Joe, Where Art Thou?

"Joe's with us
today - Joe, where
are you? Where is
Joe? Is Joe with us
here today? Joe, I
thought you were
here today. All
right, well, you're
all Joe the
Plumber, so all of
you stand up!"

Thus spoke John McCain about his poster boy at a rally in the aptly named Defiance, Ohio. That missing mofo Joe was probably out conferring with his publicist in an effort to cash in on his proverbial 15-minutes of fame. Let's hope the numbnut pays off his tax debt to the state of Ohio before he inevitably sinks back into anonymity.

Obama the Better Choice

The Financial Times, in its lead editorial, makes the argument that Obama is the better choice:

Mr Obama fought a much better campaign. Campaigning is not the same as governing, and the presidency should not be a prize for giving the best speeches, devising the best television advertisements, shaking the most hands and kissing the most babies.

Nonetheless, a campaign is a test of leadership. Mr Obama ran his superbly; Mr McCain's has often looked a shambles. After eight years of George W. Bush, the steady competence of the Obama operation commands respect.

Nor should one disdain Mr Obama's way with a crowd. Good presidents engage the country's attention; great ones inspire. Mr McCain, on form, is an adequate speaker but no more. Mr Obama, on form, is as fine a political orator as the country has heard in decades. Put to the right purposes, this is no mere decoration but a priceless asset.

Rogue Sarah

Apparently Sarah Palin cannot wait until election results are in to look beyond next Tuesday. According to CNN, the Alaska governor has calculatedly gone off message - "gone rogue" - in distancing herself from the McCain campaign.

Thoreau's Advice for RNC

Before investing the exorbitant sum of $150,000 to outfit and accessorize vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, the Republican National Committee would have been well-advised to heed the admonition of Henry Thoreau in Walden:

I say, beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, and not rather a new wearer of clothes. If there is a new man, how can the new clothes be made to fit? If you have any enterprise before you, try it in your old clothes. All men want, not something to do with, but something to do, or rather something to be. Perhaps we should never procure a new suit, however ragged or dirty the old, until we have so conducted, so enterprised or sailed in some way, that we feel like new men in the old, and that to retain it would be like keeping a new wine in old bottles. Our moulting season, like that of the fowls, must be a crisis in our lives.

The Fashionable Palin

Besides her glib style on the campaign trail, Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin has garnered as much attention for her fashion style. Now the word is, the Republican National Committee forked over more than $150,000 to make the Alaska governor presentable to the rest of the country.

Joe the Plumber is a Fraud

The McCain campaign probably thought they had seized on something significant by having its candidate repeatedly invoke the name of Joe the Plumber in Wednesday night's final debate with Barack Obama. But Joe the Plumber is a fraud. Had they done their homework, the campaign would have discovered that the dude's first name isn't even Joe, it's Sam; that 95% of all small businesses don't earn $250,000 annually; that Joe Wurzelbacher's total earnings last year was $40,000 (which means that he would benefit from Obama's tax proposal); that he isn't licensed to practice plumbing in Ohio; and that he owes the state of Ohio $1,200 in back taxes, resulting in a lien against his property.

Another Hail Mary

Weekly Standard editor and New York Times columnist William Kristol advises John McCain, with about three weeks to go, to jettison his campaign and return to the happy warrior he was in 2000 (which is odd, given that George W. Bush after punking McCain, emerged as the GOP standard bearer). Kristol's advice amounts to another Hail Mary, which in football parlance is the last desperate gasp to wring victory from the jaws of defeat. Kristol, and perhaps McCain, suffers from a confusion of sports metaphors, in that he apparently believes that Hail Marys come in threes like the proverbial three strikes associated with baseball. First, it was his selection of the unremarkable Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his vice presidential running mate - a not so thinly veiled attempt to appeal to the voters who supported Hillary Clinton in the Democratic presidential primaries. Then there was the self-serving suspension of the campaign to return to Washington amid the greatest financial crisis since the depression to assist in the bailout talks. In both instances, the calculation never really produced the desired effect. Thus there is no reason to believe that it won't be any different this time, as the clock is running out.