I oppose Obama’s candidacy on many fronts, from his lack of experience to his ridiculous and dangers attempts to surrender Iraq to al-Qaeda, the man strikes me as one gaffe away from doing this country serious damage. He was on the way to his coronation because he had noticed the obvious – America wants change. And like any pol he started to wrap himself up in that theme, even though he really could not wear the mantle (he has done almost nothing to create change, but he whines about it a lot).

It has been very hard, therefore, for me to keep my objectivity when looking at this race unfold. I think conservatives have a built in advantage in the country because most people lean a bit right. They blew this by trying to go far right, insulting others along the way in their strive for purity. When you’re insulting people to get them to follow you are losing and losing badly. It is just a fact of life.

The Palin selection by Senator McCain has turned this race upside down. It has been weeks of chess master playing someone who is really bad at checkers. The young and arrogant team O-Bomba have demonstrated how they react to tough times – they melt down in a fit of smears against average Americans. The facade has been ripped from The Messiah, he is angry and bitter that his parting of the waters is not being appreciated. There are numerous people giving the team conflicting advice, exposing how unprepared this group is to lead and chart a course.

I firmly believe the lipstick and pig gaffe was an orchestrated disaster led by the DNC or some group of liberal power brokers. I think the fact the O-Bomba campaign stands by an ad mocking McCain’s physical injuries he incurred on behalf of this nation is a sign that the campaign is lost in anger and frustration. Even after ABC News confirmed McCain’s condition and how using a keyboard is painful, the Obama camp won’t give in – it wants to pretend there are ways for McCain to use technology and therefore attacking him is fair game.

Assuredly McCain isn’t comfortable talking about this — and the McCain campaign discouraged me from writing about this — but the reason the aged Arizonan doesn’t use a computer or send email is because of his war wounds.

I realize some of the nastier liberals in the blogosphere will see this as McCain once again “playing the POW card,” but it’s simply a fact: typing on a regular keyboard for any sustained period of time bothers McCain physically.

America has a different perspective on all this mess. While the O-Bomba campaign is trying to look tough and able to fight, Americans are looking at this and wondering is this how Obama will react to challenges in the world? Will he try and push around smaller and weaker countries that give him heart burn and make him look bad? The weapon of mass destruction in a election campaign is the ugly smear. When Obama gets his hands on some real fire power, will the man who descended from God demand obedience from all – without question?

The fact is the left is not ready to lead, more so than at any other time in history. If this entire Palin episode is a test of their character and leadership (as Obama makes this campaign out to be, the totality of his experience base for the job), then the whole lot of them are failing. Here is one liberal’s take on the implosion of Obama and the dems since Sarah Palin arrived on the scene and John McCain began exercising HIS extensive political experience at running campaigns.

If Barack Obama loses this election to John McCain – something which, for the first time, I regard as a real possibility – history will point to August 29 as the pivotal moment. That was when Mr McCain announced that Sarah Palin would be his running-mate, and when livid Democrats and their friends in the media voiced their feelings about her and much of the electorate, and gravely harmed their candidate’s prospects.

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As I argued last week, Mr Obama’s own initial reaction to the Palin nomination was exactly right. All the party had to do was follow his lead. Mr Obama, in effect, would give her enough rope; her inadequacies would reveal themselves in due course; it cost nothing, in the meantime, to be courteous, and to keep pressing on the issues, where the Democrats still enjoy an advantage with most voters.

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But the Democratic talking-heads had to exult in their disdain for Ms Palin and all she represents – namely, a good part of the electorate whose support Mr Obama needs. In the space of a few days, they irreversibly damaged Mr Obama’s candidacy and transformed this election.

The author still thinks Obama has the vision. Maybe so, but he doesn’t have the backbone to stand up to the puppet masters inside his campaign who pushed the lipstick schtick and ran with the ad belittling McCain for having the audacity to have injuries which limit his use of a keyboard. Obama is supposedly in charge (“I am Barack Obama and I approved of this ad”). What he has done throughout this campaign is simply blame his staff for his mistakes:

When asked about his campaign’s attack on Palin, attributed to top spokesman Bill Burton, at a Friday afternoon media availability at a Pennsylvania biodiesel plant, Obama referred to a statement he and running mate Joe Biden had since issued that hardly touched on policy issues and called Palin “an admirable person and … a compelling new voice.” 

