11:51 am | New York City

We are feeling contrarian again today, here at the BWA Campaign Blog. We think it comes from listening to the Diane Rehm show. This morning's guest is social-thinker-type Jeremy Rifkin, who has just published a book about why Europe is the land of the future. He's just raving on and on about it. The only thing more annoying than right-wing mouth-breathers who denounce every place on this earth that isn't flying the Stars and Stripes is left-wing pigeon-brains who idealize Europe without ever confronting the realities about the vast differences between Europe and the United States. Point-for-point comparisons between the two are so disparate as to be almost meaningless, but social-libertarians can't help but make them. Canada seems to strike the best balance in this regard, for my money, but no one ever remembers that they're there.

1:18 pm | New York City

The low-level, wrong-headed gibberish of the Nader campaign continues to plague us. Even some of our own alert readers, many closet leftists, continue to support this increasingly-freakish behavior. Londoner Pete McClymont writes to recommend this Guardian article supproting a Nader candidacy, and share some thoughts from across the vast sea:

Lesser of two evils Kerry may be, but it's not the way to fix the system. Sounds good common sense to these ears.

As far as we know, Mr. McClymont is ineligible to vote in the upcoming election, by virtue of birth on foreign shores, but his sentiments are not unheard-of, here in twitching, overly-bright America. Does no one on the left understand coalition politics?

Sunday's New York Times ran this piece on Nader supporters ranging from disillusioned to unrepentant:

But Nader supporters around the country complain of an all-out attack by the Democratic Party, including legal challenges to their ballot efforts.

"It's an unprecedented assault," said Carl Mayer, a lawyer and an adviser to the Nader campaign in Princeton, N.J. "The bellyaching and whining by the Democrats about how Ralph supposedly cost them the election in 2000 is relentless."

Good for the Democrats, we say. It's about time they brought the metal down.

In other news, Kerry has gone to ground in advance of the Republican convention, warned by his legion of hatchet-men and sycophants to keep his powder dry. We suspect there will be little in the way of significant news for the next week or so, although we hope New York treats the Republicans well. Manners are important. However, if the GOP should make what we fear will be an unpatriotic and black-hearted attempt to franchise the tragic events of Sept. 11 for themselves (hinted at by the choice of New York City for the convention and the prominent role of Rudolph Guiliani), we will be on them like a rain of stainless-steel meat-tenderizers.

11:31 am | New York City

Gubernatorial Edition

It's been a hard month, both for soldiers and for presidential candidates. But it's been hardest on governors, we must admit. In Connecticut, Rowland bailed when they caught him with his hand in the cookie jar, taking great wads of cash bribes from contractors working for the state; Ryan was hounded out of political life in Illinois for fraud, or something like that (although we recall something about him taking his wife to sex clubs), setting the stage for the bizarre and joyful Senate campaign between Alan Keyes and Barack Oabama; and yesterday, New Jersey governor James McGreevey announced he was stepping down because he was gay AND having an affair.

There seems to be something floating up through the murk about McGreevey being the target of an investigation alleging that he appointed his Israeli boyfriend to posts for which the man was unsuited, but, as we discussed with various people last night at a happy hour, the truth is that it's just too much. Affairs can be survived. Accusations of wrongdoing and favoritism can be dodged. Even coming out as a gay man could probably be handled, at least in the mid-Atlantic region of the country. But the combination of things was more than the average New Jersey voter could possibly handle. Last among the networks, but first in our hearts, ABC News hit the ground running with this one:

New Jersey Gov. James McGreevey rocked the political world Thursday by announcing that he is gay and will resign in November. ABC News has learned that a male former aide is filing a sexual misconduct lawsuit against the governor in a New Jersey court.

McGreevey, who is married, acknowledged he "engaged in an adult consensual affair with another man." He said he will resign effective Nov. 15.

"My truth is that I am a gay American," he said at a hastily called news conference, his wife at his side.

Even as he made the announcement, a lawsuit was expected to be filed by his former homeland security adviser, Golan Cipel, in Mercer County, N.J., Court, sources told ABC News.

In other news, Julia Childs died yesterday, and Maureen Dowd is on the Diane Rehm Show this morning, trying to pretend she isn't paid enormous amounts of money just to be snarky. Both of these things are making us edgy and irritable, like imminent thunder.

