I think you had a little too much of that ale Brian. That bowling commercial is beyond pathetic. Granted, I also disliked Fargo, but I find that commercial revolting and petty.

I'm on record saying McCain has run a bad campaign. But I think he is onto something going after the celebrity in Obama. As Obama continues to drift to the center (now offshore drilling may be OK) he is showing that he is all about wanting to be elected, not about his "change" nonsense that he has branded his campaign with.

This election with not be about major issues -- you and I agree that it needs to be. Both horses can't figure out what they support -- Obama because all he cares about is being elected and McCain because he can't remember what day it is.

My advice to Obama. Quit playing defense on the issues with websites and public statements. Go on the offensive directly with real issues. Example 2 -- I read his new position paper on taking oil company profits and giving them to regular working folks. It's a puff piece short on details and all about being elected (I'm happy to explain why it won't work).

What scares me is if Obama takes off the costume, I see Jimmy Carter behind it. If it were Clinton part 2 I'd be fine. I think I'm getting ready to wager with you on that 8 point margin...

LAMBERT: I think Obama has run -- to date -- an amazingly efficient, effective campaign. His "drift to the center" is not something I find particularly troubling -- although I'm still unconvinced by anything he and Democratic leadership has argued in defense of that FISA decision. The hard core lefties who are expressing indignation that Obama has "softened" anything on his agenda are going to have to get over themselves. Rigid, ideological purity - so pure it never at any point offends THEM -- is something Republicans rely on to erode the always fractious Democratic base. His off-shore drilling comments the other day were more in support of the bi-partisan compromise worked that, among other significant changes, would have significant transfers of oil company revenue toward environmentally-friendly initiatives. To me, that shows good judgment.

You didn't mention Moveon.org in your list of groups that use "slick advertisements and tricks".
Franken the person he is? A lying, unfunny, offensive, failed radio host who cant pay workers comp insurance, taxes, and sits by as his radio station takes money from Boys and Girls Clubs of New York.
What is funny as the Democrats pretty much found the only candidate that could lose in a year that is suppose to be good for them.
No wagers here, but how long do you think Al Franken will stick around Minnesota hanging with his 3rd grade teacher and talking to yokels at IHOP if he loses the election.
Speaking of ads - no more ripping on the 2000 Audrey and Rod Grams commercial after watching Al Franken and his 3rd grade teacher for the thousandth time.

LAMBERT: Aren't you getting tired of flogging that "workers compensation" stuff? The realities of that tax reporting system -- as Newt Gingrich admitted, in Franken's defense, are pretty bizarre. That said, he is still locked up in being "the serious guy", when a little pop culture wit is exactly what he needs.

Cute videos with Bush morphing into Hitler is not the work of a "knucklehead" right? Full page ads with General Petreus being labeled a Betrayer are intelligent and really handle the issues thoughtfully?
The so called "talented" satirist and failed actor and radio host Al Franken who according to my high brow friends has a command of the issues facing Minnesotans presented his progressive energy plan- Selling 50 million barrels of oil out of the national reserve. Being that we consume 20 something million barrels a day, those oil prices would come tumbling right?
This at the same time Ford announced keeping the St Paul plant open an additional two years. Even the liberal Star Tribune editorial page had to give Norm his due for working with the execs in Detroit.
I think Al Franken's talent of running a campaign is about the same as marketing his radio venture, his failure movies and sitcoms, and his business financial sense. The Hollywood hipster is not running for Senate, he is running on his own demonic vendetta against Norm Coleman - and Minnesotans so far are not buying it.

LAMBERT: This "failed radio" thing really stands out for you, doesn't it? Maybe if he hailed raged on about bogus "hate crimes", caring less about factual reality and more about what his audience preferred to hear he'd have done much better in commercial talk.

In a culture that thrives on the nuances of reality TV, our political campaigns follow suit.

P.S. Try the Pyramid Apricot Ale.

LAMBERT: ... with a Cubano libre chaser.

