McCain certainly winning the hubris contest

Going through my e-mail earlier today, I ran across this one from the Obama campaign:

Election Night Media Website Now Open

CHICAGO – The Obama-Biden campaign today opened a website to collect media credential and coverage resource requests for our Election Night event in Chicago.  Credential and media resource requests will be accepted … through midnight on Saturday, October 25, 2008.  Late requests will not be accepted.  Space is limited.

The website provides two options for news outlets to request credentials to cover the Election Night event in Chicago…

And you know what struck me about that? It’s modesty. The standard such release touts a "Victory Celebration," and this one didn’t. Yeah, it’s to the media and not to a list of supporters (or, some would say, overt supporters), but I still found myself thinking: How cool can Obama get? He’s not going to take anything for granted, and certainly not get excited prematurely — if ever.

I had almost forgotten that release when I got this one from McCain, headlined "Two weeks to Victory." Never mind that that’s almost maniacally optimistic. Consider that Obama is widely seen as the heir to JFK, whose administration, at least in retrospect, made "hubris" a household word. But ironically enough, The One is the one playing it modest.

21 thoughts on “McCain certainly winning the hubris contest

  1. Doug Ross

    New AP story on Governor Palin’s expenses shows she was able to have “quality time” with her children by billing the state for her kids to travel with her…
    Politicians LOVE to spend other people’s money.
    “In October 2007, Palin brought daughter Bristol along on a trip to New York for a women’s leadership conference. Plane tickets from Anchorage to La Guardia Airport for $1,385.11 were billed to the state, records show, and mother and daughter shared a room for four nights at the $707.29-per-night Essex House hotel, which overlooks Central Park.”
    Wonder how many nights Joe The Plumber has spent at the Essex House?

  2. Dave

    I hear michelle is measuring the drapes and obama is planning the biggest celebration ever for a persidential candidate,,,, I predict a Dewey/Truman momment,,,,

  3. Randy E

    Dave, the Dewey fiasco was the result of polling by phone which resulted in an under count of those without phones – mostly poorer people who were more likely to vote democratic.
    The modern day version of this involves cell phones. With the increased number of citizens who do not have land lines and cell phones only means this group is inaccessible to pollsters. Unfortunately for you, this group tends to be younger and blue.
    Dave, when you get that tax cut from President Obama, I take it you’ll send it back.

  4. Mike Cakora

    Brad –
    Did you get the pricing with the Obama email?

    The Obama campaign is putting a hefty price tag on the best camera and reporting positions for news organizations covering Barack Obama’s outdoor election night activities in downtown Chicago. If a reporter wants access to the file center–which will be the best place to find Obama officials and spokesmen–be prepared to write a check for $935. The cheapest place a reporter could stand on a riser with a view is $880.
    That $935 covers one reporter in a heated file tent, power, cable tv, internet and food. I am told by an Obama spokesman who did not want his name used that this just covers costs and they are not turning a profit on this…

    The writer’s main complaint is that not every reporter will need all the stuff offered in the $935 package; he’d like to see more al a carte.

  5. Lee Muller

    Illegal contributions pour into Obama campaign.
    The Obama 2008 campaign has always waited until or past the deadline to file their donation reports. As of the deadline Monday, Obama was refusing to hand over the names of half of his small donors who gave more than $200.00, thumbing his nose at the FEC.
    The FEC has found lots of outright fraud, in the thousands of donations from phony names, using untraceable cash cards, in the names of “OJ Simpson”, “Daffy Duck”, “Bart Simpson”, “Sponge Bob” and others.
    Obama claims 2.5 million donors, but has only provided 337,000 unique donors. Of those over 37,000 made 100 or more donations. Some made as many as 1,000 or even 2,000 donations, far exceeding the legal limit of $2,300.00, with donations of $10,000 to $23,000. Some of the names trace turned out to be non-existant people. Others were real people, but not with the financial resources to donate $18,000. None would talk to the FEC or to reporters.
    1,200 people in the State of Georgia are under investigation for laundering millions in donations by using accounts belonging to three persons in Palestine.
    A major source of money laundering is the Obama online store, which sells T-shirts and other items at very high prices, but never has any in stock. According to the FEC, the store has shipped a little over $2,000,000 in goods, but received $67,500,000 electronic payments. (Not shipping the goods within 6 weeks is an Illinois and federal offense.)
    Of those online sales, $32,000,000 is from overseas, mostly in the West Bank of Palestine.
    Obama’s education was paid for by Prince Alweed of Saudi Arabia, according to Obama mentors Percy Sutton and Khalid Monsour. Prince Alweed is the world’s fourth richest man.

  6. Bob

    Warthen , your slanted support for Obama is as obvious as fecal matter in the puch bowl!
    You call yourselves “journalists” but REFUSE to print anything negative about Obama or his VERY DUBIOUS association with Marxists like Ayers and Obama’s own Marxist “spreading the wealth around” views. Why not rename your papaer The Obama Chronicle? This entire election the “mainstream media” has behaved like Pravda. Of course since you are obviously an Obamacrat you’re probably proud to be linked to the communist!

  7. bud

    Doug, even more important than Palin’s use of public money to pay for her daughter’s trip to NY is the fact that she apparently missed school for an extended period of time. Maybe that was the day they covered birth control. And what about Piper and Willow traveling non-stop with Gov. Palin in this campaign? Aren’t they 7 and 15? Why are they not in school? Not to mention Trig being dragged around like some sort of handbag everywhere. So much for family values.

  8. Bob

    Hey Warthen, your boy said this on the Ellen Degenerate Show “I am convinced I am a better dancer than John McCain,”
    Well, this is one time that I will have to agree because he has spun more times than Michael Jackson on almost every issue. But “he is so smooth” is all I hear from the media and his glassy-eyed supporters.
    You know, most pathological liars are smooth talkers!

