There was zero substance in those speeches last night.  They were all cynicism, ad hominem, jingoism, and bizarre sloganeering.

The Republicans can't attack Barack Obama and Joe Biden on the issues because they know they can compete there given that mood of the electorate.  Instead, they are going to try to tear down our candidates personally.  

We need to stop trying to engage these people intellectually.  They don't do that.  They punch people in their kidneys.

My perspective is a little different. I see a SECOND blown message. So for months their essential message was that in these trying times Obama is too big of a risk. They blew that with the Palin pick.

Then, as garbled as it was, my best interpretation of their message became that they, not Obama, were the true reformers. Among the many issues with that fuzzy message was that I believe it's nearly impossible to convince people that the incumbent party represents greater change, this is especially true in light of the history-making nature of our candidate. But as evidenced by the focus in Lieberman's remarks, I can generously concede that there is at least a colorable argument for the message.

But regardless, Palin's speech last night marked an abandonment of that message as well (at least in any meaningful sense). Her incessant and shrill attacks from the hard right (call it "playing to the EXPENSIVE seats") undermined the effectiveness of what should have been a speech introducing her to the American people as someone who could GET THINGS DONE. Everything boring Lieberman tried to say to acquit McCain last night was thoroughly undermined by Thompson earlier in the night and Romney, Giuliani, and most of all, Palin last night.

So what is their message? I can't tell you how good it feels to be asking that about the other side for once.

A secondary point is that most of Palin's attacks were very "inside baseball." Sarcastic reference to obscure points is hardly an effective negative tactic. Examples include her remarks concerning "community organizer" and "presidential seals." While we geeks, and the geeks in the convention hall, grasped the references, independent voting America assuredly did not.

The GOP has a finely tuned strategy here.

They simply chose Palin to fire up the base and as a hail mary for some women voters.  Palin is their attack dog.  Guliani set her up for that last night.

Tonight McCain comes in as the wise moderate maverick military grandpa who's taken on everyone on both sides and will act as the moderating influence.  Don't expect fire and brimstone, expect honor, wisdom, experience, and service.  Again, nothing about issues because they can't compete there - he's going to focus on character and leadership.

Palin & the 527's will be the attack dog the rest of the cycle trying to tear down Barack & Biden.  McCain will constantly swoop in taking the high road.

This is a multipronged communications strategy designed to leverage several different perspectives.

post as saying I thought the message, content, or even logic of her speech was good.  There have been many posts here on RK and elsewhere that I completely agree with - that this speech was pure crap.

But there are two things that concern me here
1. We on the Democratic side have been having a field day with this nomination the past few days and I'm beginning to get the feeling that's leading to overconfidence.  Dems may be thinking this will be easy because so much has come out about her.  "How could anyone vote for McCain with such a problem person on the ticket?" we ask ourselves.  And just wait until she has to talk to the press about this - they'll destroy her.  What I saw last night was someone who is more than ready for that fight and will continue to dish it out.  She may be shoveling sh*t, but she's sure going to pile it high.

Which leads me to thing 2...

2. How it looks to everyone who is not "inside baseball" as you put it.  You and I could see right through her laundry list of Obama's tax increases, but what about the relatively uninterested American, who has been conditioned to think that Democrats are all about "tax and spend"?  What did he/she hear?  "Obama is going to raise your taxes and I (Sarah that is) can list them all - no vague references - I'll (Sarah) be specific."   And it'll be the same story with the sh*t shoveling she'll be doing - will the message, albeit wrong, be close enough to resonate with the average undecided/uncommitted voter?

I think she came close last night and this is why we need to hit back and hard, so we don't lose the narrative that's already been built about her and McCain.

is that Barack Obama'a tax plan could force Senior citizen taxes to increase if corporation in response to Obama's tax proposals regarding the corporate tax rate then pass along the increase to consumers in some way.

I understand that Obama has eliminated income tax on Seniors making less than 50K, but Republicans will hammer home in places like FL that Obama seeks a 45% estate tax (the "death tax") on 3.5 million in assests or more and McCain's is 15% beginning at 5 million. Probably a good thing property values are falling b/c that may not play well in some of the more retirement areas from a pure political point.

The Chicago Sun-Times I think evaluated the two proposals back in July and provided this info from the Tax Policy Center. I would expect the death tax and corporate tax hikes to be a focal point by the republicans to fulfill there time honored tradition of hitting the "tax and spend" theme.

how so many people think they are middle class.  According to IRA statistics, in 2004, only 604,000 people had net worth of more than $3.5 million.  That's only 0.2% of the population.  That tiny number of people represents who would be affected by the Estate and Gift Taxes.  If this is getting a lot of people riled in Florida, I don't see why.  

