Monica Crowley

Miss 80 Percent

There has been a lot of talk during this campaign about percentages. In his acceptance speech the other night, Barack Obama got big applause when he said that John McCain had voted with President Bush 90 percent of the time, and that he didn't want to gamble on a 10 percent chance for change.

What Obama didn't tell you is that he has voted 95 percent of the time with the liberal Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid. That would be the same Harry Reid, who along with uberliberal House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, head up a Democratic-led Congress with a sensational 9 percent job approval rating.  Obama is part of that liberal Congressional leadership of which 91 percent of the American people disapprove. Obama votes with them 95 percent of the time.

I don't know about you, but I don't want to gamble on just a 5 percent chance on change from that.

  And then there is McCain's new running mate, the Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin. The fact that Democrats are jumping all over her (albeit haltingly because they aren't sure exactly HOW to attack her), tells you how worried they are. She's a tax-cutting, pro-drilling, environmentalist, gun-toting, ice-fishing, hockey-playing, pro-life mom of five, with a son about to be deployed to Iraq. She's one incredibly relatable person. Cool too.

The Democrats and their fellow travelers in the media have tried to attack her for being "inexperienced." I certainly hope they continue down that path, considering the guy at the TOP of their ticket was approving dog license fees in Chicago 3 years ago.

And I also hope they continue to criticize her mothering skills ("will she be able to raise a Down's Syndrome baby AND be vice president?"), her hair, her fashion choices (loved the ginormous flag pin she wore at her VP debut---take THAT, Barack!), and her ability to lead (the silence from the feminist groups is deafening. Where's NOW now?!). If they continue down this road, they will only further irritate those disaffected women still irritated Hillary isn't on the other ticket.

Speaking of Hillary, watch her closely over the next few weeks. She will say and do all of the right things in support of Obama, of course, but she also won't be able to hold her tongue if sexist criticisms of Palin grow louder. She will point out the sexism as something she herself suffered, and thereby forge something of a sisterhood bond with Palin---and with a lot of other women across the country. It'll be Hillary's way of helping the McCain-Palin ticket---and her own cause.

A final thought on the Palin choice:  for any undecided, moderate, or Independent voter who felt the pull of Obama because of the historic nature of his ascent, you now have another place to go. Palin's placement on the Republican ticket allows you to vote for another historic run. It allows you to vote for McCain without feeling guilty about dissing "a first."  Now you don't have to choose between "tastes great, less filling;" You can have both with McCain-Palin.

In a campaign of dueling percentages, Sarah Palin has one that Obama, Pelosi, Reid, even President Bush would walk over their grandmothers for:  as Governor, her job approval stands at 80 percent. Even apple pie doesn't have 80 percent approval.

She is McCain's secret weapon: solidly conservative, living family values, attractive, warm, and---what do you know?---NORMAL.

She's also stealth: underestimated, under the radar, dismissed. And therein lies her power. 

The McLaughlin Group

Please join us this weekend for The McLaughlin Group. Check your local listings for time and channel, or visit www.mclaughlin.com for more information and podcasts.

Sarah Barracuda

Somewhere, Hillary Clinton is smiling.

She's smiling because John McCain had the cojones to do what Barack Obama did not: put a woman on his ticket.

Alaska Governor Sarah Palin is now running with McCain as his choice to be vice-president.  She is a tax-cutting, pro-drilling, environmentalist, gun defending, pro-life mom of five, with a son in the Army about to be deployed to Iraq.

You want "change?"  Here it is. Obama said last night that change doesn't come "from Washington, it comes TO Washington." How odd, then, that both Obama and his running mate, Joe Biden, are quintessentially Washington creatures.

Governor Palin, from Alaska, is about as far removed from Washington as you can be without living in Russia, just a hop away from her state.

She hunts, shoots, has a lifetime membership in the NRA, ice fishes, is Christian and pro-life.

A few months ago, Obama put down people like her, saying they "cling to their guns and their religion."

Something tells me Governor Palin is going to be a rock star in the states that really matter---Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan. They like their guns and religion too.

In high school, Palin played basketball so fiercely that she earned the nickname "Sarah Barracuda." She also played in the championship game with a stress fracture in her ankle, nailing a free throw in the critical final seconds.

She's a cool chick and a tough cookie. I say again: somewhere Hillary smiles.

The McCain Yin to Obama's Yang

After watching the Super Bowl tonight---I mean, Barack Obama's acceptance speech---I have come to the following conclusion. It's impossible for John McCain to try to compete with Obama in terms of oratory and pyrotechnics. So there's only one thing for McCain to do. Something that is thoroughly consistent with who he is, his life's path, and the campaign for the presidency he is running.

