit will be filed in the District of Columbia to strike down the soft-money ban that is the central tenet of the McCain-Feingold Act – formally known as the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002. “Soft money” is largely unrestricted contributions from wealthy individuals, corporations and labor unions.

The second suit will be in a Louisiana federal court to strike down the limits under the law Mr. McCain co-sponsored with Sen. Russ Feingold, Wisconsin Democrat, that control coordination between parties and their candidates.

Where do I get those names “McQueeg” and “McWhacked” in the title? Well, from the Republicans over at Free Republic, of course. They’ve turned on McCain and they are currently saying far worse about him than the Democrats ever did. So far there are 41 members of that cesspool of the internet commenting on this issue, and the ugliness is pretty overwhelming, so be careful if you go over there.

As to McCain Feingold, it seems pretty clear that it needs a bit of an overhaul. I’ve not thought enough about the issue to figure what that overhaul will be. But I know one thing for sure, that if the Republican challenges get to the supreme Court they can count on Roberts and Thomas and Scalia to reverse course and claim that the campaign finance reform is unconstitutional. That’ll be a partisan vote based on the state of fundraising at the time the SCOTUS hears the case, at least on the right wing side of the court.

All that said, I think “McQueeg” is a nifty name for the failed Republican candidate for President. Perhaps there will be a revival of the play and McCain can play the role for real.

John McCain surely knew this election would hold challenges for him. He already had George Bush hanging around his neck, as did all the Republicans running for the nomination this year. But the big problem with this election is that John McCain had several other albatrosses hanging around his neck by this last week of the campaign, some of which he hung there himself. Now it may be too early to write a history of why McCain lost, if he does indeed lose this election, but we can certainly count the bird that have weighed him down. One place to go birdwatching is at the polls.

The NYTimes/CBS poll, for instance, shows evangelical Christians supporting McCain, but not as much as they supported Bush, and not with nearly so much fervor. The big albatross here, though, is Christian groups coming out and supporting Barack Obama, even to the point of forming a 527 group and running commercials supportive of Obama. Looks like even the nomination of Palin as Veep didn’™t help.

Speaking of Sarah Palin, she’™s an albatross in lipstick. That same NY Times/CBS poll shows Sarah Palin’™s waning popularity is dragging McCain down by the neck. HEre’™s a bit of the analysis from the New York Times:

All told, 59 percent of voters surveyed said Ms. Palin was not prepared for the job, up nine percentage points since the beginning of the month. Nearly a third of voters polled said the vice-presidential selection would be a major factor influencing their vote for president, and those voters broadly favor Senator Barack Obama, the Democratic nominee.

And in a possible indication that the choice of Ms. Palin has hurt Mr. McCain’™s image, voters said they had much more confidence in Mr. Obama to pick qualified people for his administration than they did in Mr. McCain.

That’™s a whole bunch of people who won’™t vote for McCain because of the most important choice any candidate makes during his campaign, the choice of a running mate. That’™s gotta be a heavy albatross, you betcha. Of course, Palin is a stand-in for the Radical Right Wing Christian Cleric albatross, and they’™re evidently conceding this election. Of course, they style themselves as ‘œsocial conservatives,’ whack jobs that they are, and they’™ve scheduled a pow wow next week to exorcize the demons they have brought to the election. Or maybe they’™ll just whine a lot. Oh, I shouldn’™t say anything. the meeting is supposed to be SECRET!

Here’™s an interesting albatross in the Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby poll, where Obama is surging. Seems even the most faithful of McCain demographics, those men who idolize war heroes, are moving towards Obama slowly but surely. And both the white vote and the conservative vote are headed to the Senator from Illinois as well. Here’™s a taste of the Reuters analysis:

Obama held steady or expanded his edge among several crucial blocs of swing voters, leading by 19 points among independents, 10 points among women, 9 points among Catholics and 7 points among voters above the age 65.

Obama also moved ahead of McCain, an Arizona senator, by 5 points among men. McCain still leads by 8 points among white voters but only earns the support of about 30 percent of Hispanics, a fast-growing group that gave President George W. Bush more than 40 percent of their vote in 2004.

