3 for 1: The Veep Debate Bias; Bail-Out Boondoggle; What the Polls Mean

1) The Veep Debate Bias

If you've not yet heard, Thursday night's vice presidential debate is going to be moderated not only by a PBS correspondent, but one who has written a pro-Obama book due to be released on inauguration day.

Gwen Ifill, a managing editor and moderator for PBS's Washington Week and a senior correspondent for the network's News Hour has been accused of bias when moderating the Edwards' / Cheney 2004 veep debate.

PBS is notorious for it's hard-left bias and the news personality own instances of subtle bias are cause for republican pundits to cry fowl, but these indicators aside, would the mainstream media be so ambivalent if the moderator had written a pro-McCain book?

There's little here to analyze beyond the obvious and Palin should not expect any favors.

2) Bail Out Boondoggle

It's a bad deal now and there's little or no hope that it will get any better.

As the senate prepares to take-up a vote on a hybrid bipartisan pet-project goodie-bag, those that brought us to this economic impass are telling the American public they have the propriety to fix it.

It should be no secret that it was overwhelmingly democrats that pressured Fannie and Freddie to grant loans to those who would not otherwise qualify for one. Likewise, it's blantant that in holding the majority of the House (and the Senate) that the House Speaker was rendered ineffective by her own incompetence. Had the democrat majority wanted to pass a bill, they could have with very little republican support.

But since this has become a political timebomb, neither party wants to handle it for fear it might detonate in their hands. And with the election under 35 days away, each party is looking to score political points. So, cooler heads won't be able to prevail and the American people are going to be left holding the bag while each party asks them to vote with the other.

Because of the fever-pitch this crisis has reached during an election, there's really no point to delineate a better mousetrap fix.

3) What the Polls Mean

Now that the first presidential debate has been held and the nation's attention is turned to an economic crisis, the polls (finally) reflect a clear Obama lead.

Time to celebrate at Camp Obama?

Hardly.

Under the current circumstances, Barack ought to be up, but by more than he is now.

The Illinois Senator has demostrated in the primaries that he has trouble closing and not much has changed. With a huge domestic issue on his side, the democrat nominee should be up by 10 to 12 points and after the second debate, if he isn't up by that much, the last leg of the race is going to be the longest and hardest.

Senator Obama needs to get a grip on the voter's pulse and get a grip on what is really going on at his job. If he can manage to do those two things, he'll be able to frame the rest of the race. But if he stays on his current path, he may be doing John McCain a huge favor.

The Devil is in the details

Many conservative and liberal talking-heads (among them Rush Limbaugh and Howard Wolfson) have said that Barack Obama needs to get specific and come-down from the lofty hope and change politicking; I even have been engaged in anecdotal conversations purporting the same.

It is understandable that many have arrived at this given Obama's sliding poll numbers and the backfire of the high-minded Berlin speech, the absence of a VP bounce and to-date a mundane convention.

But there's one problem with this idea: when it comes to experience, there's no there there.

Let me explain this the way I have in ordinary conversation: I first qualify my question with "Whether you may agree with them or not, do you give credibility to Bill Clinton when he speaks on foreign policy, economics, or American politics?" Then I continue to ask the same about Newt Gingrich. The answer is inevitably "yes".

The answer is "yes", because , they have to their credit, first-hand experience...Clinton was a professor, state attorney general, Chair of the National Governor's Association, and a two-term governor; Gingrich a history professor, congressman, Speaker of the House, and author.

Barack has an unremarkable state representative record and just half a national senatorial term, which translates into a real deficit on credibility.

Should Obama begin to espouse specifics on his policy intentions, the door to questioning his credibility deficit swings wide open into his own face.

He can't get specific because of this fact and if he does and is questioned he can only revert to relating to his time as a community organizer (which will not stand the test of reality) or that he's relying on his advisers and veep (which begs the question, why then is Obama on the top of the ticket).


Moreover, conspicuous by it's absence is any political rung climbing. That is, the run for and holding of lesser offices -- as is the recognized standard. Barack seems to be reaching too far and when one considers how he arrived at his previous office, it looks all the more like a leap of faith (hence the hope and change identity).

So the senator is left to talk high ideals and chant hope and change, sloganeer overcome, but that too makes clear that the democratic nomination when to the wrong gender.