4:24 pm | New York City

"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we."
-- President George W. Bush

It's been another slow week in politics, with all the electrical excitement over the Boston convention, Barack Obama, the cheap-suited return of Howard Dean, Clintons aplenty, conflicting polls, and gallons of expensive liquor, dissipating in the wilting August heat. Now there's nothing left but bad employment figures and an increasingly-restless citizenry here in New York. The Empire Staters in the big city are in an ugly mood over the impending arrival of thousands of earnest Republicans. Denied credentials to the GOP convention, the editorial staff of the BWA Campaign Blog will be taking a much-needed vacation that week, reporting haphazardly or not at all from the relative safety of the Outer Banks.

Speaking of ugly moods, beating on politically-outspoken rock musicians seems to be the newest fad among the respectable media, replacing such other recent favorites as not broadcasting any of the Democratic convention to the American people, mistrusting Dick Cheney and ignoring the horrific deaths of thousands of people who live in Africa. We can understand some of this petty-mindedness, but we find it cheap.

On this topic, if you missed the op-ed by Bruce Springsteen in last week's New York Times, you had better get over there and read it now:

It is through the truthful exercising of the best of human qualities - respect for others, honesty about ourselves, faith in our ideals - that we come to life in God's eyes. It is how our soul, as a nation and as individuals, is revealed. Our American government has strayed too far from American values. It is time to move forward. The country we carry in our hearts is waiting.

The Boss still knows how to turn a phrase. The Times is clearly proud of this op-ed. They've had a permanent link to it on their 'Politics' page for a week now. It's sort of endearing. "Look! The cool kids are sitting with the school-paper nerds at lunch! Yay!"

It's been a Springsteen-o-centric campaign season so far. Astute observers will have noted that Kerry played "No Surrender" just after accepting the nomination in Boston. They also played "Dreams" by Van Halen, and something else pretty rocking that has slipped our minds. As always, we strive for a thin veneer of nonpartisanship, but we think it's safe to say that the Democrats usually play better music.

Ralph Nader continues to astound and confuse the masses. When we last left our hero he was stiffing homeless people and turning to Republicans to help him get on the ballots. Now, Ron Gunzberger reports that the Nader campaign has turned against the Green Party:

Now -- after failing to win the party's 2004 nomination/endorsement -- Nader is making another run at winning the party's ballot spots in various states. His campaign is openly encouraging individual state Green Party affiliates to ignore the national party's nomination of Green Party member David Cobb for President and instead submit the Nader/Camejo ticket to their respective state elections office as their names for the ballot line.

That's just bad politics. He lost ballot access all over the country by dissing the Greens, and now he's alienating county-level coordinators by the truckload with this kind of wrong-headed nonsense. We know you're not supposed to say mean things about Nader unless you preface it with a declaration of how much good he's done for the country in the past, but we say to hell with it. We will forgive disloyalty and egomania, but we will never forgive rank amateurism.

10:19 am | New York City

Yesterday we pointed out that the wildly-careening poll numbers on Kerry's "bounce" made little practical difference, since it doesn't actually matter what the national opinion is, since we vote state by state in this great land. Along those lines, however, Zogby released a new poll today that shows Kerry ahead in most of the battleground states. The Wall Street Journal breaks it down thusly:

Here's the math: To analyze the Zogby numbers we start by assuming that the District of Columbia and the 34 states that aren't in the battleground poll will vote for the same political party that they did in 2000. President Bush begins our calculations with 189 electoral votes and Mr. Kerry with 172. A candidate needs 270 electoral votes to win the White House.

Next, we add in the electoral votes from the latest poll, regardless of the margin of error or spread between the candidates. The 13 states that Mr. Kerry leads control 146 electoral votes, while Mr. Bush's three states have a total of 31 votes. The bottom line: In the Electoral College, Mr. Kerry would beat the president 318 votes to 220.

The Associated Press, displaying their well-deserved reputation for dull-gray evenhandedness, presented a round-up of all these conflicting national polls.

In other news, word on the street is that Illinois Republicans, further dismayed by Democratic wonder-boy Barack Obama's showing at the Boston convention, have given up all hope of defeating him in the upcoming Illinois senate race, and have decided to "just yank a few chains" by nominating former presidential candidate and certified ideologue Alan Keyes. We hope this does not come to pass, simply because it would be unseemly for the senatorial debates in Illinois to attract more attention and be far more interesting and exciting than the presidential debates. But, as we have noted before with both regret and anger, we are not in charge.