The poll also found Obama was doing a better job of reaching across ideological lines, earning the support of nearly 20 percent of self-described conservatives. McCain wins about 10 percent of liberals.

I must say it is awfully fun tracking all the troubles, albatrosses, that have hampered McCain’™s clear sailing. Of course, there’™s more than the Palin selection that’™s his fault. He courted the Radical Right Wing Christian Clerics, after all, he displayed ignorance of economic policy, then an almost spastic need to pander to every voter group in the country. McCain’™s already angry demeanor was only emphasized by the constant negatives against Barack Obama. Every time an ad ran saying something about ‘œconsorting with terrorists,’ with some ominous announcer, it ended with McCain saying he approved of the message. Holy crap! Isn’™t he the one who helped add that ‘œI approve this message’ bit? His own campaign finance laws, of course, are another set of albatrosses.

It’™s hard to calculate all the other self-inflicted burdens McCain has placed around his own neck. There was the cancellation of the first day of the GOP Convention, the ‘œsuspending the campaign’ stunt, the poor debate performances by both Palin and McCain, the blatant racism among his supporters, some of them, which is turning off independents. The tarnished Republican brand? That goes without saying. But it’™s your turn.

What’™s the biggest of these problems McCain has draped himself with? Could it be that the biggest problem is that he’™s running against a man of genuine stature and leadership in Barack Obama? I’™d like to think so.

The Obama 30 program last night was uplifting. I remember my wife worrying, as she always does. She was afraid Obama would promise too much, or look like he expected to win too much. None of that happened. The program seemed designed to encourage supporters to get out the vote and to convince independents with a sunny and ‘œcan do’ attitude that better times are coming. (Anyone reminded of Reagan there?) The show got the ratings it should have, beating out the usual ratings of the primetime shows that normally air on the three major networks, and it was money well spent in my book. The record turnout we are hoping for will likely come about, in part because Barack Obama took time and money to step forward and talk directly to an audience of millions. I’™m proud of him more than ever.

McCain? Not so much. Not so much details about policies in his response. not any positive take on our society. No vision of the future. Indeed, there was no McCain giving a response. It showed up on the Palin/McCain web site, and in a few ads, in the form of a list of ‘œfact checks,’ each time concluding with the accusation of ‘œliar.’ The ad campaign is called ‘œJust Words,’ and it is all attack, with nothing about what McCain will do. Yeah, that’™s the wrong approach, the Bush approach to campaigning, as they note on electoral-vote.com:

What is noteworthy about this campaign is McCain’™s response. He just attacked Obama more, saying he is not ready to be commander in chief and his economic policies would undermine our national security. He is also making robocalls’“in Arizona (!)’“a state that wasn’™t thought to be competitive. What is so astounding about this strategy is that most Republicans worship Ronald Reagan, not so much due to his specific policies, but for the tone of his campaigns and administration. He was always talking about hope and ‘œMorning in America,’ rarely attacking his opponents. McCain could easily have countered Obama’™s film with an upbeat message saying: ‘œI also believe in a good future for America, but a future produced by hardworking Americans like Joe the Plumber, not by government bureaucrats.’ He didn’™t do it. Just attack, attack, attack. You can see Atwater-Rove-Schmidt writ large on McCain’™s whole campaign. Spend all your time tearing down your opponent, rather than saying what your plans are.

It is not necessarily the Obama program that seals the deal in this election. It is more likely the McCain response that has done so. Not even one’™s supporters are likely to respond well to constant attacks on the opponent rather than hopeful messages. Heck, even McCain’™s hopeful messages are whines about pollsters and ‘œthe media’ counting him out too soon. His whines begin to sound and feel like the worst I’™ve seen in my political life, like the scowling Nixon, or the smirking Rove. It is hard to understand from the McCain response why anyone would want to vote for him. Oh, McCain might make some people in his own base hate Obama a whole bunch, but to win an election you must get people to wqant to vote for You. That strategy, or simple common sense, really, is absent throughout the McCain campaign, and as a result Obama keeps whittling away at the Palin/McCain supporters.

