Despite all predictions, this election is not, in fact, about President Bush. He's a non-entity in it all.
That's fairly remarkable. Aagainst the odds, the McCain/Palin campaign has managed to suck entirely on its own. Sure, the Democrats wanted to paint McCain (accurately, when it comes to nearly all actual policy positions) as the second coming of Bush. But McCain resisted the label, and instead found ways to suck that were completely independent of his ties to Bush.
At his Northern Virginia headquarters, some McCain aides are already speaking of the campaign in the past tense. Morale, even among some of the heartiest and most loyal staffers, has plummeted. And many past and current McCain advisors are warring with each other over who led the candidate astray.
One well-connected Republican in the private sector was shocked to get calls and resumes in the past few days from what he said were senior McCain aides – a breach of custom for even the worst-off campaigns.
HealthCareForAmerica's focus groups' reaction to McCain's health plan: Unbelievable
UK Daily Telegraph, Sarah Palin could have been invented by Monty Python, says John Cleese (“John Cleese has accused Sarah Palin of being a 'nice-looking parrot' and said that he and the Monty Python team could have invented her. … 'I used to think Michael Palin was the funniest Palin on Earth.'”)
Assertions have been made against John McCain that, if true, could persuade many people that he is unqualified to be president. The charges go to his judgment, character and honesty. They deal with his time in the military before, during and after the 5-1/2 years he was a prisoner in Vietnam.
The charges have not been sufficiently aired in the press. Indeed, they have been mentioned so rarely that most Americans aren’t aware of them. In fact, instead of airing the charges, one could well conclude that the press has been withholding them—hiding them. Almost all the leading news organizations, instead of reporting or following up on stories which by themselves could swing the election, are running away from them.
Politico, Taxes show Palins' Joe Six-Pack lifestyle (“The Palins passed up the opportunity to direct $12 from their 2006 and 2007 taxes to the presidential public financing system through which the McCain-Palin campaign received $84.1 million for the general election”)
WSJ, McCain Plans Federal Health Cuts (“John McCain would pay for his health plan with major reductions to Medicare and Medicaid”)
McCain was on his 23rd bombing mission over North Vietnam when a surface-to-air missile struck his A-4 attack jet. He was flying 3,000 feet above Hanoi.
A then-secret report issued in 1967 by McCain's squadron said the aviators had learned to stay at an altitude of 4,000 to 10,000 feet in heavy surface-to-air missile environments and look for approaching missiles.
Palin Plants Shiv in McCain's Ribs -- Starts 2012 Campaign
How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is
To have a thankless child!
–Lear, 1.4.312
After the economic news — we are now practicing some form of vulgar big-ticket corporatism while hoping the roof doesn't fall in — the biggest news yesterday had to be the fault lines suddenly appearing in the McCain-Palin ticket.
Contrary to the 'straight talk' by McCain about how he routinely consults Palin, it is obvious that she is very much the eighteenth banana when it comes to the decisions that matter: campaign strategy. Thus it was no surprise to learn that McCain's tactically understandable but strategically stupid decision to visibly abandon Michigan was made without Palin. (Tactically, McCain has no hope of carrying Michigan, so every dollar spent there is a waste. And dollars are very rationed given the decision to rely on federal funding. That said, strategically this was no time to be seen to waving a white flag, and the political cost – embracing the stench of failure – will outweigh any financial benefits.)
So long as Palin was a political basket case — cf. the Couric tapes — she had to hunker down and hide behind McCain's skirts. But if the debate changed next to nothing in the electoral math, we can now see that it changed everything in the McCain-Palin relationship.
That turns out to win almost no new votes, but it did make the base — pretty much the same people who drove the economy over the cliff — feel a lot better.
And thus, at least within the GOP, Palin moves from political basket case to political barracuda. And the first chomp comes out of McCain's hide: Palin can read the polls. They polls all say that she is not going to be Vice-President next January. So McCain becomes another body for her to step on. If the ticket is dead, the real game becomes the Presidential nomination in 2012. And it's therefore critical for Palin to sow the seeds of a narrative that it was Not Her Fault but rather that of the old, tired, impulsive, stupid McCain and his crew.
An so here it is. Act One of our modern Lear:
Decision On Michigan Questioned By Palin. Sarah Palin questioned Republican presidential candidate John McCain's decision to abandon efforts to win Michigan, a campaign move she said she learned about Friday morning when she read it in the newspapers.
