Campaign Trail 2008

  • The unacceptable face of Obamamania

    September 30, 2008 @ 7:29 pm | by Denis Staunton

    This musical tribute to Obama is beyond words.

  • Palin rescued by white-haired knight

    @ 9:31 am | by Denis Staunton

    Sarah Palin was back before interviewer Katie Couric again last night, this time with John McCain at her side. When Palin got into difficulties over a stray remark about Pakistan, McCain leapt gallantly to her aid:

  • McCain the loser as bailout collapses

    @ 9:30 am | by Denis Staunton

    The Obama and McCain campaigns traded recriminations after the House of Representatives rejected the $700 billion bail-out of Wall Street but the debacle on Capitol Hill is almost certainly more damaging to the Republican candidate.

    John McCain suspended his campaign last week to return to Washington, declaring that he was focusing his efforts on brokering a deal.

    He supported the compromise plan that went before the House on Monday and was so confident it would pass that he was taking credit for it before the vote was taken. In the event, two out of three Republicans rejected the deal, leaving McCain looking weak and irrelevant.

    Obama tried to stay out of the negotiations, only returning to Washington when President George Bush asked him to attend a White House meeting on the crisis last week. After the vote yesterday, the Democratic candidate urged calm, reassuring Americans that Congress would eventually come together to agree a rescue plan.

    The image of a dysfunctional system in Washington reinforces Obama’s message of change and undermines McCain’s argument that his legislative experience makes him a better choice as president.

    Talk of an imminent economic depression, which has dominated the airwaves in recent days, could also help Obama to win over white, blue-collar voters in the industrial states of Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania, where the Democrat is still struggling despite his recent poll boost elsewhere. Older white voters who supported Hillary Clinton have been slow to move behind Obama but the gloomy economic predictions could persuade many of them that taking a risk on change is a better option than voting for a continuation of Republican economic policies.

    House Republicans who voted against the rescue plan did so partly on account of ideological objections to such an expansion of government influence over the economy. But many were spooked into voting no by a deluge of letters, emails and phone calls opposing the bail-out, which has also been a target for attack on conservative talk radio.

    Republican leaders in the House blamed the bill’s failure on a speech by House speaker Nancy Pelosi during the debate, complaining that her partisan tone alienated wavering congressmen.

    Watch the speech yourself and see what you think.

  • Was this really necessary?

    September 29, 2008 @ 1:10 pm | by Denis Staunton

    The Saturday Night Live team rips into Sarah Palin here

    It’s funny, but did anyone see Palin’s actual  interview with CBS News’ Katie Couric? Does it really need a pastiche?

  • McCain joke raises Irish hackles

    @ 10:07 am | by Denis Staunton

    During last Friday’s presidential debate at the University of Mississippi, John McCain invoked Ireland’s low corporate tax rate as a model for the United States, writes Denis Staunton, Washington Correspondent.

    An admirer of Irish writers William Trevor and Roddy Doyle and an occasional guest at the Irish embassy in Washington, McCain is working hard to establish his credentials as a friend of Ireland.

    Last week, Ciaran Staunton, a campaigner on behalf of illegal Irish immigrants in theUS, claimed that McCain had shown more interest in Irish-American issues than Barack Obama, praising the Republican for addressing an Irish-American political forum in Scranton, Pennsylvania.

    McCain opened his remarks to the forum by telling his favourite Irish joke about the O’Reilly brothers, who are so busy buying each other drinks that they don’t recognise one another.

    “There’s only one ethnic joke that can be told in American politics and that’s Irish jokes,” McCain said.

    Most of the audience in Scranton laughed but Seamus Boyle, national president of the Ancient Order of Hibernians (AOH) was not amused.

     “It was a great meeting but when you began your speech with a joke about the Irish, I and many of our fellow Irish Americans in the Ancient Order of Hibernians, were shocked. It was really an insult to a whole nationality to be stereotyped as drunks,” Boyle wrote to McCain.

    “The Irish are a jovial people who enjoy life, work hard, help the needy, support our community and our country yet get depicted as drunkards and partiers. As you stated in your speech yesterday the Irish have a great education and work ethic.  Senator, I was not the only one offended and I received numerous complaints from a variety of people throughout Pennsylvania and other parts of the country. On behalf of these people, the Ancient Order of Hibernians and myself and my family, I wish you would refrain from demeaning the Irish or any other ethnic group by telling such jokes in the future. I think an apology is in order to those millions of Irish in the United States who were offended by your joke.”

    It’s hard to imagine too many native-born Irish taking offence at McCain’s joke but Michael Quinlan, a former advisor to Boston mayor Ray Flynn, who has a pro-Obama blog - Irish Americans for Obama - has written to Irish-American newspaper editors to condemn it.

     “I want to suggest that Irish-Americans not surrender their  principles to partisanship by allowing these ‘drunk Irish’ jokes to go unanswered. A presidential candidate uttering this joke before millions of viewers simply helps to revive the caricature of the ‘drunk Irish’ that Irish-Americans have fought against for so many Generations,” he wrote.

    Quinlan complained that late-night comic Conan O’Brien had already picked up on McCain’s joke to offer his own take at Political Humor on the bibulous Irish:

    “Speaking of John McCain, in his speech today, John McCain said that illegal irish immigrants in America should be allowed to become citizens. Yeah. When asked why, McCain said, ‘Because my wife’s family owns Budweiser.’”

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