Even the fresh attacks, like the one concerning Barack Obama’™s friendship with Rashid Khalidi are failing miserably. Jason Linkins of Huffington Post describes CNN last light, which had a McCain defender on, Michael Goldfarb, and the CNN host asked asked a couple cogent questions of the guy that he simply couldn’™t answer. According to Goldfarb, the Obama friendship with Khalidi was emblematic of many anti-semitic friends with influence on Obama. He was asked why McCain funneled money to Khalidi, and. . . crickets. He was asked to name just one other supposed anti-semite Obama supposedly hangs with and. . . crickets. The charges against Barack Obama, even the new ones, are empty.

More than that emptiness, the McCain campaign has gone full-bore negative for well over a month now. In that time Barack Obama has improved in the polls and McCain has dropped. Of course, whippings in the debates add to that movement in the polls, but that’™s because McCain was mostly negative and combative and ugly in them as well. Let’™s add in the fashion Queen, and the stupid ‘œJoe the Plumber’ fiasco, and you’™ve got a Palin/McCain campaign that can’™t shoot straight. Heck, I’™m thinking even McCain’™s base is beginning to wonder if he is qualified to lead, given how screwed up his campaign is.

How will McCain move forward from here? He’™ll run even more attack ads, as long as his money holds out, and he’™ll crank up the Robocalls, even in Arizona, his home state. Heck, if I am right and the Palin/McCain 24/7 attack campaign is the cause of its drop in the polls, then maybe, just maybe, the Obama/Biden campaign has a shot in Arizona.

This may spell the end of Rovian politics for a time. Will it be one cycle, two? I’™m beginning to think that this is a reflection of the internet phenomenon. Let’™s face it, we on the internet tend to go negative and carp and throw around snark all the time. Our fellow supporters of Obama think this is just fine. But snark in public turns off voters, and constant carping, which we expect and enjoy online, is not what we expect in commercials and in speeches and in debates. I’™ll have to think on this some more, but it is very possible the GOP inability to understand the internet has made it so that the typical GOP Rovian tactics and strategies are dying. We can all sing praises for Al Gore’™s invention, then.

HEck, even Goldwater won Arizona, didn’™t he?

So much for Joe the Plumber! Now that Joe is busy turning his fifteen minutes of fame into a book deal or a country music recording contract’¦or some other means to capitalize on his notoriety so he can actually earn the 250K he told Barack Obama he planned to make when he bought his fictional plumbing business’¦he’™s suddenly missing in action at John McCain’™s rally in Ohio. Watch McCain ask Joe to stand up at his rally this morning; only to realize that Joe is no where to be found.

Yep, just like their honorable leader, Joe and Sarah put country first, eh? Apparently NOT’¦Joe has taken the same route as Sarah Palin‘¦the one where it’™s every man or woman for themselves (maybe Sarah and Joe can be paired up on the GOP ticket in 2012?). It’™s also consistent with the McBush economic philosophy’¦the one they like to call ‘œThe Ownership Society’’¦the one that Barack Obama appropriately described as the ‘œyou’™re on your own’ philosophy.

You see, while John McCain has been busy selling us on the notion that Joe the Plumber and the rest of us hard working Americans will be the victims of Barack Obama’™s ‘œsocialist’ agenda, he and his hypocritical minions have been busy looking for the means to snatch power and line their own pockets.

Yes, John McCain believes in change’¦the kind that puts the big bucks in the hands of the wealthy’¦the kind that leaves the rest of us checking our pockets for enough change to feed our families.

Cross-posted at Thought Theater

I just finished writing about this, but I think it deserves another go. McCain is trying to smear Barack Obama with a supposed relationship to Rashid Khalidi, a US citizen and distinguished academic who used to be the spokesperson for the PLO. Turns out McCain, in his role as the Chairman of the International Republican Institute, granted Khalidi $448,000 to carry out a study concerning peace in the Middle East. I think that’™s money well spent. Evidently the McCain campaign thinks that is equivalent to funding terrorism.

Why is McCain funding terrorism? Why does he hate America?

Oh how I love irony! My frenzied friends on the right have done their damnedest to portray the Obama’s as snooty elitists…despite the fact that it’s the McCain’s who own seven homes, thirteen automobiles, and a virtual department store of haute couture for Cindy to show off on the campaign trail.