In an interview with Fox News Channel Friday, the Alaska governor said she was disappointed that the McCain campaign decided to stop competing in Michigan. In an indication that the vice presidential candidate had not been part of the decision, she said she had “read that this morning, and I fired off a quick e-mail” questioning the move.
“Todd and I, we'd be happy to get to Michigan and walk through those plants of the car manufacturers,” Palin said. “We'd be so happy to get to speak to the people in Michigan who are hurting because the economy is hurting.”
Of course Palin would love to go to Michigan. There are no electoral votes there for the current ticket, there's nothing in it for McCain, but Palin's argument, no more specious than many others, will be that she has a chance to stitch together the Reagan coalition in 2012, and the lunchpail vote is critical element of that coalition. But saying so out loud only harms McCain. Which is why she did it.
I await, sans bated breath, the stories in Sunday's paper about rivalry and dissension at the top of the Republican ticket.
Down With Tyranny, The Most Shocking Endorsement So Far This Year (“The last time the Stockton Record, an arch-conservative Republican mouthpiece in northern California, endorsed a Democrat for president was at the height of the Depression, in 1936, when they came out for the re-election of the most popular and beloved president in history, Franklin Roosevelt.”)
Soon after Sarah Palin was elected mayor of the foothill town of Wasilla, Alaska, she startled a local music teacher by insisting in casual conversation that men and dinosaurs coexisted on an Earth created 6,000 years ago — about 65 million years after scientists say most dinosaurs became extinct — the teacher said.
After conducting a college band and watching Palin deliver a commencement address to a small group of home-schooled students in June 1997, Wasilla resident Philip Munger said, he asked the young mayor about her religious beliefs.
Palin told him that “dinosaurs and humans walked the Earth at the same time,” Munger said. When he asked her about prehistoric fossils and tracks dating back millions of years, Palin said “she had seen pictures of human footprints inside the tracks,” recalled Munger, who teaches music at the University of Alaska in Anchorage and has regularly criticized Palin in recent years on his liberal political blog, called Progressive Alaska.
NYT, McCain Aide’s Firm Was Paid by Freddie Mac – “The disclosure contradicts a statement by Senator McCain that the campaign manager, Rick Davis, had no involvement with the company for the last several years.”
Thanks to the helpful intervention of techs at Dreamhost, I managed to pull up a backup of the blog’s database and find at least 95% of the lost text for last Friday’s McCain bashing entry. So I’m reposting it here even though it's a little dated – the stuff that got cut off previously starts after the horizontal line.
Of course, there's been a ton of good stuff since then…
Tax Policy Center, An Updated Analysis of the 2008 Presidential Candidates' Tax Plans: Updated September 12, 2008 — bottom line is that McCain's plan will deliver far less and save very little: McCain's plan would cost $1.3 trillion over 10 years, but would only cover about 5 million new people with insurance at its peak. By contrast, Obama’s plan would cost $1.6 trillion over 10 years but eventually get insurance to an additional 34 million people.
David Kurtz, TPM, History Quiz — “every veep in the last 32 years has met a head of state before taking office”; Palin would be the first not to have done so. (But then she got her first passport last year so what do you expect?)
Two minute commercial without glitz. Treating America like grown-ups. What a gamble — Obama, Plan for Change
[there were 5(!) more days here, but something seems to have eaten them — I fear I have lost the data unless it's lurking in some cache on my home computer]
Watch this interview of John McCain — he can't handle hard questions. And he says Palin's national security credential is that she “knows more about energy than probably anyone else” in the entire USA.
[Update: I've removed the embedded video. You'll have to click the link to see the video because the automatic starting was driving me crazy.]
Miss (Non) Congeniality (“Only 35% of moderates view her favorably. In other words, among this key block of voters, Pinocchio Palin is doing about as well as President Bush. For comparison purposes, Joe Biden is viewed favorably by 70% of moderates.”)
Next shoe drops on the Palin per diem story: it's taxable income. So says U.Pitt Law Prof Tony Infanti, in Taxing Sarah Palin’s Per Diem. Did Palin declare this income on her federal and state tax returns? Will she release her tax returns? Cf. Jack Bog's Blog, Governor Palin, your tax return, please.
