Additional Evidence

Two apologies: I had meant to post on International options in response to the below post on the damage America's role as world policeman was doing to its own political structure and society. But that's had to be delayed for a day or two with Uni marking taking up my time.

Secondly I know its bad form, particularly with essay style posts like mine to add in bits later, but here's the latest from The Atlantic's election reporter Marc Ambinder

Is the election still about change? A whopping 65% of registered voters see the Obama-Biden ticket as the force of change, compared to just 47% who associate the word with McCain-Palin.

Conservatives see McCain as one of their own: 72% of voters think that John McCain will either adhere to the conservative policy level associated with President Bush or go to the right of it, which is up a bit from the previous poll.

Obama still not prepared: 42% say he's prepared to be president, versus 76% for McCain. And 55% think it very likely that McCain would be an "effective" commander in chief, up nine points from the previous poll.

Ie: The 'experience' narrative still applies to McCain individually, but as it doesn't apply to his running mate Palin (who scores a similar 42% as ready/prepared to be president), they have had to drop an attack that previously gave them clear advantage.

As such, they are now fighting to be 'agents of change' with the term filling almost every republican press release and talking point. Yet voters are quite clear who are the real agents of change, and as Palin newness fades, and she moves into the background behind McCain, Obama's theme all along of attacking McCain for being 'McSame' and adhering to the Bush Administrations approach on all major issues, will continue to widen the gap on those numbers.

On my Desk:
Speaking of which two books have come out, that are also occupying my time, the first of which is likely to have a direct (and likely negative) impact on McCain's effort to win the presidency:

The War Within by Bob Woodward - Sure to dominate news cycles over the next few days as the final ultimate insider book on the Bush Administration in Woodward's 4 part series (the others Bush at War, Plan of Attack and State of Denial make up the best first draft history of the Administration thus far and likely for many years to come).

I've only just got into it, so no great insights yet, but it will bring G.W.Bush back into the news cycle, admitting failures in Iraq, which cant be good news for McCain.


Terror and Consent by Phillip Bobbitt - Bobbitt, author of the acclaimed 'The Shield of Achilles' returns to his unique but successful effort to merge law and military strategy arguing that the constitutional structure of a state directly shapes the nature of the threats that rise up against it. Thus as we enter the era of 'Market States' (one which seeks to expand opportunities for its citizens, unlike the 20th century Nation States which wanted to provide for their welfare) we are coming against 21st century terrorist groups who are similarly globalised, decentralised and who actively target civilians and global infrastructure, not military or state assets.

Bobbitt is a political philosopher as much as historian, analyst and commentator, with a very erudite knowledge and charm for interesting facts (the word filibuster -now a parliamentary term for attempting to deny a bills passage - comes from a French name for the infamous Caribbean pirates, and the word mate, a term as aussie as beer, may have come from the word matelotage which was the term for the pirates male civil unions/marriages). I wonder if the former conservative Australian PM, John Howard would welcome the fact his favourite word (one he wanted inserted into our constitutional preamble) had a less than illustrious beginning)

Bobbitt's is a big book, but thus far strikes me as easily the best post-9/11 analysis of terrorism and our likely options for responding to it out there.