THE LEFT'S BIG BLUNDER

CONFUSED BY A POLLING SYSTEM that more often than not gets it all wrong? Do you still remember that both Al Gore and John Kerry held substantial leads in the presidential polls of 2000 and 2004 just three weeks out from election day? Does the Bradley effect just make your skin crawl? Well, here's a POV that may just get infuriate you all that other puzzling stuff, but really is nothing more than a dumbed down rehash of the old "society of the spectacle" insights of French revolutionary philosopher Guy Debord.

Two campaigns are being waged right now for the presidency of the United States. No, I'm not talking about the Obama campaign and the McCain campaign. I'm talking about the real-world campaign and the meta-campaign.

The real-world campaign involves speeches and proposals and facts and scandals and political positions and news events. These details, however, are becoming increasingly irrelevant, and have become subsumed by the meta-campaign, which consists of perceptions, polls, reactions, analyses and summations. Until very recently, elections were decided by real-world facts—but not anymore. Facts and events in and of themselves are no longer important; what's important is how everyone reacts to them. And how do we find out the public's mood concerning this or that incident? Why, the media tells us, that's how.

Or so we've been led to believe.

Read it all.

In other news of the day, here is an article of real violence on the campaign trail, not the false kind recently exposed by the Secret Service.

OBAMA'S ODINGA SCANDAL NOT VETTED

THE CHILLING VIDEO BELOW tells the shocking story of Democratic Party Presidential candidate Barack Obama’s involvement in 2006, while a sitting United States Senator, in the Kenyan presidential campaign of Raila Odinga, who lost, but took power by force, and is now involved in the genocide that is currently eviscerating the African nation.

Obama has acknowledged having had Kenyan citizenship. There is also concern that these campaign activities on foreign soil by an unauthorized American citizen is a violation of the Logan Act. We argue that it is high time to take a critical look at these activities on behalf of Odinga, a Muslim sympathizer who is pushing for the installation of the barbaric Islamic sharia law in this once peaceful and pro-Western nation.

MCCAIN-OBAMA DEBATE AGREEMENT

THE TWO CAMPAIGNS AGREED on a framework for four General Election debates, to be sponsored by the Commission on Presidential Debates. Key elements of the agreement are:

First Presidential Debate
Date: September 26
Site: University of Mississippi
Topic: Foreign Policy & National Security
Moderator: Jim Lehrer
Staging: Podium debate
Answer Format: The debate will be broken into nine, 9-minute segments. The moderator will introduce a topic and allow each candidate 2 minutes to comment. After these initial answers, the moderator will facilitate an open discussion of the topic for the remaining 5 minutes, ensuring that both candidates receive an equal amount of time to comment.

Vice Presidential Debate
Date: October 2nd Site: Washington University (St. Louis)
Moderator: Gwen Ifill
Staging/Answer Format: To be announced.

Second Presidential Debate
Date: October 7
Site: Belmont University
Moderator: Tom Brokaw
Staging: Town Hall debate
Format: The moderator will call on members of the audience (and draw questions from the internet). Each candidate will have 2 minutes to respond to each question. Following those initial answers, the moderator will invite the candidates to respond to the previous answers, for a total of 1 minute, ensuring that both candidates receive an equal amount of time to comment. In the spirit of the Town Hall, all questions will come from the audience (or internet), and not the moderator.

Third Presidential Debate
Date: October 15
Site: Hofstra University
Topic: Domestic and Economic policy
Moderator: Bob Schieffer
Staging: Candidates will be seated at a table Answer
Format: Same as First Presidential Debate
Closing Statements: At the end of this debate (only) each candidate shall have the opportunity for a 90 second closing statement.

All four debates will begin at 9pm ET, and last for 90 minutes. Both campaigns also agreed to accept the CPD’s participation rules for third-party candidate participation.

My only question is this. We all know John McCain is somewhat short in stature, and Barack Obama appears to be a tall man, but how short does that make Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd? Huh? Compare the photo at the top of this entry with the one just above it.