War and Piece: quotes Hillary Clinton in Florida today: “Asking the Republicans to clean up the mess they made is like asking the iceburg to save the Titanic.”
Al Punto on Univision: But, talking about secure borders,
John McCain: Sure
Al Punto: You voted for the construction of the wall between Mexico and the United States. However, the Mexican Government has just confirmed that every year, at least half a million Mexicans come to the United States. How exactly are you planning to secure that border? Every single minute there is an immigrant coming into the United States illegally.
McCain: I didn't vote for, quote, I am not sure what you are talking about, but we can secure,
Al Punto: About 700 miles
McCain: I say we can secure our borders with walls and/or fences in urban areas, and then virtual fences, vehicle barriers
Al Punto: But you did vote for the wall
McCain: I didn't vote for an, I don't know what you are exactly what you are referring to. What my plan was…
TMP, Mystery Solved! — why was McCain posing in front of a photo of Walter Reed Middle School (located in North Hollywood, California)? (Earlier post: Surprised.)
In the aftermath of the Walt Monegan firing, one question keeps surfacing over and over again; why does the governor's husband, Todd Palin appear to hold so much power?
After all, Nancy Murkowski or Susan Knowles were never accused of pressuring a commissioner or inappropriately sitting in on meetings that should have been private.
The stories started last year when Representative Ralph Samuels told me about going into a meeting, he thought would be private, with Governor Sarah Palin. Much to his surprise, Todd Palin was there and proceeded to sit through the entire meeting.
Other lawmakers have shared similar stories and were shocked at how inappropriate Todd's presence was at meetings with the governor.
Looking at the Sarah Palin debacle, one is reminded that one of the principal powers of the presidency is the power to appoint people — federal judges, ambassadors, cabinet secretaries, subcabinet officials, FEC members, the Amtrak board, all kinds of things. Presidents don’t always put the best people in these positions, but normally they give the matter some thought.
Obama Campaign Preemptive Response to McCain's Nomination: The Same:
Palin's Church May Have Shaped Controversial Worldview (“Pastor Kalnins has also preached that critics of President Bush will be banished to hell; questioned whether people who voted for Sen. John Kerry in 2004 would be accepted to heaven; charged that the 9/11 terrorist attacks and war in Iraq were part of a war “contending for your faith;” and said that Jesus 'operated from that position of war mode.'”)
Crooks & Liars, To Serve For The Wrong Reasons: “What does it say about Sarah Palin that in her first big appearance before a national audience - her introduction as McCain’s running mate - she decided to flat out lie about her accomplishments?” (That she's in a long tradition of GOP Veeps from Agnew to Cheney?)
Powerline, a very conservative blog, says, Geraldine Ferraro: “If she really is the nominee, will it come across as a desperation move, a Hail Mary, as Mondale's choice of Ferraro did in 1984? I'm afraid so. Her experience just doesn't justify a place on the ticket.”
Gov. Sarah Palin on Wednesday revealed an audio recording that shows an aide pressuring the Public Safety Department to fire a state trooper embroiled in a custody battle with her sister.
“You can be forgiven if you haven’t been following closely the fighting between Russia and Georgia over South Ossetia. But there are two lessons that we all absolutely must take away from these events:
1/ Under no circumstances should John McCain become president of the United States and you should do everything you can between now and November 4 to make sure that is the case.”)…
This was one of those “3 a.m. moments” that this election was supposedly all about (before McCain put oil drilling and Paris Hilton front and center). And McCain failed it. Disastrously. Worse than our worst fears. It is now apparent that McCain would be even more impulsively belligerent than Bush and even more arrogant and unwise in heeding the war-mongering urgings of his neocons advisors.
More reviews of McCain's tech plan. They are not kind.
