Prometheus Unbound

It’s the last weekend of the campaign, and Sarah Palin’s STILL snug behind her campaign curtain, having avoided giving a single press conference or appearing on any of the Sunday morning press shows.

Is the McCain campaign shielding a humbug?

We are now in the LAST weekend of the presidential campaign season and something extraordinarily corrosive to our democracy has occurred: Sarah Palin, despite the gravity of the office that she is running for, has managed to avoid giving a press conference or appearing on any of the Sunday morning press shows.

It will be an extraordinary fact that, should McCain-Palin win on Tuesday, it will not be clear that Palin is even capable of competently fielding spontaneous questions from the national press corps—or thinking on her feet (without resort to notes, talking points, scripts, or teleprompters).

We vote on Tuesday, and we don’t know if the person behind her campaign curtain actually has an intelligible grasp of domestic and foreign policy and can offer reasonable responses to questions that skeptics have about her.

The very integrity of the role of a free press in a functioning democracy is at stake here.

It is the role of a free press to, like Toto in the Wizard of Oz, ferret out humbugs—and keep power honest.

But the McCain campaign has subverted that process by dramatically limiting access to its VP candidate.

The contempt for democracy that this represents is truly breathtaking. The McCain campaign is literally attempting to shield an apparent humbug (Sarah Palin) from full evaluative exposure:

Money quote:

The election of a US president almost always seems like a crossroads, but the choice to be made on 4 November feels unusual, and daunting, in its national and global significance. . . .

[T]he core values of science are those of open debate within a free society that have come down to us from the Enlightenment in many forms, not the least of which is the constitution of the United States.

On a range of topics, science included, Obama has surrounded himself with a wider and more able cadre of advisers than McCain.

Peggy Noonan in the Wall Street Journal yesterday:

The case for Barack Obama, in broad strokes:

He has within him the possibility to change the direction and tone of American foreign policy, which need changing; his rise will serve as a practical rebuke to the past five years, which need rebuking; his victory would provide a fresh start in a nation in which a fresh start would come as a national relief. He climbed steep stairs, born off the continent with no father to guide, a dreamy, abandoning mother, mixed race, no connections. He rose with guts and gifts. He is steady, calm, and, in terms of the execution of his political ascent, still the primary and almost only area in which his executive abilities can be discerned, he shows good judgment in terms of whom to hire and consult, what steps to take and moves to make. We witnessed from him this year something unique in American politics: He took down a political machine without raising his voice.

A great moment: When the press was hitting hard on the pregnancy of Sarah Palin’s 17-year-old daughter, he did not respond with a politically shrewd “I have no comment,” or “We shouldn’t judge.” Instead he said, “My mother had me when she was 18,” which shamed the press and others into silence. He showed grace when he didn’t have to.

There is something else. On Feb. 5, Super Tuesday, Mr. Obama won the Alabama primary with 56% to Hillary Clinton’s 42%. That evening, a friend watched the victory speech on TV in his suburban den. His 10-year-old daughter walked in, saw on the screen “Obama Wins” and “Alabama.” She said, “Daddy, we saw a documentary on Martin Luther King Day in school.” She said, “That’s where they used the hoses.” Suddenly my friend saw it new. Birmingham, 1963, and the water hoses used against the civil rights demonstrators. And now look, the black man thanking Alabama for his victory.

This means nothing? This means a great deal.

Despite John McCain and Sarah Palin’s extensive time in Pennsylvania this week, they do not appear to be pulling Obama’s numbers down.

In other words, McCain’s gamble to devote a lot of time and money to the state is not paying off.

Pollster.com seems to show that Pennsylvania may prove disappointing for McCain-Palin on election night.

For TPM’s assessment of McCain’s situation in Pennsylvania, see here: TPM

SwingStateProject has compiled the closing times of the polls on election night. First done will be Indiana:

SwingStateProject is a great site, and worth checking out.

No matter how Gallup slices it (by traditional estimates, by expanded estimates, and by registered voter estimates) Obama holds at least an 8 point lead with just a couple of days to go.

See Gallup’s polls here.

Studs Terkel was a great radio interviewer and oral historian. His politics were thoroughly progressive, and I’m sure that he would have loved to have gotten the chance to vote for Barack Obama on Tuesday.

He was 96 years old.

Here’s the (short) AP story on his death.

And here’s a YouTube of Terkel talking briefly about what he looks for when he goes in search of a new book to read:

That famous capitalist tool, The Economist magazine, endorses Obama this week.

Money quote from the endorsement:

Political fire, far from rattling Mr Obama, seems to bring out the best in him: the furore about his (admittedly ghastly) preacher prompted one of the most thoughtful speeches of the campaign. On the financial crisis his performance has been as assured as Mr McCain’s has been febrile. He seems a quick learner and has built up an impressive team of advisers, drawing in seasoned hands like Paul Volcker, Robert Rubin and Larry Summers. Of course, Mr Obama will make mistakes; but this is a man who listens, learns and manages well.

Today, Reagan’s former chief of staff endorsed Obama and told CNN that John McCain’s single interview with Sarah Palin (before picking her as VP) struck him as less thorough than the hiring process at McDonald’s!:

Gabriel Winant at Salon.com thinks it’s possible:

Despite recent developments, and a thriving local Democratic Party, McCain still has to be considered the favorite. But when George W. Bush moved to steal Tennessee out from under Al Gore, it drew plenty of attention and made Gore look weak and out of touch. (Plus, it worked.) The more talk there is about Obama stepping on McCain’s turf, the tougher it will be for McCain to convince doubters that he’s preparing to make a comeback.

Alex Koppelmann today (at Salon.com) details Sarah Palin’s stange First Amendment confusion:

In a radio interview that aired Friday morning, Sarah Palin said Americans’ First Amendment rights are in danger. Ironically, it’s apparently the press who’s threatening those rights.

“If [the media] convince enough voters that that is negative campaigning, for me to call Barack Obama out on his associations,” Palin said, “then I don’t know what the future of our country would be in terms of First Amendment rights and our ability to ask questions without fear of attacks by the mainstream media.”

That is, to be clear, a fundamental misunderstanding of what the First Amendment is about. Let’s review the text:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

To put it succinctly: the press can’t violate Palin’s First Amendment rights. If the government were to criminalize her speech, that would be a violation. But what the press is doing in criticizing Palin is exercising the First Amendment.

This is the person the Republicans want a heart beat away from the presidency?

Be afraid.

Be very afraid.