Jonathan Martin was disappointed to learn that there would be no meat on a stick at the Clinton School event.
Just back from the lunchtime talk by esteemed political reporters Jonathan Martin and Mike Allen of D.C.-based political pub Politico, who entertained a capacity crowd at the Clinton School for Public Service in Little Rock with observations on the 2008 presidential race.
A few stray notes:
Some post-mortem on last night’s vice-presidential debate, along with Martin’s prediction that in the weeks to come, Joe Biden and Sarah Palin will fade into the background as more of the focus shifts to John McCain and Barack Obama. I thought Biden started fading into the background the day after his pick was announced, but maybe I missed something.
Noted: Martin argued that McCain’s pulling out of Michigan was actually the far more consequential political story from yesterday, as it shrinks the electoral map and raises the stakes in states Bush carried in 2004.
With the economic situation of the last few weeks, McCain’s campaign has been “in freefall,” Martin said, partly due to his own moves and partly due to circumstances beyond his control. Martin added that, with the passage of the financial bail-out package in the House today, the story may move to the business pages and off the front pages, and things could improve for McCain. (Paraphrasing Allen: If the average person knows the treasury secretary’s name, that’s probably bad news for McCain. That got a big laugh.)
All in all, a good talk, and informative.
During the Q&A session, one woman prefaced her question with the announcement that “I get all my news from ‘The Daily Show,’” like that’s something to be all proud of.
Look, if you’re getting all your news from “The Daily Show,” or “The Colbert Report,” or “Rush Limbaugh,” or The Arkansas Times, or The Arkansas Project, and you go around telling people this like it’s a bragging point, you are an idiot. You probably should not be allowed to vote. You probably shouldn’t even be allowed to drive a car. In fact, you should probably have your mittens pinned to your jacket and have to wear a safety helmet everywhere you go.
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