“[McCain's Tech Plan] reads like some crotchety technophobe knocked over the bumper sticker wrack at an Ayn Rand Reading Revival and tried to rearrange them so it made a policy.” — Harold Feld
“Seriously, this is approaching Chuck Norris-level aggrandizement. How delusional does this guy have to be to imagine himself the hero of every situation he's in, to the point that he has to frame himself as a white knight on regulating packet shaping over the internet? I'm actually kind of impressed. Here are the rest of the sub-headings. They are of course not about technology, they are about John McCain.” — Matt Stoller
“The McCain worldview scares the hell out of me. Technology is complicated — and the solutions we need are fairly complex — they require an in depth understanding of the problem if you're going to formulate a solution. And McCain clearly doesn't understand some of the core problems… I'm still waiting for McCain to release a real technology plan — one that helps consumers and addresses the problems we're facing instead of protecting corporations and ignoring technology market failings.” — Sascha Meinrath
“McCain has delivered his tech policy. And it's clear: This election will determine whether America willfully becomes a third-world participant in the online economy and culture.” — David Weinberger
“In summary, the McCain plan says, “What's good for AT&T and Comcast and Cisco and the RIAA is good for America.” It's about their Internet, nor ours.” — David Isenberg
“We have already had 16 months of no policy in the technology realm and an admitted lack of knowledge by the candidate himself. Now the campaign can't even get the basics straight on something they absolutely should know — the candidate's own record.” — David Swire
“McCain declines to put net neutrality into law. Indeed, he declines to guarantee all Americans the right to obtain the information they want, communicate to everyone they want, send non-obscene and lawful information to anyone they want, over the Internet. Why? What's the hold-up? Why not assure this paradigm?” — Reed Hundt
“We see that millions of Americans are using the Internet to help each other out, and to improve the way government works. The Obama technology plan encourages civic engagement and openness. Unfortunately, the McCain plan adopts the Bush/Cheney approach, which promotes privileges for big companies at the expense of democracy.” — Craig Newmark
“Where Obama has specifics and new ideas, McCain has old ideas and positions that would be taken for granted in any Administration other than the one now ending. The reason is that McCain has a problem: he's out of step with the real world.” — Kevin Werbach
“McCain fails to understand that net neutrality only regulates the internet in the same way the First Amendment to the US Constitution regulates speech!! There are many different kinds of regulation, and this is one that protects the rights of individuals and an entire public good from being victimized by giant corporations.” — Jon Bartholomew
“The policy statement starts by addressing McCain's economic policies, which emphasize perpetuation of Bush's low tax on capital gains and reduction of the corporate tax rate…The fact that tax cuts landed at the top of the list reflects the prominent role that the Republican take on fiscal conservatism will play in McCain's policy decisions.” — Ryan Paul/Ars Technica
“The computing-challenged McCain, who said that he needs his wife to cut on the computer and check email for him (“I am an illiterate that has to rely on my wife for all the assistance that I can get.”), has released his technology “policy”. It sounds like another handout to corporations and a screw you to the rest of us.” — Pam Spaulding
“McCain's tech policy is one big giveaway to big corporations, an incoherent, muddled mess that does nothing to address the challenges America faces in vaulting our technological development into the 21st Century. Not only is he against net neutrality, he barely addresses things like wireless spectrum, broadband development, copyright law reform–and when he does, it's invariably in favor of the big business interests to which his campaign is utterly beholden.” — Martin Bosworth
“It's been widely reported that Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) is a self-admitted 'illiterate' when it comes to computers. But some have suggested that he could still put forward sound technology policy because he surrounds himself with tech-savvy advisers, such as former Hewlett-Packard chairman and CEO Carly Fiorina and former eBay president and CEO Meg Whitman. But it's unclear how much he is listening to them. Yesterday, McCain finally released his technology platform. (Until this time, 'technology' was not even listed in the Issues section of his campaign website.) His plan supposedly focuses on innovation, but in reality, it often repeats McCain's previous non-innovative positions, such as his opposition to net neutrality. — Amanda/Think Progress
“In outlining his policy, McCain reiterated his opposition to net neutrality, a hot-button issue for many bloggers and technology advocates…
John McCain does not believe in prescriptive regulation like “net-neutrality,” but rather he believes that an open marketplace with a variety of consumer choices is the best deterrent against unfair practices.
Kevin Drum explains how to attack John McCain: tell the truth. In Attacking John McCain he advises making these points:
[W]hy not concentrate on character critiques that have some real grounding in reality? Just to give a few examples:
McCain is old and gets confused occasionally.
McCain is running an ugly, smear-based campaign.
McCain has a legendarily short fuse.
McCain is annoyingly self-righteous.
McCain's straight talk has evaporated in the face of his need to win evangelical votes.