None of this should come as a surprise since the GOP has spent the last three decades pretending to care about the interests of the common man. With the emergence of the maverick McCain-Palin reformers ticket, that persona has been put on steroids…championing the likes of Joe Six-Pack, Joe The Plumber, and Tito The Construction Worker.

Unfortunately, it’s not that easy to play a caribou killin’ moose burger eating mom, with a doggone down home dialect, when one is dressed up in 150K of name brand clothing purchased with campaign funds. It’s especially problematic when just days earlier your rabid right ring rottweiler’s are pushing a story about Michelle Obama partaking of a delectable dinner fit for an airing on an episode of Robin Leach’s “champaign wishes and caviar dreams” Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.

So here’s the problem…it turns out the Michelle Obama story was false…shooting a huge hole in the efforts to paint her as none other than an angry and arrogant African American manifestation of Mommy Dearest meets Leona Helmsley.

From The New York Post:

The source who told us last week about Michelle Obama getting lobster and caviar delivered to her room at the Waldorf-Astoria must have been under the influence of a mind-altering drug. She was not even staying at the Waldorf. We regret the mistake, and our former source is going to regret it, too. Bread and water would be too good for such disinformation.

Now cue the creation of Caribou-Barbie-wears-Christian-Lacroix (yea, that’s close enough for Vic the Voter to draw a connection to hockey’s Pierre Lacroix, right?) and you begin to see the sweet irony that comes with exposing those whose expertise is found in concocting ill-conceived illusions.

From Politico:

The Republican National Committee appears to have spent more than $150,000 to clothe and accessorize vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin and her family since her surprise pick by John McCain in late August.

According to financial disclosure records, the accessorizing began in early September and included bills from Saks Fifth Avenue in St. Louis and New York for a combined $49,425.74.

The records also document a couple of big-time shopping trips to Neiman Marcus in Minneapolis, including one $75,062.63 spree in early September.

The RNC also spent $4,716.49 on hair and makeup through September after reporting no such costs in August.

Politico asked the McCain campaign for comment, explicitly noting the $150,000 in expenses for department store shopping and makeup consultation that were incurred immediately after Palin’s announcement. Pre-September reports do not include similar costs.

Spokeswoman Maria Comella declined to answer specific questions about the expenditures, including whether it was necessary to spend that much and whether it amounted to one early investment in Palin or if shopping for the vice presidential nominee was ongoing.

Think about it…when Sarah Palin asked us to imagine the difference between a hockey mom and a Pit Bull, we foolishly believed it was limited to lipstick. Well, we now know it includes skirts and suits, handbags and high heels, dresses and designer wear, and anything else one can buy on a paltry allowance of 150K.

Not to worry though, John McCain and Sarah Palin plan to share the pie with the two Joe’s and Tito and Vic…that’s what Republicans do when they cut taxes for all of Robin Leach’s BFF’s. A word of caution to the wise though…you better stay alert…I wouldn’t want you to miss out on a few of the crumbs when they fall off the table.

Cross-posted at Thought Theater

No, this isn’t a comment on yet another story about Oregon Senator Gordon Smith trying to jump on the Obama bandwagon in order to save his political hide. Sam Katz has run as a Republican three times for Mayor of Philadelphia, and once for Governor of Pennsylvania. A reporter spotted an Obama sign on his lawn, and this is what Sam Katz had to say. From the Philadelphia Daily News Clout column:

“We have six voters in the house, a lot of points of view,” Katz said yesterday, seeming to ponder how much candor to include in his explanation.

“In all honesty, it will probably be a unanimous vote in the Katz household . . . I was undecided and wanted to stay undecided. But the collapse of the economy and McCain’s performance through that process pushed me a little bit over the other side. I tell people I don’t think Obama’s ready to be president and I don’t think McCain should be. But I always try to vote for the guy I think will do the best job.”

