Peeks Into the Diaries of the Candidates and Hank Paulson

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By Bernard Weiner, The Crisis Papers

Don't ask me how many palms I had to grease or how I gained access to certain locked drawers, but over the weekend I was able to peek into the personal journals of the four major candidates, along with the diary of Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson. Here are some juicy excerpts, which provide some insight into their states of mind.

INSIDE JOHN McCAIN'S DIARY

I feel like I'm in quicksand, and no matter which way I move, I'm just dragged down deeper. Rove and Schmidt warned me many months ago where we were headed, and about the likely upward trajectory of Obama down the stretch, but we hoped we could pull off a miracle. "POW war hero," "straight talker," "maverick" -- I thought those would make up for the age thing, Bush's unpopularity, the negative feelings so many voters have for anything Republican.

But that strategy clearly isn't working, especially so once the financial system swirled down the toilet and the jobless rate kept rising and the credit pond went dry; I risked it all trying to arrange a financial bailout the public could accept, but I just wound up looking inept and it was too late anyway. The public blamed the Republicans for the economic mess, as usual. And even though I tried distancing myself from Bush policies, that didn't work either since all my votes were on the record supporting those same policies.

Naming Sarah nearly turned the campaign around. But, since we really didn't vet her, we had no idea of the extent of the scandal-baggage she was bringing with her (which could still blow up in our faces between now and Election Day) and no idea she wouldn't hold up to scrutiny and tough questioning by the press. Still, even with her negatives, she's the best thing my campaign has going for it. Nothing like some fresh energy, and I just love being in her company. Raises my spirits, if you get my drift.

We had to keep her from being sandbagged by tough questions in the debate with Biden, so we prepped her not to answer those she didn't like and to fill up her response time with the spin points we had rehearsed. She did just fine. She stopped the bleeding, which was more than we could have hoped for. Still, not even half of the voters polled after her performance thought she was qualified to be president, if need be, whereas Biden got nearly 80%. The pundits are actually questioning my judgement in naming her to the ticket. A-holes! (Speaking of "if need be," there are more clamors for me to release my full medical records. We'll try to drag it out past Election Day.)

So, what do we do, what can we do, in the final three weeks of the campaign? The public just isn't buying me and what I'm selling, so we have to go back to the only weapon we have that might possibly work: trashing Obama. Try to get the attention off me, and the tanking economy, and put it on him. Toss a whole lot of mud at him and see if any of it sticks. Raise so many doubts about him that maybe the voters will wonder there's fire underneath all that smoke and back away from him. That way, maybe we can shave away some of his lead in the big toss-up states, and let Rove's boys do the rest. Negative ads, dirty tricks, playing around with the numbers, etc. I never thought it would come to this -- I really hoped I could run win by running a positive, ethical campaign -- but I've come this far, no going back now. Not if I want to be president in the last bite at the apple I've got left. Let's just hope the American voters are as dumb as we think they are. If not, I'm toast.

INSIDE BARACK OBAMA'S DIARY

Things are looking up. We've got lots of money, many thousands of energized volunteers, and we've registered so many new voters. With all that, I know I should be optimistic but I feel like Charlie Brown, waiting for Lucy to yank away the football again just before I get a chance to kick it. Yeah, I know the polls are moving in our direction, finally! But we Democratic candidates have been fooled by electoral-victory mirages before.

So much could happen between now and Election Day, and between November 4 and Inauguration Day. Cheney and Rove still have months in which to do their mischief. I think there will be October Suprises and November Surprises and December Surprises and January Surprises. What will they be? We just don't know, and sometimes they're pretty good at keeping secrets; we were totally flummoxed by Sarah Palin's nomination, for example.

Speaking of which, John's picking her was, tactically speaking, a stroke of genius. Totally altered the race and moved public scrutiny away from himself. Unfortunately for him, he was forced to choose her in August. She wore well for a couple of weeks, especially for their red-meat base, but then the middle-range voters didn't necessarily like what they saw, and, given the amount of time for the press and bloggers to vet her, her Alaska scandals and her tendency to run roughshod over the rules and abuse her office began to catch up with her. Her policy knowledge and political weaknesses were especially noticeable when measured against Joe Biden, who generates public confidence as fully presidential, whereas she makes too many voters nervous, since she comes across as little more than a small-town mayor playing way out of her league.

Well, the Republicans have run out of anything positive to run on, so Michelle and I had better brace ourselves for what we basketball players call "garbage time." Except this will be real garbage: Pastor Wright, Bill Ayers ("palling around with terrorists"), unpatriotic ("waving the white flag of surrender"), a "secret Muslim," an "uppity" or "angry black man," and whatever other race-card and irrelevant nonsense they can come up with.

Can't quite figure out how calling me "unpatriotic" for trying to end the war in Iraq is going to play since nearly 70% of the American population thinks going into Iraq was a bad mistake and it's time to get our combat troops out of there. Do they really want to accuse most American voters of being "unpatriotic," of "waving the white flag of surrender," by urging a 16-month redeployment of our forces from Iraq?

Two more debates to go with McCain. He's becoming more unhinged by the day, consumed by rage and frustration and a growing sense that the American voters are not going to permit him to fulfill his one driving ambition in life. So, having nothing to lose, he may pull out all the stops in the debates, just go ballistic, spreading all sorts of lies, making all sorts of promises, spouting all sorts of nonsense, something, anything, to try to change the dynamic and momentum.

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Bernard Weiner, Ph.D. in government & international relations, has taught at universities in California and Washington, worked for two decades as a writer-editor at the San Francisco Chronicle, and currently serves as co-editor of The Crisis Papers (more...)

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