Does this sound like commander-in-chief material? I think not. With solid repetition, these can all be made into fairly devastating attacks that have the added benefit of (a) being true, and (b) sounding true. So use them early and often.
This is McCain bashing at its finest, subtly contrasting Obama's virtues with McCain's failings, without ever even mentioning them. (And that was before the next item below!)
Unbelievable: Washington Post, Sibling Revelation: An Overlooked Branch of Cindy McCain's Family Tree — Cindy McCain has another never-mentioned half-sister, who (like her father in his will) she also cut off from any share of the family millions. McCain family values in action. See also Ellroon at The American Street, Cindy McCain Lied, who asks quite reasonably, “Can you imagine what would have happened in the media if Michelle had lied like Cindy lied?”
GWU Battleground poll finds that while 69% of voters are extremely or very comfortable with an African American candidate, only 30% are extremely or very comfortable with a 72 year old candidate. In addition, only 40% are extremely or very comfortable with a divorced candidate.
The story about Mother Teresa “convincing” Mrs. McCain to bring home two children from an orphanage in Bangladesh has been retold many times. Initially, the “About Cindy McCain” page on the McCain campaign website read: “Mother Teresa convinced Cindy to take two babies in need of medical attention to the United States. One of those babies is now their adopted daughter, 16-year-old Bridget McCain.”
The media picked up the theme. A story earlier this year on ABC’s “Good Morning America” stated, “With Mother Teresa’s encouragement she brought her fourth child, Bridget, home.” An April 2008 Wall Street Journal profile states that Mother Teresa “implored” Cindy to bring the girls to the United States. Other articles say Cindy did it “at the behest” of Mother Teresa.
But a source who was with McCain on that 1991 trip, and who asked that his name not be used because of prior legal dealings with the McCain family, says that Mother Teresa was not at the orphanage when Cindy decided to bring the two girls home.
A 1991 article in the Arizona Star at the time of the adoption only mentions that the children were from an orphanage that was started by Mother Teresa. It does not mention a meeting with Mother Teresa or her asking McCain to bring the girls to the US.
According to biographies of Mother Teresa, in 1991 she was in Mexico where she developed medical problems. From there, she went to a hospital in La Jolla, Calif.
A McCain source acknowledged that Cindy McCain did not meet Mother Teresa during the 1991 trip to Bangladesh but said McCain did meet her later on, although the source could not say when or where. The campaign has since reworded the reference to the adoption on its website.
ABC News, McCain Backs Away from Abortion Pledge — moderate maverick now says no abortions allowed ever, even in cases or rape or incest. (Which is, I suppose, a more logically consistent view if one believes life begins at conception. But it's not the public's view. And rather hard on the victims.)
Eye on Miami, The unknown houses of John McCain, by gimleteye, asks “Someone has the keys to John McCain's houses. They must have keys. Who has them? Do you know where the keys to your houses are?”
Even Mr. Substance, aka Paul Krugman, approves of piling on the 'Houses' gaffe: see A Very Good Jeer
Kos, Ahhh, this might be why the GOP is freaking out — how many houses does McCain's veep pick have? If it's Romney then his three puts the ticket's total well into double figures by any count (except McCain's: he'll admit to 'only' four of his own).
Turns out McCain's approach to foreign policy is rather more bellicose than anyone (other than a hard-core neo-con) imagined in their most horrible dreams.
But there is no excuse for what the McCain campaign is doing on the “putting America first” front. There is no way to balance it, or explain it other than as evidence of a severe character defect on the part of the candidate who allows it to be used. There is a straight up argument to be had in this election: Mcain has a vastly different view from Obama about foreign policy, taxation, health care, government action…you name it. He has lots of experience; it is always shocking to remember that this time four years ago, Barack Obama was still in the Illinois State Legislature. Apparently, though, McCain isn't confident that conservative policies and personal experience can win, given the ruinous state of the nation after eight years of Bush. So he has made a fateful decision: he has personally impugned Obama's patriotism and allows his surrogates to continue to do that. By doing so, he has allied himself with those who smeared him, his wife, his daughter Bridget, in 2000. Those tactics won George Bush a primary—and a nomination. But they proved a form of slow-acting spiritual poison, rotting the core of the Bush presidency. We'll see if the public decides to acquiesce in sleaze in 2008, and what sort of presidency—what sort of country—that will produce.