Sam Katz was always a centrist, so this isn’t very surprising. And Pennsylvania is rapidly losing it’s status as a battleground state, what with the huge edge the Democrats have in voter registrations. The real surprising news is the Chicago Tribune endorsing Obama, the very first Democratic candidate for President they have ever endorsed. Heck, as the article notes, the Tribune was founded by one of the founders of the Republican Party. Here’s part of the Tribune endorsement of Barack Obama, where they smack John McCain a bit:

The Republican Party, the party of limited government, has lost its way. The government ran a $237 billion surplus in 2000, the year before Bush took office – and recorded a $455 billion deficit in 2008. The Republicans lost control of the U.S. House and Senate in 2006 because, as we said at the time, they gave the nation rampant spending and Capitol Hill corruption. They abandoned their principles. They paid the price.

We might have counted on John McCain to correct his party’s course. We like McCain. We endorsed him in the Republican primary in Illinois. In part because of his persuasion and resolve, the U.S. stands to win an unconditional victory in Iraq.

It is, though, hard to figure John McCain these days. He argued that President Bush’s tax cuts were fiscally irresponsible, but he now supports them. He promises a balanced budget by the end of his first term, but his tax cut plan would add an estimated $4.2 trillion in debt over 10 years. He has responded to the economic crisis with an angry, populist message and a misguided, $300 billion proposal to buy up bad mortgages.

McCain failed in his most important executive decision. Give him credit for choosing a female running mate–but he passed up any number of supremely qualified Republican women who could have served. Having called Obama not ready to lead, McCain chose Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. His campaign has tried to stage-manage Palin’s exposure to the public. But it’s clear she is not prepared to step in at a moment’s notice and serve as president. McCain put his campaign before his country.

The newspaper that began by endorsing Horace Greeley, stood by every single other Republican nominated for President since then, including Coolidge, has now endorsed a Democrat for President for the first time. This is as unlikely as the Cubs winning the World Series, and we all know that’s one of the signs of the coming Apocalypse. Perhaps we should be very afraid.

As we move closer to the election, I’ve witnessed a phenomena that has only recently begun to make sense to me (by the fact that it doesn’t make sense). First, I have to hand it to my Republican friends…their tenacity in creating tangible talking points out of thin air is unmatched.

Let me provide an example before I attempt to draw the connection between the manner in which they analyze and strategize elections and the predisposition of some Christians to promote intelligent design over evolution.

Over at the National Review, flummoxed politicos are desperate to craft a salient narrative to leverage John McCain back into a position to win the election. What they fail to realize is that their lurching from one idea to the next is simply supporting the Obama mantra that John McCain and the GOP are erratic. Take a look at the following.

From Jonah Goldberg (Part One):

I have no idea whatsoever if there’s merit to this, and if there is how much merit, but lots of email like this:

When are people going to start talking about the REAL reason the markets are down – Obama up in polls. If I was McCain, I’d start telling people, “If you want to lose more money, vote Obama.”

From Jonah Goldberg (Part Two):

Now, it’s far more likely that the causation and correlation suggested by some readers is backward: the markets tank for non-political reasons and Obama does well as a result, rather than Obama does well and then the markets tank. Still, I think Pethokoukis’ point that Obama’s success may make investors more pessimistic about the future has some plausibility to it.

Finally, it sounds like this reader has it right (and I should correct a bunch of emailers who seem to think I was suggesting McCain blame Obama for the crashing markets, which I think would be ludicrous).

Jonah,

The suggestion that markets are down because of Obama’s rising in the polls shows a preposterous misunderstanding of economics, and McCain will be (rightly) pilloried if he tries to make that claim. I have no doubt Obama will be an utter disaster for business and economic growth/recovery in this country, but the markets are reacting to fact that unemployment is way up (and climbing), manufacturing numbers are way down, housing prices are still falling, credit has seized up, overnight funding is near impossible to acquire at anything but prohibitive cost, there continue to be real questions as to the solvency of financial institutions and their nightmarish balance sheets, etc. Just about every piece of data that comes back these days is negative, with the exception of falling commodity prices and a strengthening dollar, as Kudlow correctly mentioned last week. Companies growth prospects in this kind of environment are bleak at best, and the markets are reacting in kind. In addition, the ban on short selling of financials rolled off today, so some of the downward pressure that had built up over the past week released itself today.

We’ll reach a bottom of the market eventually, however–and I mean no disrespect to the previous e-mailer you quoted below–it’s na–¯ve to suggest the continued hammering we’re all taking has anything material to do with the political zeitgeist.