Nice choices on the beers there, obviously made to loosen up the tongue. (and the fingers, too. what, don't you have an editor?) fyi, most Belgian and English beers use cane sugar, it adds alcohol while lightening up the body and drying out the beer...

it is unfortunate that Norm is a couple of "git 'r done" ads from making this campaign a laugher, although I thought Franken's recent ad with his grade school teacher was an effective one. (but Harvard? I'm sure Franken will soon be not just portrayed as a "Hollywood hipster", but an "elitist Hollywood hipster".)

Do you think that Ciresi would have had a better chance at beating Coleman? I'm still disappointed he dropped out of the race so soon...

LAMBERT: If the essential knock on Franken is that is not personally likable, even among his contributors, what could anyone have said for Ciresi? Obviously Coleman would have had to overplay our fear of "trial lawyers" (YOU try going to trial without one), but as one Democratic insider told me he told Ciresi, "A big part of this game is spending hours of your day talking and listening to the kind of people you wouldn't open the door for, if they rang your bell."

My editor doesn't work Friday nights.

The challenge for Republicans with Obama is that they're creating a scary image of him that will only last with voters until the first debate with McCain. Voters who haven't paid enough attention to Obama until then will remember the Republican attack ads, compare that image to what they see during the debate, and choose accordingly.

As for Franken, part of his problem with voters is that he's not that likeable of a guy. Yeah, it's not fair, but many people do vote according to their "feeling" about each candidate.

LAMBERT: The "demonizing" strategy was basically a wash with Hillary Clinton. After years of hammering as a shrill, castrating harridan, her positive-negative balance never changed all that much. One theory was exactly what you say. She was so good on the retail level -- one on one -- and her "stage demeanor" was at such odds with that The Echo Chamber was constantly, incessantly saying about her people came away asking which was the real fake?

Wouldn't a defense from Newt Gingrich raise a red flag? If it had been Norm who had failed to pay taxes or failed to pay workers compensation insurance, you do not think that would be hammered by the Franken campaign? Franken does not have a leadership record to attack in TV ads besides his career as a satirist (which was never funny), his lackluster attempt at changing radio, and his inability to handle his finances. When is it Al's fault? Is it not fair game to point out that a person who is promoting raising taxes or helping out the "little feller" has not even cleaned up his own house? This is excused by his "command of the issues" Remember this is a guy who supported the Iraq War originally. It's always the opponent, or its the masses who are to blame when Franken or any other Democrat fails at something. Hillary Care's failure is now the fault of talk radio or clever ads when Clinton had a Democratic controlled house and Senate?

LAMBERT: Franken has some serious shortcomings as a candidate (so too does Coleman), but knowledge of the issues, a much more populist vision for the near term future and the celebrity-accounting issue (bemoaned by Bingrich) aren't among them.

More fun? Admittedly, I don't see myself in Coleman's ad. But if I did, I'd be insulted by the condescension.

Further, it demeans the very people it purports to court with its broad and crude stereotypes. As does the McCain ad equating Obama's popularity with the mindless and leering voyeurism that lends celebrity worship to the unaccomplished Paris Hilton and the manifestly disturbed Britney Spears.

In both ads, the target most cruelly and dishonestly attacked and insulted is the voting public.

What's fun about that?

LAMBERT: It's the people who do see themselves in the commercials that I'm talking about. And, more to the point, a flash of humor once and a while makes everyone more human.

Dear Clueless in Seattle:

What are you doing kicking back in the Pacific Northwest when the Jeff Dubay mystery continues to haunt the local media scene? It's really hard to concentrate with this hanging over us.

LAMBERT: "Kicking back"? as far as the IRS ever needs to know, that was work. But ... KFAN program director Chad Abbott hit the automatic, knee jerk, San Antonio-implanted boilerplate button when I asked about Dubay. "We look forward to having Jeff back on the air August 8." So that means you dId suspend him, right Abbott? "we look forward to having Jeff back on the air August 8."

Knowing Clear Channel as I do -- and I do ... and it ain't pretty -- that is the sound of a mercilessly legal hammer over the head of anyone who ventures a step past the legal department's approved company line. Which obviously means this ain't no vacation, and it could be anything from an illness (but a scheduled return?) Dubay insisted not be disclosed, or, as I say a suspension. An "f-bomb" heavy profanity might do it. But someone would have caught wind of that, and the station would use the opportunity to make an example of Dubay for anyone else engaging in potty mouth. Other possibilities are "internal personality clashes", which would require a cooling down period but which for marketing/sales reasons the station would never want out, even as a leak.

