Mark Halperin's keen insight:

In Time's The Page, dedicated to evaluating this week's action vis-a-vis Obama and McCain, Mark Halperin scores a win for McCain.

He had four categories for grading:

• Public Image
• Iraq
• Economy
• Arrival of the Cavalry [campaign nuts and bolts + finance]

McCain/Republicans win on all except The Economy, which is given a tie.

He're the entirety of Halperin on Public Image:

Barack Obama's apparent move to the center on a range of issues has Republicans and many commentators questioning his credibility and integrity. If he loses in November, this will be remembered as a turning point in the race - just as the launch of the Swift Boat ads against John Kerry marked the beginning of the end of his presidential bid in 2004.

Republicans questioning Obama's integrity? Say it ain't so!

As to this week's moves by Obama being compared in any way to the organized Swift Boat attacks on Kerry, well, let's just say that's ridiculous.

As to McCain's stumblebum performance this week, Halperin has absolutely nothing to say.

Here's Halperin on Economy:

After a week in which both candidates presented their policies and attacked the other guy's record and ideas, neither McCain nor Obama has broken out as the leader on this issue. For a question that should give a huge advantage to the Deomcrats, the answere still sound like "yada, yada, yada" - on both sides.

Halperin must be extremely bored, or inattentive. This week has been a mess for McCain (see this Weekly Standard entry). McCain's economic advisor Phil Gramm hasn't been in the news for several days for nothing ("mental recession"). And to say the economic talk is "yada, yada, yada" when the reality is that both candidates have reiterated their basic - and wildly different - policy positions, shows how out of touch Halperin is, or maybe he's enraptured with a particular Seinfeld episode.


posted by Quiddity at 7/11/2008 01:45:00 PM