For his acceptance speech, McCain should do the exact opposite of what Obama did tonight. In light of this over-the-top spectacle, McCain should deliver his acceptance speech this way:

Take a plain wooden stool, carry it to the middle of the stage, and sit on it, with one foot on a rung and the other foot on the ground. Take a handheld microphone, and then speak without a teleprompter, without notes, without contrivance. Deliver his speech with a confident humility. Sotto voce. Obama's speech blew people AWAY from him, like the guy in the Memorex commercial. McCain should make people LEAN IN to him, listening with a keen ear. The booming voice has power. But so does the quiet one.

McCain does this well anyway, and it will be a brilliant counterpoint to the path Obama chose tonight. If McCain goes intimate, humble, conversational, he will beat Obama at his own game. You don't compete with Obama---with the Acropolis and the fake Oval Office set design and Springsteen and Oprah and the confetti and the Grucci fireworks and the preacher's cadence and Bon Jovi and whatever else Obama had going on.

McCain should go in the opposite direction: be proud but not boastful, humble but not meek, strong but not overweening, passionate but not phony, principled but not fatally idealistic. Obama's speech was majestic, yes. But there is a quiet majesty McCain can mine, by sitting on a simple stool and speaking softly while carrying a big stick.

The O'Reilly Factor

Tonight----just before we all witness the Oracle alight to the Parthenon---I will be a guest on The O'Reilly Factor on the Fox News Channel. Please join us LIVE at 8pm ET.

Sister, Can You Spare A Compliment?

At Tuesday night's Democratic Convention, Hillary Clinton did what everyone expected her to do, and she endorsed Barack Obama. As her husband mouthed "I love you" (in a gag-me-with-a-spoon moment reminiscent of the 1998 State of the Union address), Hillary encouraged everyone to jump on the Obama bandwagon.

The problem is that Hillary made a policy endorsement, not a personal one.

Nowhere in her "speech of support" was a reference to getting to know Obama, to seeing his wide-ranging intellect and inherent goodness, to his qualifications to be president, to the judgment needed to be commander-in-chief.

Instead, she said something akin to, "Look. He beat me. I still can't believe it, but he beat me. I hate him for it, but whatever. He'll lose and I'll be back. In the meantime, he's a Democrat, which makes him better than a Republican, so I guess we'd better suck it up and vote for him."

Tonight, her husband will alight to the podium, all simmering anger and seething resentment. He'll say (some of) the right things too, but he won't be happy about it. And then he'll do what he loves more than anything: he'll talk about himself.

He'll also do something else. He'll take Obama to school. He'll deliver such a stemwinder that Obama, even with all of his vaunted oratory, won't be able to match it. Bill is going to show the young whippersnapper how it's done. "Take THAT, punk."

Is this Obama's convention?  Sure it is. If you believe in unicorns.

Estrogen Derby

On the first night of the Democratic National Convention, John McCain pulled off a brilliant piece of counterprogramming. He appeared on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno" and turned in a terrific performance: he was funny, relaxed, respectful of his Democratic opponents, and serious when he needed to be. He looked, in short, fully presidential.

While McCain impressed in Burbank, the Democrats in Denver braced for the cougar onslaught. Faced with continued upset among Hillary Clinton's voters and a general unease about Barack and Michelle Obama, the Democrats wheeled out the wife. (No, not that wife. She rolls tonight.)

Michelle Obama gave a lovely speech about her husband and their family, their accomplishments and values. Her mother sat in the audience, beaming at her daughter with quiet pride, while her own daughters wore big smiley faces as they beamed at their father appearing via satellite. "Hi daddy!" the younger Sasha exclaimed. You could feel hearts melting across America.

The conventions are shows, of course, and whether or not the "Hi daddy!" was scripted or not, it played into the storyline of the night: the storyline Michelle was sent to quarterback. "Don't be afraid of us. We're just like you.  Same experiences, same values.  Be not afraid."

To the extent that was Michelle's objective last night, she went far in achieving it. In the soft-focus video about her and in her speech, all whiffs of radicalism were airbrushed away. No mention of the longstanding personal and spiritual communion with black liberation theologist, Rev. Jeremiah Wright; no mention of longtime friendships with the Jesse Jackson family or Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn; no mention of being truly "proud" of her country for the first time in her adult life; no mention of getting her million dollar dream home with the help of a convicted felon; no mention of rubbing elbows with the Farrakhans; no mention of America "being a downright mean country;" no mention of asking us to be OK with "a smaller slice of the pie."

Of course not. It was a show, not a suicide mission.

Michelle's objective was to reassure voters that they aren't closet radicals or black militants or off-the-hook liberals. So, last night was all rainbows and baskets filled with puppies and a bouncy "Hi daddy!"