Take your pick.

For everyone other than Frogman -- Jeff Dubay co-hosts a 9-12 am sports show with Paul Allen.

Taking the tax issues aside, I am waiting for Franken's command of the issues. Energy? There has not been a lot of talk on his genuis idea to sell the national oil reserves to lower the price of gas. Iraq War? A simple search on Startribune.com or MNspeak.com will cite his numerous positions on Iraq.
...and does Moveon.org count as one of the groups mentioned above, who uses cheap advertisting tricks?

LAMBERT: I accept that MoveOn.org pushes every button on a Republican's hair-trigger, hot-button ignition board, but when they advertise, usually directly to their base, they are bringing their heat in the front door, not the back, like Coleman's bowlers.

If its a flash of humor that makes a candidate human, Al may need to become an understudy of someone who actually did or performed something funny in their life.
I guess his lash out and childish impression could be counted as funny, depending on who you talk to.
http://www.startribune.com/lifestyle/14115411.html

LAMBERT: Okay, here's a test. Osama bin Laden and Al Franken in the same room, tied to chairs over trapdoors into a pool of man-eating sharks. Which lever do you pull?

Now, granted, with your close relationship with "Randy," you're more in touch with this demographic than I could ever hope to be.

But it sounds to these effete ears like this bowling-shirt-clad Greek chorus standing in for Coleman is saying Franken's too much of a foul-mouthed, porn-lovin', tax avoiding, corpulent dumbass LIKE THEM to be in the Senate.

I mean, doesn't the ad basically argue that the people who DO see themselves in the ad are the very types of citizens who don't pay THEIR taxes, enjoy porn and use foul-mouthed invective on anyone they disagree with...AND, just for hilarious comic effect, is a fat slob? I guess he knows his supporters better than I do.

But is this really what they want to be told by their candidate, Nahm? "Don't vote for Franken, he's as dishonest, porn-addicted and foul-mouthed as YOU slack-jawed, beer-swillin' pusguts"? After all the kicker is: "We decided we're running for U.S. Senate. Why not? We're just as qualified as Al Franken. And we're better bowlers."

Cool, I get it. They're morons. But they're Nahm's kind of pliant morons. Hey, maybe they're charmed by this characterization.

And then we have McCain telling the people who turn out in their tens of thousands to hear Obama speak that, "my friends, really, in the final analysis, you're no better than the fatuous nitwits who flock to see Paris Hilton strut in and out of the L.A. County jail and the prurient voyeurs who gobble up every salacious detail of Britney Spears pathetically public mental breakdown."

That's an appealing characterization to the greater bowling public?

If you say so. I don't bowl.

LAMBERT: All I'm saying is that Coleman's team is more at ease playing this affable low-culture shtick than Franken (or Obama). It's just another spin on the old "elitism" complaint. But until someone proves to me it doesn't work, I'll keep saying that it does.

I've never been so mortified at being taken seriously...

LAMBERT: That's what that "more ironic than thou" thing gets you.

Just sayin' that maybe it wouldn't be quite so gosh darned effective if the pundit class put a finer point on it rather than merely enabling it.

Something like: "So, Senator McCain, you're telling the citizens of the United States who turn out in their tens of thousands, and the throngs who turned out in Europe, to hear Senator Barack Obama speak, that they are no more discerning about your rival's appeal than the the nitwits who follow every inconsequential move of a Paris Hilton or a Britney Spears? Does demeaning these voters' intelligence really strike you as a winning strategy to woo them over to you?"

I'm still waiting for that tack.

LAMBERT: I foresee a long wait.

If Franken were "my guy" I would be more concerned in the level of intelligence at the party level that placed him at the head of the line for the DFL nomination in a year that was to be a sure thing for Democrats, than question if a Norm Coleman ad somehow is patronizing.
I know you disagree with this assesment Brian, but a Klobachar, Ciresi, Gartner, or other lifelong DFLer would make a harder campagin for Coleman.

