Gerson was Bush’s chief liesmith; when Bush wanted a turd gilded and polished, Gerson was the guy to call. Any statement made by Gerson should be analyzed with ‘he’s a liar!’ as the starting point.

I do my best to miss Ann Coulter on any and all topics.

He was talking about ‘The Surge’ – a tactic designed to provide time for political reconciliation in Iraq – the strategy (I could be being a bit generous here in assuming that the current administration had a strategy in mind other than kicking the can down the road for the next president). But it has also shone a very bright light on the contrast between the two campaigns. While Obama’s campaign has always focussed on the strategy of winning 270 or more electoral votes and building a machine to accomplish that, McCain’s campaign has been a series of tactics dictated by the facts of the day.

Sarah Palin’s pick was undoubtedly a tactic to attempt to crush the big bounce that Obama was going to get get from the Democratic Convention and his closing speech. It succeeded in its aim by giving McCain a big bounce in the polls but it only lasted a couple of weeks before reality set in and the unvetted choice proved disastrous in the long term.

I think it is Obama’s clear setting of strategic goals that will be his most valuable asset when he (presumably) becomes President next year.

Did you miss Ann Coulter on this topic? She’s about as base-y as you can get and she said she was voting for Clinton over McCain before he made a VP pick. I don’t think picking Soupy Joe would have changed that.

The base could also just sit on its hands. They might troop out to vote for Johnny Mac, but their wallets would have stayed shut and they wouldn’t have manned the campaign offices.

That would be the mother of all Bradley effects.

Maybe. I don’t know, though. I think that if Hillary Clinton had edged out a victory in the Dem primary, the dynamics of the race would have been very different and more in McCain’s favor. For one thing, a Clinton win would have ignited the GOP based faster than a lightning strike in a field of dry California grass. All the volunteers and funds he got after the Palin nomination would have started coming in much earlier — and there would have been no need to tap the Alaska gov. Instead he could have played to moderates and independents with the selection of someone like Lieberman (what’s the base gonna do, vote for a Clinton? Ha!). You’re probably right that his poor preparation and campaigning would have caught up with him in the end, but still…I just don’t know.

Correction: ‘once the public realized Obama was black’.

I still don’t think Obama will win and it’s for that reason. If the dem candidate was white (but not Hillary) McCain would have conceeded already.