Hagel to Keynote Democratic Convention?

Back to some news for Nebraska.. which has been very politically predictable.


This is from Meet the Press on NBC, August 3rd, 2008:

MR. BROKAW: Who's going to be the keynoter at the Democratic convention?

MR. TODD: Oh, my money's on Chuck Hagel. And I, I think it would be a Republican. That's the message that Obama wants to send. I mean, the whole idea of the Democratic convention, I think, is going to be two parts. One is you are going to see them be more aggressive on McCain than John Kerry was on Bush. I mean, I talked to an Obama person, and I asked them what they thought of that 2004 convention as a whole, was it too soft on Bush? And immediately said, "Oh, absolutely." So expect--in fact, don't be surprised if Obama starts ratcheting up rhetoric against McCain this week. Forget the convention. But I've always--my money's always been on Chuck Hagel as the, as the keynote. But it's not--you know, technically Hillary Clinton may dominate that night because she's, she's the, she's the big speaker that night. But you send a message with your keynote, and I think we may have seen the other keynote on this, at this desk.

Wait.. what did you just say? Chuck Hagel.. keynoting the Democratic Convention?! Isn't that slightly.. you know.. insane?

Chuck Todd is an analyst for NBC and a former writer for the National Journal. He brought up Senator Chuck Hagel (R-NE) as a possible keynote for the Democratic Convention. The idea of bringing someone from the opposite party to keynote is nothing strange... the Republicans did it with Zel Miller in 2004. The big question mark is of course Chuck Hagel. There have been rumors of a want (or need) to bring in someone from across the aisle or an independent to do the keynote to boost the chances of Obama capturing important swing votes. More than a few big names that have come up such as Hagel, Colin Powell, NYC Mayor Mike Bloomberg, or former Sen. Sam Nunn.

Chuck Todd thinks that Hagel has the inside track to keynote but a lot of problems exist.... First thing is, when you pick a keynote speaker it is generally a good idea to be sure that the speaker can go on for quite awhile and really articulate the message you want to send. If the Convention is pretty much geared towards having a War Hero talk about the blunders in Iraq then they have their man otherwise.. they are really asking the wrong guy. Hagel owns one of the highest conservative ratings from any thinktank asked according to his votes on everything but the War in Iraq. Seeing how the economy is shaping up to be the big issue of this election (and the failure of promise of 2006 Democrats to end the War in Iraq) maybe using Hagel to hammer the facts home wouldn't be such a bright idea.

What do you think? Post a comment.

Virtual Fence Scraped..

In another blow to controlling the flow of immigrants at the border and reducing illegal immigrants from crossing the border the virtual border fence project has been scrapped. This sad bit of news today from MSNBC.

How can we say we control our own border with Mexico if we can't even get a mere $20 million dollar project off the ground? Homeland Security Chief Chertoff told us all that the Boeing sponsored project (dubbed Project 28) would be all the high-tech moving our border security to the 21st Century.. instead the project doesn't even respond to illegal border crossers and does not relay any information it gathers about such crossings to Border Patrol Agents.

GAO - the Gov't Accountability Office, who publish excellent reports say that the 3,000 alerts that the prototype sent to Border Patrol Agents in the past few months were a mere fraction of the actual amount that passed through that area and among those 3,000 alerts were false readings that led Agents on Wild-Goose chases through the brush.

Boeing has a $860 million dollar contract to put up the virtual border system is being replaced by a plan to go back to placing "communications towers" along the border to detect illegal immigrants. The problem still exists however that the Border Patrol neither has near the strength in agent numbers nor the equipment funding to apprehend and return illegal aliens at the rate at which they cross even if they were informed of each incident.

Such is the sad state of Immigration control along our southern border.

Also, a CNN link here

Teflon or Krazy: Obama, Hilary & McCain

Following up on a New York Times blog article titled "Krazy Glue Moments" which discusses why some we (the electorate) have different perceptions of candidate's gaffes, mistakes, and misdeeds depending on who they are and what they say. Why for instance do I still remember that damn turkey farm of Nelson's and that McCain angers easily but have to be reminded that Obama is a smoker and that Hilary was a Republican before she was a Democrat. So let's rate each of our Presidential Candidates according to their ability to deflect or attract negative attention. The scoring will be as follows: 0 is completely immune to being attacked for mistakes (aka being Reaganesque) to 10 being unable to sneeze without being lambasted for it.

Hilary Clinton: Can this woman catch a break?! No. She can't. The general perception of Hilary is that she will do (or say) anything to get into the White House (as a President this time). Therefore, anything that she says that is untrue feeds to that perception that she is will lie, cheat or steal in order to dupe more people into supporting her. Furthermore, over the years she hasn't exactly been making friends with the media or with Republicans and Independents.. so what your reap, is what you sow. Oh, and it doesn't help that you completely fabricate a story about how heroic you were in Bosnia, see video evidence totally discrediting you, then say that sleep deprivation made you say it, amend the story, have more video evidence come up, amend the story again, then be discredited a third time by dozens of witnesses and further video evidence.
Score: 8


Barack Obama: He's new, young, looks good, and he's black. If he was an athlete this would be a sure recipe for disaster, but for a politician it means no matter what he says (attacking Pakistan), or what he does (go to a Church of rather bigoted people), or what he thinks (hmm.. too many to list) is not going to make headlines for long. If all fails his campaign can always play the "They say that about him because he's black!" card, which if used seldom but effectively can make some pretty big problems go away. The Obama crisis management goes like this after a mistake or misdeed becomes public: 1) vaguely say that it was misunderstood, 2) claim it comes from the GOP or Clinton campaigns, 3) do something "courageous" like giving a speech on racism, 4) blame it on racists.. white racists, that is, 5) let friendly media outlets take care of it. It's a damn good plan.
Score: 2

John McCain: Well, he is a target for both Hilary and Obama camps but he is a war hero so you can't exactly criticize him too much (unless he threw away his medals..) McCain definitely has had his share of verbal gaffes describing himself as a "conservative.. liberal... republican" and discussing the support Iran was giving its enemy - Al Queda. Being a target of the entire Democratic party and the far right wing of the Republican party has not helped him out in the media. Although one might expect FOX News to be completely enamoured with the GOP nominee they seen to hold some disdain that he prefers MSNBC to them and therefore isn't even guaranteed positive coverage there!
Score: 6



And just for fun, Nebraska's (relevant or semi-relevant) Senate candidates.

Mike Johanns: The only words that could derail M.J. from becoming Nebraska's next senator are "I am a gay American". If he steers clear of those words.. he is a shoe-in and no matter what the media reports the is going to be elected by at least a twenty point margin. The only thing coming between him and being totally teflon is that the Farm Bill isn't exactly structured the way eachd farmer wants it to be. Besides that no matter what Ben Nelson or anyone else says... this non-charismatic Iowa farm boy will be our next Senator.

Score: 1

Scott Kleeb & Tony Raimondo: The truth hurts for NE Dems but the only way these two will ever get any real media coverage is either going negative or having very public nervous breakdowns. So in that sense no one is really paying enough attention to have anything stick to them kind of like when Mike Gravel cursed for a complete minute while discussing 'corporations', remember that? Didn't think so. So, for that reason NE Dem candidates for Senate get a new rating... the infamous and irrelevant -1.

Score: -1