  9. bud

    Back to Brad’s original point. Obama understands clearly that this election is NOT over. The polls are relatively close in many states. A slight shift in a few states gives the election to McCain. Here’s how. McCain carries all the states Bush did in 2000 except for New Hampshire. That’s all he needs to do and the White House is his. He’s well within striking distance (but still behind) in Nevada, Colorado, Florida, Virginia. Plus it’s about even in Ohio, North Carolina and Missouri. Plus, McCain must see something in his internal polls that gives him hope in Pennsylvania. Not sure what it could be given double digit leads by all the public polls.
    Sounds like a tall order but it only requires a tiny shift in public sentiment. Obama is correct for playing it cool. He needs a big turnout to win and complacency could hurt his supporters.

  10. Dave

    The loss of objectivity from the left media is stomach churning, how could anyone accuse McCain of hubris after hearing obama make a speech about how he intends to change the world, this is sheet propaganda.

  11. Lee Muller

    Obama promises to immediately look into sending Bush, Cheney and others to the Hague for war crimes.
    Interview with reporter in Philadelphia, Monday, April 14, 2008.
    Here’s his answer, in its entirety:
    “What I would want to do is to have my Justice Department and my Attorney General immediately review the information that’s already there and to find out are there inquiries that need to be pursued. I can’t prejudge that because we don’t have access to all the material right now. I think that you are right, if crimes have been committed, they should be investigated. You’re also right that I would not want my first term consumed by what was perceived on the part of Republicans as a partisan witch hunt because I think we’ve got too many problems we’ve got to solve.
    So this is an area where I would want to exercise judgment — I would want to find out directly from my Attorney General — having pursued, having looked at what’s out there right now — are there possibilities of genuine crimes as opposed to really bad policies. And I think it’s important– one of the things we’ve got to figure out in our political culture generally is distinguishing betyween really dumb policies and policies that rise to the level of criminal activity. You know, I often get questions about impeachment at town hall meetings and I’ve said that is not something I think would be fruitful to pursue because I think that impeachment is something that should be reserved for exceptional circumstances. Now, if I found out that there were high officials who knowingly, consciously broke existing laws, engaged in coverups of those crimes with knowledge forefront, then I think a basic principle of our Constitution is nobody above the law — and I think that’s roughly how I would look at it.”
    http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/attytood/Barack_on_torture.html

  12. Mike of Toronto, formerly of Columbia

    Yes, Lee, we know you’re terrified of one of Those People becoming President.
    We get it. You can quit trying to ride your hobbyhorse from Cayce to Camden. We get it.

  13. Lee Muller

    Are you making the claim that “socialist” is not a “code word” for something racist?
    This election is all about race for the Obama Cult.

  14. bud

    More proof that the election is not over. This was in the USA Today. I urge all Obama supporters to get out and vote!
    The Associated Press just released a poll of its own, done with the GfK Group, that shows a much closer contest: Among the 800 likely voters surveyed, AP/GfK shows Obama ahead 44%-43%. The margin of error on each result: +/- 3.5 percentage points. The survey was done Oct. 16-20, so it came after the last presidential debate on Oct. 15.

  15. Mike of Toronto, formerly of Columbia

    Lee, you’ve made it clear that in your world “Those People” could be those of the Democratic persuasion or “Socialists” (they’re not one and the same, despite what you’re told by Faux News and Rushannity), not just anyone of a race other than yours.

  16. Lee Muller

    If “those people” are socialists, why wouldn’t any honest, productive person be scared of them?
    Socialism is a retrograde political philosophy which sells itself to the worst instincts in people: laziness, envy, thievery, greed and racism.

  17. Dave

    I think the $150,000 spent on Palin was probably the best use of this money, we could of course donate it to paying for pelosi to have a jet like the Pres and VP and flying her heard of children around every week is a little more than $150,000….
    And how much has the DNC spent on hillary???
    This is the same old tactic used over and over,, demonize your opponent, I think you’ll find it in the left wing writings,,,
    You know, the people like bud and randy e that have so much tolerance for others,,,,

  18. Lee Muller

    Michelle Obama probably thought up that clothing attack while eating Iranian caviar under house arrest in the Waldorf Astoria Hotel. Hell hath no fury like a jealous woman scorned.

  19. bud

    Dave you miss the point. (Or more likely you understand the point but just choose to be ornary about it). McCain, and especially Palin, are trying to convey this message that they are just ordinary folks who understand their concerns and will work tirelessly to help working folks lead a better life. Yet McCain can’t even tell you how many houses he owns and Palin parades around in ridiculously expensive clothes in the most elitist manner possible. They are just frauds. They don’t know or care about common people. They just care about a handful of super wealthy people. The GOP certainly had no problem attacking John Edwards expensive haircuts. Geez, Palin’s breathtaking expense for clothing, then the unbelievable statment that the would donate the clothes to charity later simply makes me want to gag. I can see a 10,000 dollar outfit hanging from the rack at His House now. What a ridiculous comment. The GOP has lost it’s way and has no conception of the concerns of real people. Their arrogance shines through at every campaign rally loud and clear. And, more importantly, shows up in their economic and tax proposals.
    There is one party that serves the needs of the rich – the GOP, and one party that looks after the common men and women who actually work for a living, the Democrats.

  20. Lee Muller

    McCain’s wife owns several houses. So what?
    At least they bought their houses with their money.
    Obama got his mansion from his business partner, Tony Rezko, who was convicted of bribing a bunch of Obama’s Chicago political pals.

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