Mile high and then some: Obama on top of the world.

Tonight, Barack Obama was a mile high and on top of the world. In turn Obama elevated this country to a new level and may have altered the political landscape for decades to come. For months liberals have shouted from the roof-tops for Obama to fight back as McCain repeatedly painted him as a light-weight celebrity with no plans and no political chops. It turns out the chattering classes misjudged Obama. HE knew what he was doing even if we didn’t. I mentioned before that Obama may have been letting McCain punch himself out while no one was paying attention and lying in wait for the real season to begin. Tonight in Denver, with the eyes of the country on him, Barack Obama took McCain’s attacks and turned them around in 44 minutes, then delivered the knock-out blow.

This was a no-lose situation for Obama because McCain’s attacks featuring Paris Hilton inadvertently actually ended up lowering the bar for Obama, making it even easier to win over skeptics. I think the McCain camp is in absolute disarray now. McCain himself is cranky and lashed out at a reporter during an interview with Time Magazine this week. Reports continue to come in that there is an internal struggle over the VP pick. And now months of work by the McCain campaign have been leveled like Pompeii in an instant by another mountain eruption, only this one in the Rocky Mountains. McCain has been so busy painting Obama in a negative light that he hasn’t bothered to flesh out a platform for the American people grab on to and rally around, and now McCain staffers are floundering. Most telling was the response to Obama’s speech by McCain ball washer, Tucker Bounds,

“Tonight, Americans witnessed a misleading speech that was so fundamentally at odds with the meager record of Barack Obama. When the temple comes down, the fireworks end, and the words are over, the facts remain: Senator Obama still has no record of bipartisanship, still opposes offshore drilling, still voted to raise taxes on those making just $42,000 per year, and still voted against funds for American troops in harm’s way. The fact remains: Barack Obama is still not ready to be President.”

This is just a remarkably weak counter to one of the most inspiring and clutch speeches given in my lifetime. When Obama absolutely had to deliver, he hit it out of the park and left assholes like Tucker Bounds grasping at straws. Even notable conservative critics like Pat Buchanan and Bill Kristol gave it high marks and the best Tucker can come up with is the same tired refrains about experience? Not going to win anyone over because not only did Obama clearly answer those questions this week, but so did Hillary and Bill. Barack then went out and put a resounding exclamation point on it tonight at Mile High.

After pathetic attempts to steal Obama’s thunder by playing “coy” games about their VP announcement schedule, the McCain camp is about to lose the only thing that has ever gotten the media to pay attention to them–they are going to announce McCain’s VP selection tomorrow. This is bad news for Republicans because the choice is likely to annoy at least one faction of the party and possibly every faction if McCain gets his way. The real problem though is that after this is announced McCain is going to have a hard time holding on to the limelight, even with the Republican convention coming up. The VP buzz was the best thing to happen to Johnny Maverick because the most interesting thing about the McCain campaign has always been the promise of someone else. Now that promise is about to expire and the results are likely to yield such leftovers as Tim “who?” Pawlenty and rehashed Mitt Romney, a Mormon who is supposed to be strong on the economy but in reality is as elite as they come and is responsible to the loss of plenty of jobs.

The idea of either of these two going head to head with Joe Biden in a debate is laughable. If you think “Noun, verb, 9-11″ was eviscerating, wait until you see what Biden does to the likes of Romney. I couldn’t even watch Biden debate Pawlenty because it would be like watching Mike Tyson beating an old lady (which might be a pay-per-view event soon). Pawlenty would be a gift to the Democrats because he has even less experience than Obama and would nullify that argument completely if they put him within a heartbeat of the Oval Office. There is always the chance McCain picks Ridge or Lieberman, but that would be like Christmas in August for me so I am not even thinking about that yet. If they pick a pro-life VP this election is going to be a blow out for Obama. Is McCain that stupid?

Guess we will find out tomorrow.

~ by Get270 on August 29, 2008.