OK, to argue that the ascension of Obama in the polls is responsible for our crashing financial system requires the suspension of reality. Now in fairness, I have to note that Jonah, in his second posting, dismisses the notion offered by the emailer in his prior posting. At the same time, this has seemingly become standard operating procedure for my friends on the right. Again, there’s no fault in testing trial balloons; though there is folly in releasing the ones that don’t merit a moments consideration. Doing so gives them an air of legitimacy that fosters more of the same.

Here’s the problem…all too often GOP operatives establish an outcome (the preferred fact or belief) and then they create a hypothesis to support it. Clearly this isn’t out of the ordinary with regards to scientific study. Virtually every hypothesis has at its origin some level of belief that it may be true, which leads to its testing. The problem with many on the right is that their bias and partiality leads them to corrupt the construct in order to rig the results. In other words, the scientific method is an acceptable construct when it yields the preferred result. Should it refute the optimal outcome, the kitchen sink must be tossed at it in order to discredit it.

That brings me to the connections between those who oppose the theory of evolution in favor of creationism or its most recent stepchild, intelligent design, and those who would put forth an intellectually dishonest explanation to further their political objectives.

Let me be clear, it’s a free country and we’re all entitled to attempt to influence others with whatever arguments we choose to employ. The problems arise when the credible and convincing means to measure the validity of a theory are cast aside in deference to ideological intransigence. You see, when an individual can dissect the Bible into those portions they accept and those segments they set aside…all the while maintaining the infallibility of the process and the indisputable nature of the conclusion…fiction has been elevated to a level commensurate with fact.

Even worse, there is no rational or reasonable means to compel these believers to abandon their arbitrary assertions in favor of a fact driven formula. Once this rejection of reasonability is rejected relative to religion, the distance to its dissolution with regards to other disciplines is easily abridged. In the field of politics, once dogma is allowed to dethrone dutiful deduction, extremism is enabled.

Hence, the efforts to assign arbitrary attributes to Barack Obama is the epitome of embracing this elusive equation. Not only does this promote discord, it precludes its resolution. Before it can be corrected, the quintessential question must focus upon uncovering the underlying motivations.

As I watch John McCain and his minions grapple with the prospect of defeat…and the fear that imparts…it supports my suspicion that terror management is at the core of our conundrum. Terror management posits that we humans are prone to obsessing upon the fear of our mortality and acting to diminish it.

As such, religion and the promise of an afterlife is a strategy to assuage the anxiety. Those predisposed to acting from fear are therefore susceptible to strategies that allow irrational ideations to override objective analysis. When confronted with fearful events, the instinctual reaction is to resort to the suspension of reason in order to construct a place of comfort.

Unfortunately, this behavior has an “imprinting” quality such that it is self-reinforcing the longer it persists. In the political realm, it is manifested in a refusal to allow or applaud alternate avenues of governance. The Clinton presidency is an excellent example. There is little doubt that his tenure was a period of relative peace and prosperity…and yet many on the right refuse to recognize as much. These individuals often argue that the time a president is seated in office isn’t the essential measure of his merit…or they prioritize other considerations…such as morality in the case of Clinton.

Here’s the problem. This approach isn’t applied consistently. Ronald Reagan receives credit for his time in office as well as for a number of ensuing years. Questions of morality, such as his having been married twice and his silence on the AIDS epidemic, are ignored. Shades of gray are danger zones and the pursuit of black and white…regardless of either’s availability…is the ultimate safe haven from which to view the world. With the passage of time, the GOP and its pliable and therefore palatable propaganda becomes the only amenable world view…facts be damned.

Doubt is equated with death and it must, therefore, be banished. Science, though seemingly certain, is still too slow in providing a palatable domicile from which to proceed. To embrace it is to risk the possibility that one’s earthly existence could end before it can afford acceptable answers to free one from fear. A retreat to the malleability of irrational ideations is the only avenue by which one can construct an illusory and idyllic island, insulated from the unmovable manifestation of mortality.

Death is certain; political suicide is optional. Come into the light my GOP friends…I promise it won’t kill you. Besides, you’ll still have heaven as a backup, right?

Cross-posted at Thought Theater