One of the benefits of being a relative unknown in the world of national politics is you can establish your own personal narrative, creating an image for yourself through lies and selective memory that, in time, can become difficult to refute once it’s established as conventional wisdom. Some lies are so big, so massively enormous and all-encompassing that the average person’s brain short-circuits when trying to reconcile the lie with well-known reality. For example, Palin bragged about her record of ethics reform, while she was under investigation for ethics violations (which she was eventually found guilty of). People don’t like to believe anyone could lie that brazenly, so they develop a blind spot where their indignant outrage should be. Palin is counting on that blind spot when she talks about “standing up to the good ol’ boy network in Alaska.” It’s a nice, outsider-y bit of rhetoric that, given how most people couldn’t have named a single Alaskan politician three months ago, sounds plausible enough for a new governor halfway through her first term.

But it’s complete bunk, and now a lot more difficult for people to believe.

When you think “good ol’ boy network,” you think of ossified men in positions of power, using their office to leverage favors both monetary and otherwise, engaging in nepotism and carefully concealed bribery, showering loyal followers with generosity and detractors with vengeful scorn. And when you think “Alaska,” you think of Sen. Ted Stevens, the man who practically founded the state single-handedly. And now, when you think of Ted Stevens, you think “corrupt convicted felon.” [thehill.com]

If you’re not familiar with Stevens’ particular brand of crazy, you’ve been missing out. The second-ranking member on the Senate Appropriations committee, Stevens’ federal pork-gathering abilities were matched only by his petty vindictiveness [www.tnr.com] and penchant for saying really, really crazy stuff [www.boingboing.net]. But it was Stevens’ entrenched position in the “good ol’ boy network” that led to his downfall. You don’t bring billions in federal earmarks to your home state and not have a long line of unsavory characters trying to get a seat on the gravy train. While Stevens considered the lavish gifts and home renovations to be “business as usual” among his corporate friends, a federal grand jury thought “bribery” was a more appropriate word. Next to California’s “Duke” Cunningham, Ted Stevens was the poster boy for the Republican “culture of corruption.”

Now that Stevens has become only the 5th sitting senator in U.S. history to be convicted of a felony, Palin has suddenly rediscovered her commitment to standing up to corruption in her home state [politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com]:

“As Governor of the State of Alaska, I will carefully now monitor the situation and I’ll take any appropriate action as needed. In the meantime, I ask the people of Alaska to join me in respecting the workings of our judicial system and I’m confident that Senator Stevens from this point on will do the right thing for the people of Alaska,” she said.

Emphasis added, for obvious reasons. Far from “taking on” Stevens, Palin was happy to turn a blind eye and let Stevens’ work his magic as long as it kept her home state rolling in federal dough. But once she announced to the world how she “stood up to the good ol’ boy network in Alaska” she had to hope the lie was big enough to keep people from examining her past support for the Alaskan Welfare King [www.rollingstone.com]:

”I have great respect for the senator…. His voice, his experience, his passion needs to be heard across America. So that Alaska can contribute more. So that we can be producers. So that we can help lead the rest of the U.S. I, again, have great respect for him. There’s a big difference between reality and perception regarding our relationship.

Truer words have never been spoken.

– Michael Turner

University of Iowa Professor and author of the book, How Voters Decide [books.google.com], David Redlawsk has broken down how voters make decisions into four categories of voters: confirmative, fast & frugal, intuitive, and rational.

Confirmative: These voters vote along party lines. The look for any additional information they gather to further confirm their beliefs.

Fast and Frugal: They are looking for a quick fix, an easy way our, a way to bypass all the nitty-gritty and cut to the chase. These voters make up the smallest population among the four types. They choose a couple of issues that are important to them, such as abortion and gay marriage, and vote according to those issues only. They don’t bother looking for the nuance or larger picture of the candidate’s platforms.

Intuitive: These voters make decisions from a gut feeling. They do not feel the need to gather all the relevant information They’ll only collect information until they feel they have reached the right decision. Again, these voters are looking for the path of least resistance, using their intuition as their guide.

Rational: These voters are what people usually consider educated voters and they tend to be the most valued by politicians. They are the voters who learn everything they can about a candidate before making a decision. They appreciate information and do not rely merely on their feelings to guide them/

So which type of voter makes the decision that best befits the voter? The Rational Voter and the Intuitive Voter.

Redlawsk found that, despite conventional wisdom that the rational voter is the best, the intuitive voter has equal success in decision-making.

–Jamie Wong

Feeling good, Obama supporters? That was a pretty good debate run Barack had. Conventional wisdom was that he bested John McCain in three straight, with undecided voters declaring him the victor in each one. Obama’s got the ‘Big Mo’ now. The Republican party is a discredited mess, and with the economy being what it is, the Democratic candidate seems poised to come out ahead on November 4.

Just like John Kerry. And Al Gore.

And you know how those contests turned out.

Debate audiences gave Gore and Kerry the win in their debates with the idiot savant Bush, Jr. But when the smoke cleared, the debate performances didn’t mean a thing. This year’s crop of Democrats may point to a radically different political landscape, one that favors their party by wide margins. They’ll point out that Obama is seen as more likable, as Bush was, and that he’s got more money to spend in the final days than his rival, as Bush did. Given the extreme closeness of the last two elections, it may be tempting to think, “This time it’s got to turn our way. It’s just got to.” Fortunately Barack Obama is having none of it.

Yesterday he warned a crowd of supporters in NYC about getting too giddy with two words, “New Hampshire.” [www.cbsnews.com]

“You know I’ve been in these positions before where we were favored and the press starts getting carried away and we end up getting spanked,” Obama said, reminding the faithful of their setback in the Granite State primary. Today, on his way to Virginia, Obama reiterated that sentiment, calling attention to one of the flaws in the Democratic DNA, the ability to “snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.” [www.afp.com]

“Don’t underestimate our ability to screw it up.” He added: “I want everybody running scared. Over the next 18 days, other than your family and your job, I want you to make a decision that there is nothing more important than bringing about this change that we need.”

When you go out to a nice restaurant, you don’t fill up on the free bread sticks. You save some appetite for the main course. You stay hungry. If you’re an Obama supporter, don’t get sucked in by the echo chamber of your friends and like-minded co-workers. If you’re an independent and look at Obama’s record-setting cash haul and think, “Eh, he doesn’t need my help, he’s got it in the bag,” don’t be foolish. Obama may not be up against Bush, who, for all his utter incompetence once he got the job, was a highly skilled and intuitive campaigner and a much better liar than John McCain, and he may not be facing the Rasputin of politics himself, Karl Rove. But he is facing those who studied at Rove’s feet, and they’re following the playbook just as Karl wrote it, with robo-calls so disgusting they’ll make your toes curl. [tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com] And if you’re not familiar with the Bradley Effect, maybe you should be [en.wikipedia.org]. Then there’s the continued hackability of Diebold’s electronic voting machines and the usual voter suppression tactics the GOP rolls out every four years…..In short, the most Democratic-favored landscape you can imagine may not be enough. And even if it were, it would be foolhardy to behave as if it was.

A few good debates and surging poll numbers are good, certainly better than not. But when you’re trying to defeat the Death Star, there’s no room for overconfidence, even if you are a Jedi.

(Luke blows up his first TIE fighter)

Han Solo: Great, kid. Don’t get cocky.

– Michael Turner