Balta1701

QUOTE (lostfan @ Aug 20, 2008 -> 05:20 PM) What does that mean for Obama? Nothing. Obama opted out of the public financing system, so he's not bound by those spending limits. He just has to raise an additional $80 million beyond what the McCain campaign raises to make up for the money McCain gets from the government.

QUOTE (lostfan @ Aug 20, 2008 -> 05:11 PM) McCain doesn't seem to be all that cash-strapped, at least not yet. That's because he can't be. In the next 2 weeks, he has to spend every dollar he's raised that is not general election money, and after that he's totally blocked in by the state by state spending limits.

QUOTE (lostfan @ Aug 20, 2008 -> 05:06 PM) I don't know if you've been watching the Keith Olbermann channel or something but not all of McCain's press is bad press, he gets good press, a lot of it actually, and he is getting his message out there. What the Obama camp does not seem to have learned is that they still do control the media narrative to some extent, and that by them responding or overreacting to everything, like you were saying earlier, they are prolonging the life of that story, and getting themselves more negative exposure. If they just let it die off, McCain's strategy here loses effectiveness. They don't need to go into an all-out blitz here, they can just play a soft zone for now. But they're blitzing and giving up big plays. Here's one from the post-modernism, break your brain, drive you crazy line of thought. I wonder if that's not exactly what the Obama campaign wants to have happen? Have McCain be the one who goes out negative first, have people start realizing McCain's running a much more negative campaign, have him get all of his attacks (and not coincidentally, his money) out of the way before even the conventions hit, so that by the time the conventions are over, all of McCain's one-liners and ads have been used up. Some have wondered whether they were trying the rope-a-dope here.

QUOTE (lostfan @ Aug 20, 2008 -> 03:12 PM) Obama did get a little dirty towards the end, but only after Hillary's attack ads started causing him to dip in the polls. He hasn't been negative yet against McCain, but I wish he would stop paying McCain so much attention and whining. Even if his beefs are legitimate, him bringing that up is not seen that way, it's just more political noise. Part of the problem though was that against Hillary, the campaign put together a strategy where they didn't need to go negative at all. They won it by winning Iowa, outworking Hillary for every delegate they could steal on Super Tuesday, and then putting her away with strong showings in the late Feb. states where she hadn't planned to compete at all. He never had to go negative against her that much to win, he just had to endure her barrage and not totally foul anything up before PA and NC hit. So far, they're using the same basic playbook here...outworking McCain while he tries to keep swinging a club. They haven't hit him all that hard yet except on the couple of local issues (Ralph Reed in GA, the DHL thing in Ohio). They may not want to go harder after him than that...up to this point in the Campaign, they've never had to.

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Aug 20, 2008 -> 03:57 PM) Those of you talking about Gu9ll1an1's creditentials are exactly right. I about puked when I heard this. Well, here's the question we all need to ask. Do we have a high enough tolerance at this point in our lives to play a drinking game with Rudy's speech using 9/11 as one of the phrases? I'm actually worried about casualties from that night.

QUOTE (mr_genius @ Aug 20, 2008 -> 03:47 PM) What Obama needs to do is just be the Obama that won the Dem primary. He was more aggressive on issues and ideas. Now he is in danger of becoming the 'if you don't vote for me you are a racist' candidate. I really think he can lock this up if he goes with his instincts and goes back to the Barack Obama campaign that beat the Clinton machine. This 'McSame' strategy is a bad one. He needs to hammer home his ambitions which will win over the voters. Here is my question in response though...the media absolutely hate covering policy. They despise it. You can have the greatest set of policies in the world, and all the other candidate has to do is call it "Fuzzy Math" and the media will pretend there's some controversy over how things add up. Meanwhile, the McCain campaign keeps up their hard, fairly close-to-crossing-the-line type ads, and keeps getting the media focused on that. Basically throwing them bait. Do you think a policy driven campaign can beat that, without feeding the media something to go after McCain on? Hell, the blogs I read are just dying because they don't have a message like that coming down. Everyone up and down the line in the Republican party knows the message to fire out on Obama, he's an elitist, uppity, unprepared candidate who's only there because he's a celebrity. (And fear the wrath of blackazoid while you're at it!). The Dems don't feel like they have that and they don't. They haven't responded to McCain's "elitist" stuff by pointing out that McCain's the one with 10 mansions across the country, they haven't responded to the "unpatriotic" "he wants to lose the war to win the election" stuff by going after McCain's judgement or actions at all, there's just nothing coherent being pushed on McCain.

QUOTE (Brian @ Aug 20, 2008 -> 03:40 PM) I saw this on the news. How ridiculous. They should at least than let people bring their own stuff on the flight. Terrorist.