Imagine a Graph, with Demeaning on One Axis, Stupid on the Other...
I dunno. I suspect it's not the single most demeaning ad ever put out by a major party presidential campaign, and I'm prepared to believe it's not the most stupid (although I wonder), but is this new McCain (web only) ad Fan Club the most simultaneously demeaning and stupid ad ever put out by a major party Presidential candidate?
I think “Anonymous Liberal” at Crooks & Liars got it just right when he wrote what he'd have Obama say in response to all this rot,
My opponent has taken to calling me a “celebrity” in all of his commercials. The suggestion, I can only assume, is that all of you (gesturing to the crowd) show up at events like this and donate your time and your money to this campaign because you’re all adoring groupies who are obsessed with me. Now, that would certainly be flattering if it were true, but I’m not going to delude myself. The reality is I can’t act, I can’t sing, and my personal life is incredibly boring.
The truth is that no one would be paying any attention to me at all if I wasn’t talking about things that really matter to a lot of people. You’re not here tonight–and you’re not watching at home–because you want to be entertained. Lord knows there are plenty of things that you could be doing with your time right now that would be far more entertaining than listening to me. No, you’re here tonight because you love your country and you’re concerned about the direction it’s been heading over the last eight years.
You’re not here tonight to see what kind of outfit I’m wearing or to hear my latest hit single–and if you are, I think you’re probably going to be disappointed. No, you’re here because you want change, you want a government that fights for people like you and not on behalf of powerful special interests; you want a government that keeps you safe by pursuing a rationale foreign policy abroad and keeps your family secure by creating jobs, ensuring access to affordable health care, and fighting for energy independence.
That’s why you’re here. That’s why you’re volunteering your time at record levels. That’s why you’re contributing your hard-earned money in record amounts.
So remember, when John McCain and his surrogates call me a “celebrity,” they’re not insulting me; they’re insulting you. They’re insinuating that you are a mindless groupie rather than a concerned citizen, a fan rather than a voter.
But it’s not going to work. You know why you’re here, you know why you’re watching, and you’re much smarter than they give you credit for.
[Note: If you are reading this via the news feed, you may wish to click through to see the videos. There are some good ones this week.]
The week started with McCain successfully putting the race card “issue” (subtext: Obama is black!) on the front pages, so that was good for him. On the other hand, the idea that McCain is old and grumpy got more traction too. We then found out the answer to last week's question whether McCain could go any lower and dirtier — Yes, he can! — as we moved to a McCain ad suggesting Obama is the anti-Christ (yes, really). And that was only the weekend.
Then McCain was up — his weird commercials had taken the focus off issues that matter like jobs and the war.
Probably not Obama's best ever, but makes the point.
The McCain campaign released another anti-Obama commercial, but to most viewers this one will seem like the political equivalent of scoring against yourself. Has to be seen to be believed.
But there may be a (very evil) method to the madness: SoonerG at Kos suggests that the point of the latest McCain ads is to depict Obama as the anti-Christ. Don't laugh. The first thing I thought of when I saw the ad was that it was a dog-whistle call-out to evangelicals who would be offended by Obama's suggestion that “a light will shine down upon you” and inspire people to vote for him.
The reason this is evil — really evil — is that the logical and devout thing for true believers to do is to assassinate the anti-Christ. McCain is playing with nuclear weapons here.
Crooks & Liars, McCain Lies About His Support For MLK Jr. Day in Arizona. FWIW, I think this is the sort of lie that is a window into the soul. There's no way a person could forget this, or not be fully informed; there's no excuse other then either (1) dangerous self-deception; or (2) a complete willingness to lie to the public.
I'm amused to hear the McCain camp's deep sense of “grievance” over any suggestion that McCain is running a xenophobic and often race-tinged campaign against Barack Obama. It's amazing how you can be pushing a message that your opponent is in league with foreign terrorists and comparing him to twenty-something white women best known for their 'behind the music' episodes and so many people can get the wrong idea.
Joe Conason, Salon, Wanting the White House in the worst way: The pundits who adore John McCain wonder why he has adopted campaign tactics he once despised, but his compromise with the smear merchants began a long time ago.
Susan Crawford is waiting for McCain's tech policy — promised for July. But she's not optimistic: “Sen. McCain is much more interested in offshore drilling than innovation.”
