i should perhaps have made clear that i would hope obama figures out a way to not only maintain that posture on the road, but also to impose it on television. that seems to me the problem---i read some recent stats: 94/100 americans have at least one television--65% say that they rely on television as their primary infotainment source.
what's happening is the division of the campaign--the one that happens in 3-d and the one that happens in 2-d. the republicans, having nothing to say but hoping to reduce the election to a personality contest, are running a campaign fitted to 2-d. obama's so far has been better fitted to 3-d. i'd rather see the 2 and 3-dimensions closer together--so far the republicans have been able to dominate the 2-d register by streaming lint into to. and we're chumped too---look at the number of palin threads and what they're about. this is an expression of wedge politics. i still smell rove lurking, a fetid cloud.
addendum: *this* is why letting sarah palin anywhere near power is a terrible terrible idea.
read about the war with russia...
jesus fuck. what planet is she on?
Quote:
Sarah Palin shows hawkish streak in first interview
· Vice-presidential hopeful challenges Russia
· Democrats turn to Clinton for advice on campaign
* Suzanne Goldenberg and Ewen MacAskill in Washington
* The Guardian,
A hawkish and occasionally combative Sarah Palin warned last night she might commit US troops to a war against Russia in defence of Georgia and Ukraine in her first interview since John McCain chose her as his running mate.
Palin, who admitted last night she made her first trip outside North America last year, also said she was certain she was ready to step in for McCain as president, if the Republican nominee were to be incapacitated. She said repeatedly she would not hesitate to use all options in an international crisis or resort to force against Islamist extremists.
"I have the confidence in that readiness and knowing that you can't blink. You have to be wired in a way of being so committed to the mission, the mission that we're on, reform of this country and victory in the war, you can't blink," Palin told ABC television.
Palin's interview was carefully stage-managed to counter criticism that she lacks foreign policy experience and to deflect media scrutiny of her personal life. But her occasionally stilted answers and uncompromising view of the world could sit uneasily with American voters, weary of the war on Iraq and the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan.
In sometimes tense exchanges, Palin demonstrated a more bellicose posture towards Russia than the Bush administration during the conflict with Georgia. She also supported military action against Islamist extremists in Pakistan even without the support of the Islamabad government.
Asked whether Nato membership would commit the US to going to war on behalf of Ukraine and Georgia if they were attacked, Palin said: "Perhaps so. I mean, that is the agreement when you are a Nato ally. If another country is attacked, you're going to be expected to be called upon and help. What I think is that smaller democratic countries that are invaded by a large power is something for us to be vigilant against."
She advocated speeding up full Nato membership for Georgia and Ukraine despite warnings from Moscow that it views attempts to expand US influence among the former Soviet states as provocative. Russia's invasion of Georgia was "unprovoked", she said and warned that America could not allow Moscow to control vital energy supplies. "We've got to keep an eye on Russia. For Russia to have exerted such pressure in terms of invading a smaller democratic country, unprovoked, is unacceptable," she said.
Last night's broadcast was the first of four programmes based on interviews with Palin conducted in her home town of Wasilla and Fairbanks both in Alaska.
The broadcasts will include footage of Palin's soldier son, Track, who was scheduled to deploy to Iraq yesterday. The Alaska governor, who touts herself as a moose-hunting, salmon-fishing, hockey mom turned political reformer, has faced a steady drip of negative stories about her record and her family including daughter Bristol, who is pregnant at 17.
Until the interviews, she had not taken questions from reporters, and at campaign rallies stuck closely to a scripted speech that is largely a distillation of her address to the party convention.
McCain's strategists are working hard to capitalise on Palin's appeal to Republican women as well as some former supporters of Hillary Clinton. Palin's instant popularity and the success of Republican effort to present her as a feminist icon, have put the Democrats off balance.
Meanwhile Barack Obama made a belated personal appeal to Bill Clinton yesterday for advice on how to mount a fightback and reverse a slide in the polls.
Talking to journalists before they began lunch, Clinton said: "I predict that Senator Obama will win and win pretty handily."
Obama added: "You can take it from the president of the United States. He knows a little something about politics."
Obama said he saw parallels between his campaign and Clinton's in 1992: a relatively unknown politician fighting the Republicans against a backdrop of an ailing economy. After the lunch, a joint statement issued on behalf of the two by Obama's team, said: "They discussed the campaign briefly, but mostly talked about how the world has changed since September 11 2001. They also spoke about what the next president can do to help make the economy work for all Americans, as it did under president Clinton."
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008...08.sarahpalin1