The people who are most affected by the investment taxes (capital gains and dividends) are the top 5% of income earners.  In fact the people at the top 1% pay less as a share of their income in tax than people who make $200k a year.  It is just hilarious that people with a pittance of investments (mostly held in 401ks anyway) get concerned about capital gains tax.  This is how skilled Republicans are as snake oil salesmen.  They can convince people in lower income brackets that these upper income bracket taxes are of grave concern to them.

Here's the deal on Corporate Taxation, there are a lot of sweetheart deals in the code.  The effective tax rate that most C-corps should be paying is 35%, but most get nowhere near that.  We could cut out a lot that garbage and lower the rates and collect more revenue as a result.  Is that going to get passed on to consumers?  It depends.  On average it will probably be shared between consumers and investors.  And even on this, if Republicans can scare seniors on this, it would be just ridiculous.  

Let me give you a prime example of what Obama wants to change.  Surely you have heard of Accenture, formerly Anderson Consulting.  They get a boatload of business from the federal government, that's your money by the way.  But they don't pay their fair share of corporate tax like other American managed companies do.  Why is it that a business as big as Accenture's can get such a giant break?  Because their headquarters is located at a post office box in Bermuda.  And that allows them to not pay taxes on their full income.  How much do they actually pay?  We don't know because their tax filings aren't publicly disclosed.  Now if senior citizens want to protect tax dodgers, that would surprise me.

The McCain alternative is just to cut the corporate tax rate.  And given the two choices, I like Obama's plan better.  If we wanted to debate how the corporate tax works, I'm there and would love to here different ideas.  But McCain isn't going there and Obama isn't.  So the issue is who would better operate the existing framework, and hands down that is Obama.

I agree. We already know what kind of goods they have in their store. However, Palin will motivate the wingnuts to come out with their "Come to Jesus" vote. The good news is it will also motivate people to vote Democratic to make sure one day we are not all forced to sing "Come to Jesus" when we get to work in the morning.

I'm not underestimating Palin, but I think people are blowing out of proportion how "great" that speech was last night to anybody outside of the Republican base.  Very little substance, and I have a feeling her snarky, sarcastic tone didn't sit well with people checking her out for the first time.

Bob Somerby rightly points out that Palin never told Congress anything about the bridge:
http://www.dailyhowler.com/dh0...

Congress killed the earmark more than a year before she took office as governor, and instead let Alaska decide how it wanted to spend the money.  She finally canceled the bridge because there wasn't full federal funding to build it.

You're attitude respects an adversary and it doesn't senselessly demean.  Remember a few months ago I had posted my feelings senseless and repeated demeaning comments against McCain, especially when Obama doesn't do the same.  The replies were basically, that's politics.  Mine reply was, well that sure is politics as usual, but Obama doesn't represent politics as usual, so why should we?  

The "mean-ness" she portrayed at times, wasn't what I would say was towards the direction of hate at anyone in particular in politics of this race, rather it was just returning fire to the many non-campaign operatives and pundits who engaged in some plot to assasinate her character, even before ever realizing who she was and what she was about.  That's sure is politics and so she rightly fired back.  I felt the sarcasm was prevelant but it wasn't necessary to belittle the opposition, it was to belittle their opinion and in a way, to playfully flick the indies and swing-voters in middle-America, "what are you thinking?"  I felt some of that sarcasm directed at me, and that wasn't necessarily a bad thing.  

Now its Obama & Biden's turn.  Do you come back with the same stinging context in a new reply and a new attack, or do you take the discussion to the next level, a higher level, a level which educated voters would appreciate and respect?  I think if one has class for fellow American voters, and it truly shows, and respect for the nation and the views of other people, and it truly shows, and the rhetoric stays out of the gutter, and raises the bar as Palin has apparently done, Obama & Biden can level the playing field Palin has tilted to the right's favor (to what degree, I don't know).  Your diary is a very good start at that.  Its not wimpy, its not shying away from a fight.  Its continues the path in the direction towards changing Washington, DC.  That's the best formula for the nation as a whole, and it a good example for the people to follow.  

Sharpen our language.  Be more aggressive in making our points.

Human beings are emotional, not intellectual.  Trial Lawyers and Madison Avenue figured it out 50 years go.  I don't know why our party can't figure it out.

This is one of my favorite books which makes the case clearly:

http://www.publicaffairsbooks....
http://www.amazon.com/Politica...

It seems like we've been hitting pretty hard, can you give us a few examples of how you'd punch even harder?  Thanks.

from Flordia Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz:

"Where is the beef? Where is the evidence? Sarah Palin is not a reformer, she is under investigation in her home state for the abuse of power in trying to get a state trooper fired... If her best example of being a reformer was trying to sell a plane on E-Bay, that is not my definition of reform."

