7 Days in America Blog

This time "the whole world was watching" was literally true...and they were waving flags not fingers. Our A+ panel discusses why -- W's uniting influence, O's bottom-up campaign, McCain's dishonort.

Two Democrats succeed two conservative Republicans during economic crises. How parallel actually are Roosevelt's and now Obama's transitions?

7 Days Interview with Jonathan Alter, author of The Defining Moment, Nov. 16, 2008

What went wrong with McCain? Nearly everything. But mostly, he ran an
ok GOP campaign for 1952, 1968, 1980...but not 2008. A Cold-War
candidacy in the age of Google?

Let's put aside for a moment the phenomenon of Obama, his eloquence,
equanimity, organizing skills. McCain was old-time religion in the era
of super-churches, a cold warrior when non-state actors are the biggest
variables, a deregulator when even Randian Alan Greenspan questioned
market fundamentalism. He always seemed to be Mel Gibson in Forever Young, a 1940s flyboy transported to and stumbling around in the 1990s.

He simply ran plays from the Grand OLD Party's playbook when, as Obama
was doing on the other side, it was essential to call audibles given
the context of Bush, Katrina, the credit crisis.

First, he had nothing to say about the economic meltdown other than he'd a) cut earmarks (under .005% of the federal budget), b) balance
the budget by the end of his first term (which no one believed and, in
any event, was not very Keynsian when stimuli were needed), and c)
continue Bush's Gilded Age tax policies. Amazing. Bushonomics produced
one-third the job creation of Clinton -- and has helped to create the
current recession -- yet McCain tethered himself to that mast.
Going-down-with-the-ship may seem noble for the scion of admirals but
it's bad economics and worse politics.

Second, instead of talking about real problems, he resorted to a
standard fear-and-smear campaign, more McCarthy than Maverick. Dean
discusses how he'd have been better off running as the McCain of 2000
than the one who daily resorted to guilt-by-ancient-association --
palling around with terrorists, PLO spokesmen, socialists. But none of
that had real traction when the closest thing definitionally to a
socialist was Hank Paulson and voters were more afraid of their bills

We now see McCain's split-level strategy for the remaining two weeks -- while he stays patriotic and funny, his campaign quietly floods the country with slanderous robo-calls and ads equating Obama and Ayers/ACORN. The public Maverick vs. the private McCarthy.

Interview with Sen. Tom Daschle, October 17, 2008

GREEN: You know him well from when you both served together in the Senate. What was going through McCain's head during and since the debate?

DASCHLE: I think he was advised to be aggressive, and I think that came off as anger. You know, one of the great taglines that they told us to use during the post-debate spin period was to say that he's already convinced two-thirds of the American people he's angry, and he spent 90 minutes convincing the final third. And I think he did a good job of that; he convinced a lot of people last night that he's an angry man. And I think that frustration showed increasingly during the debate.

GREEN: On this blog three months ago, I wrote that Obama seemed to be our Reagan, a teflon candidate due to his sunny composure. How much is that the reason for his success to date?