Obama disavowed his campaign’s first response, telling journalists that “I think that, uh, you know, campaigns start getting these, uh, hair triggers and, uh, the statement that Joe and I put out reflects our sentiments,” he said. 

Angry and cowardly – there’s an interesting pattern emerging here. The fact Obama’s campaign is spiraling down the political vortex (with much acceleration provided by their own faults and anger) is obvious to one and all, but especially leading democrats who are ringing the alarm bells now openly in the media:

The Obama campaign went into the Democratic National Convention believing that the race would be fought out on Washington experience and “more of the same” vs change. This was essentially the same frame of the race the Obama camp had sustained for the first 16 months or so of the nominating fight with New York Senator Hillary Clinton. It worked in the primaries until the Clinton campaign shifted from “35 years of experience” to a much more “woman for change” oriented message in the later stages of the fight and nearly came back to win the nomination.

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The hunger for change was that powerful. The hunger for a different kind of post-partisan politics that would shake up Washington was overpowering “experience” and “more of the same”.

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John McCain and his team had to make a decision. Run as the more experienced ticket, and run smack into Barack Obama’s trap of change vs more of the same just as Clinton had. Or pick Sarah Palin and run as the original mavericks that really will shake up Washington.

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But now its the Obama campaign’s turn to learn the lesson of the Clinton campaign. The Obama campaign looks at all its polling data and research and in a race between change and four more years of George Bush, change wins big. So it keeps trying to frame the race as four more years of George Bush and more of the same vs change and cannot understand why it isn’t pulling away.

The campaign is blind to its situation – not good for a team that wants to lead this nation while we are at war. The campaign keeps going to failed policies that worked in the past – illustrating it is not a vehicle for change but a massive sound bite machine. One has to be able to adapt to succeed. Iraq is another perfect example where Obama (and the liberal dems) held onto a failed idea well past the time it was proven to be a disaster, and the wrong path for America.

I can go on and on why the current screw ups by Obama are cementing the realization he is not ready to lead this country. Now some claim destroyed race relations and civil rights clashes will be the result if we do not enforce affirmative action and promote someone before they have the skills and experience to do the job. Just happens to be the top job in the world this time. If this is not the epitome of screwed up liberal thinking going for broke (and breaking apart) I don’t know what is.

Obama was given a clear path to the Oval Office. He and his followers have no one to blame if he falters along the way. The risk with The One has always been his inexperience – he has never had to really run a national or state-wide compaign with any serious challenge when it came down to voting. Democrats pushed Obama into this position in the laughable assumption any democrat could win given the state of the nation.

Now that that silly myth has been debunked it is time for O-Bomba to get serious and start treating this race seriously. If he stays in the gutter with the liberal media, he will be enjoying the same level of support the liberal media enjoys from the nation – and that would mean a landslide election for McCain-Palin. Problem is it is all on the shoulders of a young and inexperienced team to pull this off against a phalanx of political chess masters riding a wave of support in the heartland.

This is not about whether Palin made it in 1 mile, 10 miles, or 100 miles into Iraq when she met the troops fighting our war effort. She went and met the troops – Obama had to be goaded into going and used the occassion to become a European rock star. This is not about whether Palin used federal money on a ridiculous bridge, or instead diverted the money to more meaningful projects. The minutiae obsessed media is missing the point of this election.

McCain’s inability to use email is not the issue – the issue is national security, energy independence, affordable and competitive health care, lower taxes and a world class education system. If Obama and the liberal media are talking about anything else, they are all wasting our time.

Update: Even the media has a civil war going on as their more liberal members break the rules of professionalism and damage the reputation of all. This is another undercurrent here – the damage being done to democrats in general by these angry, bitter liberals who are showing they don’t have what it takes to handle a tough political battle with class and leadership. Liberalism was faced with a clear path to power, and failed miserable to be able to take the path. 

Here is another good perspective on what the adult population of America is looking for – outside those more interested in American Idol.

Tags: 2008 Election, McCain, Obama, Palin