...google it, its there and there's not a whole lot to hang your hopes on.

The best example, was the most simpliest she could use.  She said she entered the Governor's office in Juneau and simply found a few things the people shouldn't pay for and that she could do without.  That comment, which I heard on CCN, was shallow.  Her reform extends beyond that.  The plane on eBay was simply something which was just an easy no-brainer decision she saw when she first walked into the office.  It would be allot different if she pledged last night to dump the plane.  She did it when she essentially walked in the office.

I'm not trying to convince you to vote for her, I'm just telling you want it is I think the average indy heard and understood last night.  Afterall, its the indy who you want, whereas preaching to the choir, over and over again, doesn't make the singing any louder.  

She, on the otherhand, politely tapped middle-America on the shoulder then said, "pardon me, you've heard that other guys story about change, now here's mind".  I think she made a direct attempt to capture middle America, and because she vocalized who she was so effectively, because she's one of them, it could essentially be a game changer.  

Obama needs to counter at a higher level, and not with an attack at the knees.  Why?  Because I think people tried that before and suffered badly.  More recently, the media tried it, and did we not just see how effectively and confidently she defended herself?  That was amazing (in a political sense.)

needs to stay on message.

I agree with the idea that the 3rd Bush term should be the focus at the top -- as well as his argument for why we need to change the direction away from the Bush years and for why McCain-Palin offer nothing but more of the same.

But part of politics, as we both know, is not just defining yourself, but defining the opposition.

As far as the reformer label goes, this is a politician who now rails against earmarks, but who hired a federal lobbyist to get $27 million dollars of federal pork steered back to her town -- including earmarks that John McCain opposed.  This is a politician who left her town over $20 million in debt during her term as mayor ($3,000 for every man woman and child).  This is a politician who used her political office to settle personal scores -- and who is currently stonewalling a bipartisan ethics commission into her actions.  This is a politician who claims to have fought against the Bridge to Nowhere -- when in fact she was a big supporter of the bill.  When the now-indicted Sen. shipped her $200 million in connection with the project she kept the money.  This is a politician who steered contracts and money to family friends in connection with the state diary industry.

This is a politician who claims to be a Washington outsider, but seems to be pretty well practiced at playing a corrupt version of the Washington game.  

It's fair to mention this -- and it's fair for Obama surrogates to raise these points -- because these issues are relevant to how a McCain/Palin ticket might govern.

Look, mccain and palin are nothing more than bush 3.  They will lose on the issues which is why the republicans want to make this about personalities.  Here are a couple of my thoughts.

mccain - supports privatizing social security same as bush.  This needs to be hammered to the elders.  With regards to health insurance, Obama will help the 50 million that have no health insurance.  McCain is same as bush.

palin - she is a way out of the mainstream.  I would help pay, yes pay, to see a Hillary commercial to Hillary's supporters. "I know Hillary Clinton and this woman is NO Hillary Clinton."  Palin is in the far right fringe of the republican party on reproductive rights.  She has a connection to the Alaska Independence Party, a party whose founder wanted Alaska to leave the US and become an independent country. The party still claims that Alaska is illegally a state and wants to have another vote.

You get the idea  

it's NOT about issues? I'm so confused! :)

(actually, it's very smart of the, because they must know that if people focus on the issues, they will lose badly)

when he attributed his success in the primaries to a work fo God.  But Palin certainly tops that with this (from the Washington Post):

Palin told graduating students of the church's School of Ministry, "What I need to do is strike a deal with you guys." As they preached the love of Jesus throughout Alaska, she said, she'd work to implement God's will from the governor's office, including creating jobs by building a pipeline to bring North Slope natural gas to North American markets.
"God's will has to be done in unifying people and companies to get that gas line built, so pray for that," she said.

Wow!  This has to be one of the most interesting anthropomorphic views of God I have seen in a while.  God and I must not be communicating well, because I didn't realize his will was to build a natural gas pipeline in Alaska.  Could this be the reason behind William's Potomac Expansion Project?  Did God instruct CEO Steven Malcolm to expand capacity on the largest (and maybe longest) natural gas pipeline in America?

Between commanding us to go to war with Iraq, managing Mike Hickabee's campaign, punishing the people of New Orleans and instructing, at least the people of Alaska, to build a natural gas pipeline, it has been a busy few years.  

The state of Alaska was supposed to provide matching funds for the bridge and she said they wouldn't do it. She wanted the government to provide all the funds. She cancelled the project because of that. So she is lying about what happened.