LAMBERT: I also don't agree that the situation is hopeless. The great central irony is that Franken had/has the opportunity to appeal to both the base wonks AND the iconoclastic mentality that elected Jesse Ventura. Throw some bait in both pools. They shouldn't be mutually exclusive.

Just a small aside of the kind that piques my interest: The realities of the tax reporting system are pretty bizarre? I'd be interested to see the attribution. Not saying its completely wrong or out of context. But...

In any event, theyre not that bizarre - insomuch as it concerns Franken and his appearance income over several states. These tax principles have been codified for a couple decades. The income has to be reported and taxed in the jurisdiction where it was earned. I can not reasonably imagine his seasoned entertainment accountant didnt know this. Now, I don't consider this an aggregious tax dodge. I have no reason to believe he didnt report all his income somewhere. Its merely an example of a Democrat being inconvenienced by tax law that other Democrats wrote, so he decided to ignore it at the time.

Same with workers comp. I can't reasonably imagine his accountant advised him a small clerical staff would be exempt.

Theres also a small matter of hypocrisy in general. Its reasonable to assume that entertainment types have this gamed to the point theyre paying about the same tax rates as law firm partners and hedge fund managers.

I thought Boschwitz' (vs Wellstone) ad with the hippies chanting welfare was ahead of its time. It would be well recieved now.

LAMBERT: This thing is on a par with Keith Ellison's parking tickets. If someone wants to make the case Franken conspired to defraud the system ... well, I haven't seen anyone do that yet. All it is is one of those campaign non-issue issues that, yes, both parties use to pillory the other, if for no other reason than almost no one actually understands the current tax system.

Sorry I've been away, had to re-inflate my tires.

Saving energy, you know.

As much as we'd get by that "domestic drilling".

BTW, any of you married guys having fun with that term?

LAMBERT: I thought we pooled for a one-way ticket?

Not a high crime, but someone who can’t understand or comply with this fairly simple tax principle isn’t qualified to advocate for more progressive tax rates. If he can’t get this, there’s no way he can understand the macro or micro effects of rate movement and compliance. He didn’t take economics at Harvard, he took ‘funny’. He obviously doesn’t have the brainpower.

LAMBERT: Oh, come on. How many members of Congress understand this stuff? What did Ted Stevens -- committee head -- know about the Internet? And on, and on. If you've got some kind of SAT test to determine Congressional suitability, bring it on.

The error Al Franken supposedly made with taxes, or to be more accurate his accountant made, happens in business that work in multiple states much more frequently than any of the "high crimes" and gross incompetence accusers want to make this out to be. There was no criminal intent or conspiracy to commit.

On the other hand, Norm Coleman sleeping in the company owned house of a highly paid lobbyist with a multi-million dollar contract with his own campaign and the RNC in order to "save money" with below market rental when the checks didn't get cashed and months went unpaid it simply corruption and a violate of Senate ethics. And don't ask me if you have a problem with the facts, ask the National Journal.

http://www.nationaljournal.com/njmagazine/nj_20080628_2254.php

Get serious! The fact that you cannot separate political corruption and inside backslapping sweetheart deals between politicians and lobbyists from accounting errors is truly baffling. Who should be voting on taxing and appropriations? You know whose pockets Coleman is filling.

I think the irony here (108 points out)is that a person like Franken who is the loudest on the bullhorn to point out the faults of everyone else, and preaching resoponsibility, could not either take care of his taxes or hire people that could. (or check his mail to see letters about the workers comp issue).
Is nothing Al Franken's fault? Is his only fault that he is not using his alleged humor and genuis in his campaign commercials? I can take issue with plenty of Norm Coleman's positions and statements, can you do the same for Franken?

LAMBERT: "Positions and statements"? Not so much. Campaign style and strategy? Quite a bit.

Lambert: "I foresee a long wait." Uh, aren't you a pundit?

Anyway, I didn't have to wait that long. "The Daily Show" AND "The Colbert Report" dealt with McCain's equating Obama's drawing power with the shallow celebrity of Britney Spears and Paris Hilton later the very same day I posed it here.

BTW, isn't McCain basically married to a middleaged Paris Hilton?

