Questioning Julie Roginsky

Julie Roginsky was on cnbc friday to discuss the Sarah Palin VP pick. CNBC called her a "Democratic Strategist". Roginsky insisted that Palin had been a small town mayor until two or three weeks ago. Even after being corrected by another guest she never seemed to acknowledge that Palin has been governor for two years. Later she even repeated her mistake, loudly and proudly. My question to the democrats is.... can I have a job?

As of now I want to be a highly paid democratic strategist. I can fiercely insist on air that 2+2 is 3 and the sky is purple, staring with big blanks in between each attempt to speak over other guests who are trying to correct me. Yes Al Gore invented the internet! 911 was an inside job! Bill Clinton took over a failing economy! Republicans eat children! Palin has only been Alaska's governor for 12 days! Hey this is easy!

Turns out Roginsky may be more disliked by democrats than republicans. Daily Kos took a poll last august where 71% of the respondents said she should be publicly shunned. I'm guessing she said something accurate a year ago, offending the rank and file.

I tried searching for "democratic strategist" on monster.com, but no luck. I guess they have all the help they need.

Debatable Wisdom

Now that we have the teams picked, the republican convention should be a total party. The only mystery will be whether any surprise speakers will be slipped into the mix next week. What always comes after the convention is the media excitement over the debates. When and where will they be held, how many, what's the format, and of course... who gets to moderate?!

So I'm getting out ahead of the narrative, the media will not be asking those questions this time. Obama will not be answering the call. No one thinks he did well against McCain in Saddlebrook, and the line has been that McCain wins a face-to-face, Obama wins the stump.

So Obama will stump. There will be, in the eyes of the media, perfectly plausible reasons given for not debating. Maybe something about "McCain not willing to come to terms", code for no format will be good enough for Obama. Even after Obama said he would debate McCain anyplace, anywhere. They will need a format that somehow gives Obama an edge. Basically, a debate format that involves no debating. It's just a prediction.

I have an alternate suggestion. Lets debate Biden v McCain, and Obama v Palin. Then we can have regular evenly matched contests. Lots more fun than listening to the media act like we don't need real debates this time.

Real Question about Biden

What is the real difference between Biden and Clinton? Obama's supporters were voting for him early this year because he was the anti-Hillary. No votes for the war and pulling out immediately. He was new and she was establishment. So she comes in a very close second to Obama, and he picks Biden who had about 12 votes.
The whole reason we heard he couldn't pick Hillary was she wasn't anti-war enough. They didn't want anyone who had voted for the war. Now he picks one of the most pro-war democrats.
So the real question has to be: if you can run with Biden, why can't you run with Hillary? History is loaded with candidates who ran with the runner-up as a VP candidate. But "why-not-Hillary?" was a topic from a couple months ago. So no one touches it now. Back then everyone knew the answer, but with the Biden pick, that answer is out the door, and Obama isn't being asked to provide a new answer.
Saturday the question should have been resurrected.

McCain's Housing Crises

The boys and girls over at the Daily Show seem to think John McCain doesn't remember where he lives.
This all starts with with a reporter asking McCain how many houses does he own. For some reason McCain's response has been frothed over all day. Why no interest in why the reporter asked the question?
Well any amount of research shows McCain and his wife own property through a trust. That includes condominiums, McCain believed. In fact it's a very good bet that neither the candidate nor his wife knows exactly what, or how much of what, is currently owned.
Answer: they own way more than one house. What is the reporter really after?
Answer: a reponse from McCain to counteract the the charges of elitism that are crushing Obama's poll numbers? To remind people that McCain is wealthy and therefor worse than an elitist?
My real question is this: when the reporter's job is to try to provide sound bites for the Obama strategists, do we have any place other than the Daily Show doing any real reporting?