The Real Banana On Politics With Weekend Monkey - The Empire Strikes Back

FF: Once again,it's time to creep through the rancid political jungle with JoshuaPundit's own political guru and former Democratic Presidential Candidate, my pal Weekend Monkey.

WM: Hideyho, Primates! Wassup, FF?

FF: Hello again Monkey. An interesting week in politics, no?

WM: Hooo,yeah! I love stuff like this. It looks like you were right about Sarah Palin, FF. I really figured the cranky old guy was gonna go for Pawlenty, to try and cop Minnesota.Instead he pulls somethin' out of left field and shocks everybody! Even I gotta admire that, Democrat though I am.

FF: Well, you were right about Biden.

WM: Hee hee, yeah..pretty easy call, especially with McCain pricking Obama Yo' Mama's vanity by holding him up as an empty suit celebrity.

FF: I think that McCain's choice of Palin was a master strategic stroke and shows he has what it takes to be commander-in-chief.

I figured he'd pick someone like Palin because he took a realistic look at his situation and saw the same strengths and weaknesses I did. He was facing a young, charismatic opponent with an energized base of followers, tons of money and the media in his pocket, but with no resume and with associations with a lot of pretty radical elements that made people question his patriotism and judgment.Plus he was weakened by the primary fight with the Clintons.

McCain has the resume, and nobody with the brains G-d gave a goat is going to question his patriotism, but he was fronting a divided party thanks to Bush and was on the defensive because of that. He's not the best speaker, especially compared to Obama, he couldn't count on the media to be even remotely fair and he realized, after Obama turned down his offer to have the townhall style debates and began ridiculing him personally in his ads that his idea of a of a high level campaign on the issues was a fantasy.

WM: Well c'mon FF, what did you expect?

FF: If you remember, I figured that at some point he'd realize he had to take the gloves off.That's when he began approaching the campaign as a warrior and a strategist, I think. He hired Steve Schmidt and began hitting Obama hard on his weak points,especially his vanity. I think the Saddleback thing was a crucial first battle - he made Obama look pretty bad, to the point that he had to start his surrogates whining about how McCain 'knew the questions in advance.'

Then he watched what happened at the convention. Not only did Obama not pick Hillary as his vice president, he went out of his way to humiliate her. And then he picked an old DC hack like Biden as his running mate, which was a choice made out of weakness, and played right into McCain's hands with that grandiose phony Greek Parthenon setting and a speech that was a typical Dem laundry list of grievance and class warfare.

Originally, I thought McCain's pick of Palin was a longshot that worked, but now I see it exactly what a master stroke it was. With that one pick, he unified the party, emphasized his 'maverick' brand,provided his campaign with a charismatic female candidate who's actually more popular than Obama and distanced himself from Bush and made the GOP the party of change and reform. I mean, the whole theme of the convention was Country First, and every speech built on that.

WM: Yowza! You really think McCain and the ReThugs planned all this?

FF: Uh huh. As a matter of fact, I think it worked even better than he figured, because of the way the media and the Dems went after Palin and her family. I mean, by the time she gave her speech, the media had painted her and her family as trailer trash and people were surprised that she had all her teeth and could actually come out with a coherent sentence.

WM: You got somethin' there, FF. Except, I gotta point out, Obama did say that he was against attacking her and her family personally.

FF: Yeah, right...what, four or five days after the crap started, Monkey? And remember, Obama has plenty of surrogates that are involved with his campaign that are keeping the sliming going. I mean, you see him refusing support from George Soros because Soros is funding MoveOn and Daily Kos? You see him doing anything concrete to reign in anybody? What's going on is that his campaign is feeding stuff to their shills in the dinosaur media, and that way he has plausible deniability.

WM: Hey, I'm just saying he was against it officially, and the rest is politics as usual. Actually, if Obama's smart, they'll ignore Palin as much as possible and concentrate on McCain.

FF: Except he isn't all that smart, Monkey. I think we've established that. I mean, if I had an opponent that beat me in the popular vote and won all the big states I was going to need to win, I'd do my best to make her my running mate. I wouldn't have picked Biden.

WM: Hey, I grant you, Biden wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed, but a bunch of people turned Obama down and he was the only one left with any kind of foreign policy resume. Plus, you don't get the nuances, as usual. The Democratic primary campaign was the result of a fight between the Soros wing of the party and the Clintons.Obama is Soros' horse in this race, and there was no way Obama Yo' Mama and Shrillery could have run together.

FF: I see.But why didn't he pick another woman? What about Karen Sebelius...DiFi...Boxer..

WM: First of all, after the McCain stuff, he needed somebody with experience. And second, there's only one queen in this campaign, and that's Michelle Obama. No way any other female was going to run with Obama, especially a white one. And anyway, DiFi had turned it down already.

FF: Speaking as a professional, what did you think of the GOP convention?

WM: Unfortunately, it went pretty well. The speeches were pretty good, especially Giuliani's. And the one day delay because of Gustav gave some people the illusion that the Republicans cared about some crackers in the Gulf States.

FF: Oh come on, Monkey. They busted some of your guys joking about how Gustav proved that G-d was on the side of the Dems!

WM: Yeah yeah OK... anyway Sarah Palin's speech was damned good, even if she is a yahoo from America's outback. It's made her into a major celebrity. And you're right, all the personal sniping at her wasn't productive.

FF: Americans don't like people who bully women and kids.And I'd be careful about that yahoo stuff, if I were you. I hear she's a damn good shot.

WM: Look, the Rethugs had their moment...even McCain's speech was pretty good towards the end, for McCain, I gotta admit. Let's see how it translates into numbers in the next sixty days or so and what happens in the debates. And as far as Palin goes, I think the campaign has to keep trashing McCain and ignore Palin as much as possible. That, and use their money clout to get every possible vote out.

FF: Every illegal alien, convicted felon, homeless person and corpse, right Monkey?

WM: It's politics FF. And the Obama people know how to play the game as dirty as anybody.

FF: Speaking of politics, where do you see the Clintons coming down in all this?

WM: Pretty much the same as the Bushes, believe it or not. Hillary has two choices. Originally, she was going to sabotage Obama Yo' Mama's campaign and do the minimum necessary, with the idea that Obama would lose and McCain would be a one termer so she'd be ready to pick up the pieces and run again in 2012. Now, with this Palin chickee in the mix, she's gotta figure whether it makes more sense to try and suck up to Obama and hope she can maybe get on the Supreme Court or something and forget about being president or stick withthe original plan and take her chances. I see her sticking with the original plan - a lot can happen between now and 2012 and she's still pissed off at Obama.

The Bushes had the same thing going, only from the opposite end of the telescope. They've never liked McCain, and I think it was you who told me that the Bush big league financial donors, the Pioneers, are sitting on their wallets this year. The Bushes figured that if Obama won, people would be way sick of him after one term and that would pave the way for Jeb or another Bushie in 2012. Again, Palin is the monkey wrench in the equation. If McCain gets elected and serves one term, she could end up as president for another two terms, until 2020., which isn't the equation they had in mind. They gotta decide whether to help the GOP ticket and hope for whatever they can get in exchange or to simply sit this one out like they have been and hope Obama wins.

FF: Interesting as always, Monkey..talk to you next week. By the way, I understand you have something non-campaign related planned for us this week.

WM: Hee hee hee, you betcha FF. It is not to be missed. Smell ya later, Primates!