LAMBERT: I'll be more explicit about saying that these spots are for the knucklehead=demo. But that doesn't solve the problem.

Uh, I'm with 108 on that.

As are most intelligent voters.

LAMBERT: My sympathies to those you deem "intelligent".

bertram: No I'm not using the domestic drilling term in my married life but perhaps Tim Pawlenty could use it to spice up his?

I hear the Governor is searching for options...

BJr:
"Sorry I've been away, had to re-inflate my tires."

You mean nn the trailer you used to tow your shiny Harley out to Sturgis? How was the shopping? Any new outfits we should know about?

Hey, how'd Mrs. McCain do in the topless beauty pageant her husband volunteered her for? Classy. Miss Buffalo Chip was it? How could he have possibly known it was topless? In Sturgis? Who knew?

Yeah, this guy McCain's gonna' eat I'madinnerjacket's lunch? Talk about discerning and experienced...

I am happy you have found the ideal guy in Franken despite his waffling positions on Iraq, taxes, weak strategy for energy (you dont hear him talk about selling the national resevere anymore), and last but not least his distinguished career as an unfunny alleged satirist.
Ned Lemont tried to campaign against Joe Liberman using photos of Liberman and Bush together - this is really all Franken has and as we can read and see from yesterday's farm forumn it's not exactly working.
http://www.minnpost.com/stories/2008/08/05/2843/senate_debate_at_farmfest_it_turns_out_is_clearly_held_in_coleman_country

Thanks for paying so much attention to the annual gathering of "real people" who appreciate American engineering and freedom, where McCain was quite warmly received.

I am sure you long to be accepted into the "brotherhood", but we're just not that into wooden paddle boats and unicorns.

His wife Cindy, business owner, charitable foundation director, adoptive mother, and parent to sons serving in the armed services, looked fantastic.

As John pointed out quite humourously, she could easily have won the "Ms. Buffalo Chip" contest.

Ms. "I hate America" Obama would have been, well, less kindly received, if she could have even found Sturgis on a map, let alone make the trip.

By the way, where are Barry's handlers hiding her these days?

"Brotherhood"? Dude, all you have to do is buy a Harley product (don't even have to ride it out there if you're any guide) and dress up like one of the village people. Not a very exclusive club.

But, my God, the man was actually reading from prepared text when he suggested his wife would do well in a skanky bikini contest contest where the talent portion is fellating a banana.

Is this how deeply he'll be prepping for his meetings with world leaders?

Oh yeah, Those boyz and girlz in Sturgis are the "real people" with the love of LSD, leather, chains, and home grown Mary Jane. You bet! And, you should tell Tim Pawlenty, they also know how to treat their women, with yelling, "Lift up your shirt! Show me your bare teets!"

Hells Angels aren't castrated by ambitious professional wives who don't know their place. They are he model of great American citizens as McCain would have it. They may be critical of our drug, helmet and traffic laws but they are the finest Americans, in McCain's books, because they will use as much subsidized offshore oil he can drill for in Alaska, California, and Florida and that will keep his oil buddies rich, fat, and happy.

Real people as opposed to the rest of of America who are, what, androids? Fish? Soilent green?

Hey "Robb":

Great stereotyping there.

A real "deep thought" type of liberal thing - bravo!

Where are you on the Edwards thing?

"If you trailer your motorcycle, you run the risk of being scoffed at by the traditionalists. If you rise to the challenge and ride, you have a profound experience ahead of you. The kind of experience that inspired the Harley-Davidson slogan, 'It's not the destination, it's the journey.'"

http://www.minnpost.com/from_our_partners/2008/08/07/2859/a_view_from_the_loft_poetry_on_a_motorcycle_riding_through_the_fear

'Cept for ol' Bertram, Jr., for whom it's not about the journey at all, but the totally fabulous shopping.

And I suppose you are, bertram jr., off nurturing all your "deep thinking" in Sturgis?

Truthfully, I know a lot of Harley-Davidson, leather-vested liberals who know McCain to be a backward-looking politician, entrenched in failed energy, health, education and foreign policies of past, who has grown angry with average Americans who seek a better future for their country.