Were all of those disgruntled Hillary voters convinced?  Maybe Michelle just softened them up for the kill, to come later in the week when her husband speaks.

Until then, though, the Democrats must wade through another husband-and-wife team, two people who roll their eyes at rainbows and drive over baskets filled with puppies.

Michelle may have tossed bouquets at the cougars, but Hillary will throw fire and ice.

Which will the ladies who vote choose to catch? 

Which filly will win the Estrogen Derby?

One of them already stands in the Winner's Circle with her husband, and one stands outside it with hers. The one standing outside doesn't intend to stay there, eating hay, for long.

Unity Bites

The Democrats have formally convened in Denver, opening their national hoo-ha with an "interfaith" service. Scheduled to speak: the head of the Islamic Society of North America and an unindicted co-conspirator in a terrorism case.

I guess the Dems want to begin "uniting" with Muslim terrorists. 

Of course, Islamic fundamentalists have nothing on Hillary Clinton. Her army of supporters is still as steamed as a lobster on Labor Day. She has promised to deliver "unity," but behind the scenes, the hidden Clinton hand is everywhere, stirring the pot, making covert deals, handing out Hillary signs.

Her husband--our 42nd president and national treasure---is whining that he can't believe he got stuck speaking on "national security" night. Even he knows he's Homer Simpson on national security. "Why me?" he wails, Nancy Kerrigan-like. "Why do I have to talk about foreign policy? What did I ever do to deserve the short stick?  Man, do I hate this guy, Osamabama or whatever the heck his name is."

Girlfriend will formally release her 1600 plus delegates to Barack Obama on Wednesday, but word on the protest-filled street is that upwards of 1000 of her delegates may call out her name. There is also a movement afoot to place her name in nomination for the vice presidency. Biden, Schmiden.

Pennsylvania Governor and Hillary loyalist Ed Rendell read the elite media the riot act on Sunday, singling out MSNBC and NBC for particularly biased and, as he called it, "embarrassing" pro-Obama coverage. Tom Brokaw gave a half-hearted defense of his network, saying that Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann aren't "the only voices" over there. Newsman, please!

So Hillary's surrogates--in public and private--fan out, still making her case, while she talks a good game about supporting the Deer in the Headlights. Of course, Hillary's fingerprints can't show up on any of these manuevers, and she will deny, deny, deny.

But her public "support" for Obama is matched--if not surpassed--by her surrogates' public whining about him.

Behind it all are two things:  1.  Her undiluted ambition to be president. And 2. Building her "I told you so" case.

She may be right: in a year that was supposed to be "screw it up-proof" for Democrats, they may, in fact, be screwing it up.

Now that's what I mean by "hope."

Screwball Central

Anarchists, Code Pink, Flava Flav, Cindy Sheehan, tree sitters, ANSWER, feminists, PETA, vegans, pot legailzers, Naderites, illegal immigrants and the libs who love them. Levitations. Public nudity. Street theater. Puppets.

And that's just in the first 24 hours.

At least the Democratic National Convention doesn't try to be something it's not: classy, elegant, leadership capable. Normal.

One of the major groups orchestrating the chaos and anarchy calls itself "Recreate '68." Their objective is to convulse Denver the way the hippies, yippies, and sundry other nutballs convulsed Chicago during the Summer of Love.

Of course, America took one look at these unwashed, longhaired, bead-wearing, drug-zonked fanatics and the upheaval they provoked and said, "Not for us."

The danger for Obama is that '68 might be recreated a little too vividly. He already has a radical problem, and I'm not just talking about his long friendship with Bill Ayers. He's radical on his opposition to war, he's radical on wealth redistribution, and he's radical on abortion. He's befriended radicals, promoted their agendas, and espoused them himself. For decades.

Even the slightest whiff of radicalism from his convention will reinforce what many voters already believe about Obama. The Silent Majority will rise again.

In fact, the Silent Majority has already begun to make itself known. John McCain's poll numbers stun most Democrats: he's not supposed to be running even with Obama. He's not even supposed to be close.

He's running even because the Silent Majority that elected Richard Nixon (twice!) and Ronald Reagan (twice!) and both Bushes is still a potent force. It's not made up of the effete liberals who make excuses for or wink at anti-American radicalism. Instead, the Silent Majority is the heart and soul of this country, who believe in it, its goodness, its generosity, its strength, and its nobility.

The far-left maniacs driving the DNC bus this week find purpose in making fun of America, and running it down.

The Silent Majority takes a deep, profound, almost spiritual pride in America. And it's a quiet pride...until Election Day.

The McLaughlin Group

Please join us for The McLaughlin Group this weekend. Check your local listings for time and channel, or visit www.mclaughlin.com for more information and podcasts.