The Campaign Tactic to Nowhere

Michael Crowley is right. The narrative that Barack Obama and Joe Biden voted for 'the bridge to nowhere' and Governor Sarah Palin killed the 'bridge to nowhere' was fun and exciting the first time we heard it. It served it's purpose, that being "Wow. What else did she do?"

Make the bet and hope it takes down the hand, but if the bet is called you better have something else in the chamber to fire. Otherwise you could be setting a trap for yourself.

I wondered about this yesterday. The claim that Sarah Palin "stopped" the bridge to nowhere is so blatantly dishonest that the McCain team had to know it would become at least a mid-sized media fixation. But I suspect they figured that a) more people will believe the advertisement than will see or believe the debunking and, perhaps more important b) it will start "a fight over earmarks with the Obama campaign"--a fight which will quickly stop being about the bridge specifically and play generally to one of McCain's few issues advantages over Obama (by pure dint of McCain's years of obsessive pork-fighting in the Senate).

Governing from home: Alaska meet Illinois

The Washington Post has a front page story today about "per diem" expenses Governor Sarah Palin billed to Alaskan taxpayers.

ANCHORAGE, Sept. 8 -- Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has billed taxpayers for 312 nights spent in her own home during her first 19 months in office, charging a "per diem" allowance intended to cover meals and incidental expenses while traveling on state business.

The Post goes on to report that these expenses are neither unusual, nor did Sarah Palin fully exercise her rights to reimbursement for expenses.

Governor Palin is naturally under the national press microscope, so expect any story about Palin to get coverage. But front page coverage? Meh. Must be a slow news day.

To help compliment a slow news day, here's a look back at some expenses claimed by the current Governor of Illinois, Rod Blagojevich. Dude, I commute in an airplane.

But after winning that election in 2002, "Blago" decided to break 150 years of precedent by choosing not to live in the governor's mansion. Instead, he and his family chose to continue living on Chicago's Northwest Side.

Ambinder invites the mob

Marc Ambinder has done today what the almost never does. He's opened a post for comments.

How should the Obama campaign respond to the Palin phenom?

Best behavior kids.

Confirmed: Palin Speech Ratings, 37.2 million viewers

Trying to confirm this comment over at Hot Air.

Update: The Chicago Tribune's The Swamp confirms the news.

The Sarah Palin speech generated 37.2 million viewers, just 1.1 million viewers short of Barack Obama's record-breaking speech on Day 4 of the Democratic Convention. The Palin speech was carried on only six networks while the Obama speech was carried on ten (including BET, TV One, Univision and Telemundo).

Whoa. Whoa. Astonishing numbers. This should be a huge story today.

Because I Can't Shut The Hell Up

I have to keep on blogging. For as many times as I start and stop, it is time to stop stopping. That is a waste of time.

What isn't a waste of time is reading Ross Douthat today. Especially right now.