3:22 pm | New York City

The numbers coming out of reputable media organizations are shaky and weird, like drunkards, and the commentariat continues to argue wildly about the mystical significance of Kerry post-convention "bounce".

General Election (USA Today poll)
Bush-Cheney: 50
Kerry-Edwards: 46

These numbers conflict alarmingly with the Newsweek poll (see yesterday's post), but, as the wise are so fond of pointing out, national polls are largely meaningless, since the national vote total is actually of no significance in deciding who wins the elections. People hate that, too.

Still, that's a 10-point spread over two major national polls. Get it together, boys.

The only news the wires brought us today was more on the increasingly-bizarre and otherworldy candidacy of Ralph Nader, who is on the ballot in only six states, and who apparently ducked out on paying an army of homeless Philadelphians his campaign had employed to gather signatures, and then blamed the resulting uproar on Democratic "dirty tricks". Sort of like when Ross Perot, the last clearly-demented person to seriously run for President, clamed that Republican frogmen had sabotaged his daughter's wedding. The New York Times discussed these thoughts and feelings today in print:

To Ralph Nader, the Democratic convention in Boston was a hollow charade that made Senator John Kerry, the Democratic presidential nominee, seem more like President Bush than ever. He said it gave him no reason to drop out of the race, even if he costs Mr. Kerry the election in November, as many believe he cost Al Gore in 2000.

"This isn't unity," Mr. Nader scoffed in an interview here on Saturday, referring to the message from the Democratic convention. "This is repressed conformity in order to create the show."

One the one hand, this makes us wonder about Nader's mental acuity and emotional well-being. On the other hand, we enjoy a good show.

4:31 pm | Brooklyn

There are many things that we find lacking in Senator John Kerry, here at the BWA Campaign Blog. His campaign is essentially a defensive one, prattling on about his long-ago military career driving a boat through the Vietnamese jungle, generally playing on the field as the Republicans define it. He lacks the sense of vision and drive (see also: Howard Dean, Bill Clinton) necessary to unify the Democratic Party and redefine a centrist-left majority. And when the chips were down and the president was using half-truths, shallow jingoism and fear to prosecute his ill-starred misadventure in Iraq, Kerry stood up and cast his vote in favor of Bush's war, and then washed his hands in the Senate men's room.

However, unlike the current Administration, one thing Kerry does not seem to suffer from is a deep-seated hatred and misunderstanding of America. The AP carried this story from New Mexico yesterday:

Some Democrats who signed up to hear Vice President Dick Cheney speak here Saturday were refused tickets unless they signed a pledge to endorse President Bush.

Two men who had sought tickets reported they were required to give name, address, phone number, e-mail address and driver's license number, then were presented the pledge of endorsement when they arrived to pick up the tickets Thursday.

Not being a ranting conspiracy theorist, we do not feel that this incident constitutes any great infringement upon our essential liberties. What it shows is the feeling, at least on the part of Cheney and his thugs, that he is not the vice-president of the American people, merely the vice-president of Republicans and errant libertarians. We smell the sick iron taste of fear that hovers about him at all times, and, while we would be startled if he were to telepathically choke the life out of an insubordinate underling, Darth-Vader-style, we would not be entirely surprised.

Kerry's post-convention numbers seem to have settled about eight points above Bush's, although we have heard enough jabber about "bounce" to not take this seriously.

General Election (Newsweek poll)
Kerry-Edwards: 52
Bush-Cheney: 44

In other news, alert reader Chris Lawrence wrote in to throw his suport behind this blog's contention that Michigan governor Jennifer Granholm is hot:

Granholm is HOT and SMART and should be President....only she was born in Canada. Maybe her being electable would be the only positive from the "Arnold" amendment which is surely around the corner....

While we agree wholeheartedly with Mr. Lawrence's sentiments, we fear for the fate of the republic should Governor Schwarzenegger be successful in amending the Constitution to allow foreign-born citizens to be elected President. We would, however, thoroughly enjoy a Schwarzenegger-Ventura slugfest for the White House, so perhaps we will rethink our objection.