QUOTE (whitesoxfan101 @ Aug 20, 2008 -> 03:06 PM) I don't know how much the poll matters. The relevant point, and one that I don't think anybody would argue, is that McCain has made up a lot of ground on Obama recently, and Obama has some work to do to slow down that momentum. A good convention is a good place to start. Zogby does not matter to me at all. They make their money by being the outlier...by being the poll that is a good 5-10 points away from everyone else's poll, so it's BIG BREAKING NEWS DRUDGE REPORT HEADLINE! when they come out, and when there's the occasional time where they get it right because there's some sort of last minute surge on one side. On the other hand, yes, it's clearly been tightening nationwide, but really right now it's anyone's guess how things are going to turn out. McCain is dumping money in to TV ads, which, combined with all the free showings he's getting because his ads are deemed "Controversial" has helped tighten the nationwide gap. But while the Obama campaing isn't dumping money in to TV ads like McCain is just yet, they've also been working like crazy M-Fers on their ground game in swing states. In places that are anywhere close at all they're pressing hard on voter registration and focusing harder on local issues (i.e. the DHL deal in Ohio). They're outgunning McCain like 10 or 20 to 1 on field offices in swing states. No idea which strategy will work, but if the Obama campaign can come in to election day at worst 2 or 3 points behind McCain in national polling, which would be a significant weakening of where they're currently at...then they'll probably win it on ground game alone.

QUOTE (fathom @ Aug 20, 2008 -> 01:26 PM) I think Thornton would be the closer of the future. I'll recommend this...trade Dotel this offseason! Dotel has a reasonable shot at bringing back a pair of draft picks next year even if he spends some time on the DL.

QUOTE (Pants Rowland @ Aug 20, 2008 -> 01:25 PM) It will be interesting to see what the Sox try to make of him. Sometimes he does so well out there I wonder if they could groom him for the role. I do not know the wear and tear on Jenks' arm, but with so much more time before FA, I would be curious to see the talent windfall the Sox might be able to get by trading him in the offseason. I know, dumb idea ready to be panned, but this could very well be that year too soon to trade him as opposed to the year too late. Unless the haul you got back was absolutely spectacular, the Sox aren't in a position to even think about moving Jenks until they have another bad year where they're out of the race early.

QUOTE (fathom @ Aug 20, 2008 -> 01:20 PM) Don't you think lefties could feast off of that arm angle? Righties are currently hitting .289 off Russell, Lefties only .250, albiet, sample size. Lefties do have a couple more extra base hits and a homer against him.

Gameday saying Wise injured his leg on that catch.

QUOTE (soxfan3530 @ Aug 20, 2008 -> 10:54 AM) there goes the shutout. ibanez really is an RBI machine. With this kind of lead, there's no reason Gavin should be caring about the shutout. He needs to pitch to get the win and go 7. If that means pitching around Ichiro because you don't want him killing you, fine. If that means giving up an RBI or two to Ibanez, fine. Just as long as he's cutting down on the pitches and avoiding the big innings.

8 is still too round of a number for my taste.

QUOTE (Athomeboy_2000 @ Aug 20, 2008 -> 10:43 AM) Knock Edwards off the list Yeah, that too. The people who'd surprise me are up to "Lieberman and Edwards".

QUOTE (Jenks Heat @ Aug 20, 2008 -> 11:41 AM) With the off day tomorrow the entire bullpen can pitch. I'd really rather not push them...just about everyone in that pen could use an extra day or two of rest. It'd be dynamite if Gavin could go 7+ and we wind up only having to throw Russell out there to finish things off.

I almost wanted to put this in the Dems thread and say this was great news for my side.

Come on Gavin, you've got to keep that pitch count down a little more when you've got an early 6 run lead. Just pitch to contact. If they get 3 runs off you who the Hell cares as long as you can go 7 innings.

QUOTE (Athomeboy_2000 @ Aug 20, 2008 -> 10:33 AM) I think the Obama campaign is throwing smoke screens. No one know where to look. Then BAM! I would NOT be shocked int he least if he picks Powell or Kerry. No one seems to mention these guys. Highly unlikely, but not out of the realm of possibility. Or Daschle. Or Hell, Gore. Pretty much anyone but Lieberman at this point wouldn't surprise me.

QUOTE (Athomeboy_2000 @ Aug 20, 2008 -> 11:26 AM) only 2 more freakin days. lol The NY Times and Drudge said it would be 1 more day 2 days ago.

You know, I'd imagine this is one of those games where we ought to tip our hats to Greg Walker for having the team prepped to face a pitcher throwing stuff they haven't seen much. Dickey doesn't exactly have great numbers, but his ERA has shot up by a half a run this inning.

6 is still too round of a number for my taste. I'd like to get it up to 7.

I wonder if Alexei's ever seen a knuckleball before

RBI groundout for Swish. 2nd & 3rd, 1 out for Sexy.

2 in, bases loaded, nobody out for the Swishtasticness.