The biggest, brashest, most dull and bullied stereotype out there is the "evil liberal", a stereotype that for the past 8 years has neutered the airwaves and FOX TV broadcasts of all intelligent and truthful debate about our national heritage. Liberalism is the foundation for the liberties and freedoms enshrined in our constitution.

Liberalism is the foundation of religious freedom, to worship and practice ones beliefs without government interference, subsidization, or coercion.

Liberalism is the foundation of the rights of individual citizens to be free of an oppressive powerful and centralized government that will jail and torture its citizens without due process and the right to seek redress or justice.

Liberalism is the foundation behind equality and opportunity for all Americans in business, the marketplace, education and employment. This means a privileged group can not get special access or win billion dollar contracts because you are friends with or owe favors to the politicians in power. This is one of the most abused basic American values by this current administration and Norm Coleman's MO in Washington D.C. living with lobbyists.

Liberalism is historically the foundation for spreading democracy to disenfranchised voters and groups without a voice such as women, landless people, ethnic and racial groups. This battle continues as Neo-conservatives try endlessly to deny U.S. citizens their access to the polls. You can't preach liberal democracy in foreign lands if, as the current GOP practice, you don't support it at home.

And the list goes on...

Edwards, I don't care about Edwards. Like so many before him - Newt Gingrich, John Tower, Elliot Spitzer, Larry Craig, McCain himself with his multiple wives, even Charles Crist and his rumored affair with Jason Wetherington (WHO CARES!) - these are human failings and the direction and future of America are much bigger and more important matters than the gossip you want to reduce it all down to.

Brittany Spears and Paris Hilton, these are pre-occupations of the petty-minded who wallow in shallow ideas while Rome burns. Its time for citizens to act more responsibly about the countries future and stop playing petty games.

LAMBERT: Yeah. What you said.

Bravo, Robb. But you'll find that TRUE conservatives embrace the very same basic principles you enunciate as the province of liberal thought.

Bush and Co. are not conservatives, but corporate tools who look to no higher philosophy than rank cronyism.

They don't come much more conservative than Mickey Edwards. And you won't find many liberals any more disgusted with the excesses, hubris and disdain for the rule of law perpetrated against the U.S. Constitution by the Bush administration than the former Republican congressman from Oklahoma and founding trustee of the Heritage Foundation.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/21/AR2008032102482.html

Bertram, Jr, and his ilk are as offensive to the long-held values of truly conservative citizens of the United States as they are to those who count themselves as liberals. True patriotism is measured in terms of fealty to the ideals enunciated in the U.S. Constitution and nothing else. Not race, religion, brand of motorcycle, not bumper magnets and regurgitating cheap slogans in service to a mere political party.

YES! Absolutely Jim. I grew up in a Republican family. I was surrounded by true conservatives with principles and convictions that matched our constitution and the values of the American democratic experiment.

The "Republicanism" and "conservatism" that Bush, Cheney and McCain say they represent has no resemblance to the party of Abe Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, and William Howard Traft, not to mention Everett Dirksen, the Republican leader in the U.S. Senate in the 1960s.

First, these Texas boys are corrupt as the day is long. Thoroughly corrupt. Enron. Halliburton. Black Water... the list goes on and on...

Second, they are foreign interventionists and seek to dominate the world. As I recall one Frenchman saying to me when I was a grad student in London, "Do American's want to dominate the world? Good luck with that!" And who should know better about the push back to world cultural domination than the French, huh?

Third, they could not balance a budget if their mothers life depended upon it. Why? They spend like thieves because they are thieves. The money they are spending is going into the pockets of friends and family.

Fourth, they have no respect for the constitution, especially, the Bill of Rights and they do not understand the restraint of governmental powers that are fundamental to American values. The purpose of the American government is to serve the people and not the other way round. Bush and Cheney, McCain and Coleman, they don't understand this basic premise of American freedom and liberty. Instead they hold secret meetings inside the White House, are in cabal with lobbyists, they wiretap and invade the privacy of citizens and they want dictatorial powers over other branches of government. They have no respect for the separation of powers.

No, they are not true or even very good conservatives. They are not good Republicans.