Echoes of 1980--the debates

I've spent some time discussing the dynamic of incumbent elections, and how they differ from elections where neither candidate is currently President. The primary difference is in staging. There are two distinct phases of the campaign: the incumbent referendum, and the look at the challenger with respect to whether he measures up to that previously developed personal standard. This phenomenon explains why things seem so bad for President Bush lately, but John Kerry has apparently failed to capitalize into the double-digit lead Bush's tumble apparently suggests he should have--no one is paying attention to Kerry right now. His continued high rate of "don't know" responses is indicative of this, and you can imagine why; everyone is focused on whether Bush deserves another four years to work his undeniable magic.

So far the referendum is going dangerously badly for him. Worse, there is a fairly dense minefield of upcoming events he will have to tiptoe through on his way to the convention. Just holding where he's at now in the face of more hearings, reports, leaks, and letters from the front will be tough enough, but Bush simply can't get re-elected with favorability numbers like he has now. It won't happen. But if he makes it relatively intact to New York, and people aren't totally turned off by the idea of capitalizing on 9/11 to make a political tableau, he'll likely ride a little bump as the season gets into gear and the focus becomes the upcoming debate(s).

Also during this time, Kerry will have made his big presentation in Boston, and then gone somewhat off-duty for August while the Olympics and the GOP convention take center stage. He'll be a little shorter of money than Bush, having an extra five weeks in which to stretch his $75 million federal gift, so he'll probably be a little ad-quieter. Which means that for Kerry too, the debates will likely be a defining moment: put side by side, does Kerry exceed the standard we've come to associate with Bush as we made up our minds this spring?

There's a fine article in the newest Atlantic Monthly*, highlighting the importance of the debates and how differently the two approach them--indeed, how they approach almost anything, and how their historic debate performances so deeply reflect who they are. Fallows' conclusions may be a little surprising on both accounts, but I think they're spot on. And I can't wait for them. I called this the Echoes of 1980, because this really is shaping up as a very similar election: crisis-troubled incumbent vs the challenger who no one really knew about, and who the party supported but was initially unsure of as a worthy enough opponent. By the end of summer, people had pretty much made up their minds about Carter, and their attention turned to Reagan. By the time he got off those folksy "there you go again" type lines and balanced them with steely vision statements in the debates, the race was over.



*this link will only be active until June 7, so that subscribers can enjoy it all to themselves. I think it's a little weird, but it's their rag. And if you view the page and save it in your cache before then, you can keep it anyway.

Larry David, freedom's executive producer

This story is spreading quickly, but I had to mention it because the show is such a favorite of mine. I still actually look forward to getting home, hanging out for a while, and then catching a rerun of Seinfeld. My favorites are always the ones that are more misfortunate situations than banal observances. In other words, the episodes that Larry David touched. His unmistakable contribution to sketch comedy is the somewhat boorish character you can't quite decide whether you like or not, who invariably either triumphs in the most venal fashion or receives a grand comeuppance in an absurd and highly coincidental manner. Jerry's episodes are the ones about breaking up with girls because "something went into the toilet." Funny, yes. Preciously black, no.

So imagine a show that is entirely about the conflicted schadenfreude of bad things happening to bad people, and that's HBO's Curb Your Enthusiasm. I've said it before and I'll say it again: there is no network within 50 miles of HBO when it comes to original programming. It is worth the entire cable bill, almost by itself. And it's only partially because there's no need to cut out the tits and the fucks; there is true creative freedom in almost every way, especially in the documentaries.

One of my favorite episodes, certainly of this season, is The Car Pool Lane. Larry gets tickets to the Dodger game, but will be late due to traffic. Noticing the wide open car pool lane, he uses the opportunity of a passing hooker to gain the necessary passenger for HOV. She makes him take her to the game, and as they say, hilarity ensues.

All mildly interesting (at best) if you're not a fan, I'm sure. The news here is that the footage of their time at Chavez Ravine became material evidence for an alibi--an alibi needed to exonerate a man for murder. Proving he was at the game (with stubs) was not enough to convince the police, and for almost six months he sat in jail awaiting trial. His defense attorney was smart enough to check Fox broadcast footage of the game, but it did not show the desired section closely enough.

Where this probable PD really earned his stripes was by finding out about the stadium footage for the CYE episode. David provided the access, and there on the timestamped video footage were his client and his daughter, as claimed. Evidence presented, charges dismissed, David 1 Injustice 0. Now that the story has developed into one quoted at the end of shows like Countdown and The Abrams Report, David has released a statement, which if I recall from memory correctly was "I am quitting the show in order to devote my life to freeing the unjustly accused." David has a bit of a knack for life's "official statements":

"This is a sad day for the Golden Globes. It is, however, quite a good day for Larry David. I suspect the wife will be a little forthcoming tonight...Thank you, Foreign Press for what should be a memorable evening." (Cue shot of wife laughing nervously.)

