Word: focused
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...strategy, this is probably quite canny. There are two ways to think about change in this election, because neither candidate is asking to be re-elected. In one sense - the one the Republicans are sure to focus on at their convention in St. Paul next week - America is weighing the unfamiliar, unquantifiable change that is Obama. Electing a meteroic black man instead of a seasoned white man could have big consequences or few consequences; either way, no one knows because it has never been done. Obama prefers to focus on a more familiar kind of change, the cyclical dumping...
...Friday, packing a 12,000-seat basketball stadium with cheering supporters dancing to rock music and waving glow sticks. And in selecting Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate, he chose someone who energized the dissolute Republican Party's activist base, and has already helped convince former foes like Focus on The Family's James Dobson to vote for McCain. But perhaps most importantly, McCain's bold move transformed the campaign of a 72-year-old white man into a potential cause-celeb for independent women, who will play a crucial role in determining the next occupant of the White...
...George H.W. Bush - or rather, his designated sleazeball Lee Atwater - gave us the first truly ugly August, in 1988. Atwater had conducted a series of focus groups among blue collar Democrats in Paramus, N.J., in May and found all sorts of fodder: Michael Dukakis was "against" the Pledge of Allegiance. More substantively, Dukakis ran a weekend prison-release program in Massachusetts that allowed an African-American felon named Willie Horton to go on a killing spree. But what was most distinctive was a new tone: a derisive, sarcastic negativity that predicted, and enabled, Rush Limbaugh's brilliant, destructive trade...
Honor and Its Limits The unanswerable question is whether McCain's rough campaign will eventually violate his own code of honor; he adores boxing, but he considers ultimate fighting a sickening national disgrace. Most Americans see McCain's focus on honor as a commendable commitment to principle; the danger comes when that insistence turns into dogma or a belief in one's monopoly on virtue. Asked whether he would look back at his tactics with Confederate-flag-style regrets, McCain at first refused to answer. When pressed, he gave the kind of canned, these-are-my-talking-points response...
Next week, the Republican Party will host a four-day celebration of McCain's life and experience, an event that is sure to focus on McCain's time as a Navy flyer and POW. It's a compelling storyline his campaign has no plans to run away from or leave behind, even if his opponents would like it to backfire...