Palin Unleashed!

Josh Marshall wonders if Sarah Palin's upcoming campaign stop in Omaha is a sign of just how poorly things are going for the McCain campaign. 

It's pretty unlikely that McCain is in any danger of losing any of Nebraska's electoral votes.  What's far more likely is that they know no matter what Palin does, it's newsworthy, and they desperately need Palin to be seen, to be out there campaigning, in order to combat the narrative of how Palin has to be hidden because of her extreme incompetence.  McCain's problem is that Palin really is completely incompetent, especially in the face of any group other than a collection of diehard GOP partisans and arousable Rich Lowry clones. 

So they're plopping her down in Omaha so that Tucker Bounds can go on TV and say, "See?  See?  She's campaigning!  She's a great campaigner, youbetcha!"

Comments

[oddjob]

From what little I've read it appears Obama may have an outside shot at one of the electoral votes there, the one representing the 2nd congressional district. Since McCain's apparently now decided to make a similar play for the Maine 2nd, perhaps they've decided to add some insurance to the Nebraska votes.

[yoyo]

You are wrong. OBama is opening a second station in omaha.

[John]

This makes absolutely no sense. Sarah Palin can go and give a speech anywhere. It makes absolutely no sense to send her to Omaha if they're not worried about that electoral vote.

[Stephen]

Wow. What a thing to get mad about.

Nebraska's 2nd is a lot like Kansas's 3rd. If Kansas apportioned its electoral votes the same way, he'd probably get a stronger presence here as well. But it's a sign of how much money Obama has coupled with how little defense he needs to play, not the result of Axelrod and Plouffe having super-secret info that shows a definite win.

Seriously, calm down, people.

[Joe Klein's conscience]

Did anyone hear about the train wreck of an appearance Palin made today in Carson, CA?

http://campaignsilo.firedoglake.com/2008/10/04/jon-voight-supports-palin-for-president-and-it-just-gets-weirder-at-soca-palin-rally/

[oddjob]

Seriously, calm down, people.

Wasn't mad. Just knew the info. and thought it might be a possible explanation, so I offered it.

[ikl]

I would tend to think that Obama loses Omaha in a close election, but it looks like I was wrong about IN not being competitive in a close election and Omaha shares some of IN's salient features (votes more Republican than might be predicted by its demographics and tradition of low voter participation among Democratic-leaning demographics). So maybe Omaha is also close. I was actually surprised that Obama didn't put more resources into Omaha earlier but perhaps their internal polls have moved recently . . .

Omaha is the sort of place that Palin might help - they can probably win there just by rallying the base and if they do so successfully it might not matter if she pushes away some swing voters. Putting her in a place where McCain has to win lots of independents / centrists to win is more of a double edged sword at this point.

[low-tech cyclist]

"Hold it down kids, don't get excited!"
-Peorgie Tirebiter

"Who's excited?"
-Pico

Hasn't Palin been making campaign speeches all along? I mean, that's pretty much what they do at this point. So her making a campaign speech in Omaha shouldn't be more newsworthy than her making a campaign speech in Kansas City, except that everyone knows Missouri's in play, but people aren't aware that Omaha might be.

Now, if they were so worried about Palin going off script that they weren't even sending her out to make speeches. that would be ginormous news. If you don't even trust your 'heartbeat away from the Presidency' person to make a speech, that would really be the clincher in any argument over Palin's competency.

[MR Bill]

My 78 year old mom, who vote for Bush twice (even though Dad voted for Kerry in '04) sniffed "She seemed to be flirting with every man in the room, instead of answering the questions...I'm sure some old goats liked it."

Predictably, David Broder of the Washington Post in his Sunday column, calls Palin "cool as a cucumber, comfortable with her talking points and unrattled by anything that was thrown at her. "
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ wp...id=opinionsbox1

David, she was winking at YOU.

[BruceMcF]

Of course Omaha is in play. Of course its not a 50/50 chance ... but the Obama campaign is running out of places where they trail but are close enough to make sense to put a lot of effort into the attack ... FiveThirtyEight.com has NC at 51/49, IN at 45/55, MO at 43/57 ... then its WV at 25/75 then MT 17/83, ND 15/85, GA 12/88.

All the traditional battleground states are trending to Obama, plus some new battleground states ... the only positive news McCain is getting is in MN, where he is outspending the Obama campaign heavily on the air.

Its entirely plausible that the Obama campaign has internals from NE-02 that show that Omaha's single electoral vote is somewhere in the 25%/75% range, which would definitely put it in play ...

... after all, from the love that Biden gave to the fictitious "Clean Coal", they view WV as in play. Good thing there is not a state with a strong electoral interest in mermaids, there would have been Mermaid Protection featuring as well.

[litbrit]

David, she was winking at YOU.

But were there sparkles all over David's living room that his poor wife had to clean up later? (Eeeeuuuuw.)

It's funny--I read that National Review bit to Robert on Friday, and he kept saying, "Deb, you're making this up, right? Gimme a break. That's pathetic."

Me: Uh, no, this guy is for real. Bill Buckley's magazine. Winking brunettes are apparently causing mass sparkle emissions in conservative households around the nation.

R: "Lemme see...okay, wow. I believe you."

Then Olbermann refers to the same Corner piece, naming Rich Lowry Worst Person in the World and asking him to please, please, keep the masturbation fantasies to himself.

And later, Bill Maher riffed on it, too.

There's no denying the quantity and quality of the comedy gold flowing from the right. Good grief, it's so pure, too--almost every incident is a parody in situ.

[oddjob]

Tina Fey used it, too.

Oh, and 538 has a post up about Nebraska and the logic of going for the Omaha electoral vote.

[John]

Coal is big in Pennsylvania and Ohio as well as West Virginia, so "clean coal" is not clearly a pander to WV.

[litbrit]

oddjob, look at the post upstairs. :-)

[oddjob]

:-)