"I'd also like to thank HBO and everyone connected with Curb Your Enthusiasm. And, of course, I'd like to thank my parents, who always taught me that when you have the opportunity to annoy someone, you should do so. Little did they know I would be doing it on such a massive scale."

Torrid Scoops Slate!

Torrid's World, Monday, May 31st:
"Bremer Loves Pachachi"

Slate, Tuesday, June 1st:
"Crony Loves Pachachi"

I'll grant you that "Crony" is a much better parody of "Joanie," but who is the crony in this case? Pachachi was the putative choice of Bremer and the CPA, neither of which would really be considered cronies. His cronies would be, if anyone, fellow exiles and members of the IGC. Alas, they picked someone else.

First with "Howard's End," now with this. If there's a terrible pun to be made from today's headlines, you have no better source than this space right here!

Electoral vote updates!

President-Elect has finally gotten off the stick and posted their first projection since before Kerry was the nominee. Fairly little changes on their map; they give Bush the lean in OH which provides the margin; that seems like a non-majority read of the situation there, based apparently prominently on the Mason Dixon poll out this week. I'd consider it the worst case scenario in the campaign's current state, but it does reflect the need for Kerry to get two of the big swing three: PA, OH, FL.

Election Projection is the project of Scott Elliott, a fervent Bush supporter who it must just be killing to have to post these kind of results. Scott's version is the only one I can see that factors in job approval ratings and right track/wrong track polling; he rightly notes that they are often better proxies for the final result than the head to head numbers. This map represents the likely best case scenario; it shows what things will look like if the peripheral approval numbers for Bush stay in the vicinity they now occupy. Unfortunately, Scott doesn't want to shell out for subscriber only reports, so he's missing out on some newer data from places like Rasmussen.

The latest projector I've found is this one, its main appeal being the daily updates and ability to see prior maps. Today's version is somewhat in the middle; it gives Kerry some of the edges in weak Bush states like AR, MO and FL, but also gives Bush Ohio relatively safely, and has Kerry on the cusp of losing places like NJ.

The last two of these appear to be doing updates weekly at worst, and Zogby's battleground maps should be coming out biweekly. We'll keep an eye on these.

Bremer loves Pachachi

OK, I confess I've been waiting for just the right moment to use that one, and here it is. What I don't get is, why the fuss if the post is largely ceremonial? The whole process has taken some strange turns, as Josh Marshall has amply pointed out here, here, also here, and here too. As late as a week ago, it looked like Bush had finally flipped over the card table on the necons, and sought to extricate himself from the Iraq mess by having Brahimi skip over the IGC and pick some theoretically independent Iraqis with a little bit of popular support. Chief among was Allawi, a good choice for American spooks and diplomats, if not the civilian folks at the Pentagon. Columnists began wondering, where is Kerry's position now different from Bush's? As if on cue, suddenly the IGC was naming their own people, folks at the White House like Scott McClellan were forced to nod and say, "yes, BRILLIANT man!" while not having the slightest idea who he was, and Brahimi was getting word of "his" decisions via faxed press releases. Of course it now appears that only the spokespeople had no idea what was going on; arm-twisting and back scratching promises were being undertaken behind the scenes. But now with the flap over Pachachi, the whole thing threatens to blow up a bit. The US can't look too demanding and authoriatarian in this conflict, but surely they can't just let the IGC hijack the entire process, putting it in the hands of the very group that nearly everyone agrees, has no legitimacy? Right?

John Kerry is getting the weak draw of all time in this race.

That's a lie! Wait, what was the other part again?

Forgive me if I don't present this with awe, shock and disappointment in our national leadership: Dick Cheney was in on the deal to get Halliburton's subsidiary the first no-bid contract of the Iraq affair. And by "in on the deal," we mean coordinated. Here's the original email, sent by a staffer in the Army Engineer Corps:

...contingent on informing WH [White House] tomorrow. We anticipate no issues since action has been coordinated w VP's [vice president's] office.

Now, Cheney's office strongly denies this. Here's how:

An administration official familiar with the e-mail, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the memo merely mentions the fact that the White House had been given a standard courtesy call notifying that a contract decision that had already been made and was being publicly announced soon.

Oh, I see, they were just notifying the White House before announcing it, OK. That seems reasonable. Oh hey, though--what about the second sentence?

You have the Messenger Attack Denial, the Outraged Hurt Denial, the Dismissive Desperation Denial, the Accuracy Nitpick denial, and of course the favored Non-Denial Denial. I can't put my finger on what kind of denial this is. The Affirm the Stipulated Denial, we'll say.

Next time your spouse accuses you of cheating on him or her, say, "I was simply driving the car to work this morning!" Perhaps they'll be thrown off by your candid truism enough to forget that the car was seen at the Sleaze-n-Git after work.