Modo, McCain’s Green-Eyed Monster asserts that it's envy driving McCain: “That’s the only explanation for why a man who prides himself on honor, a man who vowed not to take the low road in the campaign, having been mugged by W. and Rove in South Carolina in 2000, is engaging in a festival of juvenilia.” [To which one can only say, “the only explanation???”]
Washington Post, McCain Bundler Collects From Unlikely Donors — they smell a scandal, but don't come right out and say it. Incidentally, it is illegal to launder political contributions from abroad via US residents/citizens; it's also illegal to evade contribution limits by giving money to others so they in turn can donate it.
New Low For McCain Campaign: Obama == The Anti-Christ
Normally I save the anti-McCain stuff for Friday, as don't want the blog to become a one-note operation. But this …
The McCain campaign just released another anti-Obama commercial, The One.
Perhaps to most viewers this one will seem like the political equivalent of scoring against yourself as much of it is about how wonderful Obama is, and the attack part involves a clumsy use of Charlton Heston. But there may be a (very evil) method to the madness: SoonerG at Daily Kos suggests that the point of the latest McCain ads is to depict Obama as the anti-Christ. Don't laugh. The first thing I thought of when I saw the ad was that it was a dog-whistle call-out to evangelicals who would be offended by Obama's suggestion that “a light will shine down upon you” and inspire people to vote for him. But it could well be that other people will see it as a more direct appeal (consider, a Google search for “obama anti-Christ” finds “about 990,000” pages).
In light of last week's attack on a Unitarian church for being too “liberal,” is it so far-fetched to worry that some unhinged true believer may hear all this and decide he has a call to assassinate the anti-Christ? It's perhaps fortunate that, as one Christian pastor put it to me via email, “the people who believe in the anti-Christ tend to believe that he/she is too powerful for one person to take out with a .30-.06.”
Nevertheless, McCain is playing with nuclear weapons here. It's despicable.
A vote for Senator Obama is a vote for the man we think will make the best President, not for a new Messiah. As Christians, we have one Lord And Savior. Jesus Christ. It is blasphemous to suggest otherwise.
And it is beyond offensive to suggest that Senator Obama is a false Messiah or the anti-Christ himself. How low can we go? It shows the McCain campaign is willing to make a mockery of our faith to feed people's fears. Christians need to reject this out of hand.
We will be calling on the McCain campaign to repudiate this ad and take it down immediately. If you would like to add your voice to this effort, please email me at mara@matthew25.org.
Finding something even lower will be a great challenge for McCain. Based on the past couple weeks, however, I'm now ready to believe they are up to it.
Although superficially this was a better week than last week's disaster, since McCain's attack ads shaped a good bit of the campaign narrative, I'd argue that in retrospect this week may turn out to be the one that the McCain campaign jumped the shark. The negative ads were so untrue and undignified that even the national press started to notice. Which means that if this continues McCain is going to have trouble with his base.
Our time-line casts some doubt on a key McCain campaign claim: That he's been a broad critic of Bush's war policies for many years now.
It also finds multiple inconsistencies in his public statements on the war.
The claim that McCain has been a critic of Bush's war policies in general is central to his candidacy. In July, he said: “I think you know that I opposed the failed strategy of the Bush administration.”
Our timeline does support some of McCain's argument. It's true that as early as August of 2003, after he'd visited Iraq, he started saying that there weren't enough American troops in Iraq. At the time, this was consensus opinion among Democratic members of Congress and foreign policy hands. When McCain claims credit for having called for more troops early on, he's right.
Nonetheless, from the very beginning, all the way up to the present, McCain has repeatedly voiced strong support for Bush's approach in general, in ways that are at odds with his later claims of prescience.
Faced with reporters calling him on his dishonesty, McCain first doubles down and stonewalls. See Kos, Who's Lying? John McCain or Andrea Mitchell?. In my opinion this is a very serious error.
What the McCain campaign doesn’t want people to know, according to one GOP strategist I spoke with over the weekend, is that they had an ad script ready to go if Obama had visited the wounded troops saying that Obama was…wait for it…using wounded troops as campaign props. So, no matter which way Obama turned, McCain had an Obama bashing ad ready to launch. I guess that’s political hardball. But another word for it is the one word that most politicians are loathe to use about their opponents—a lie.
Sen. John McCain, American war hero and admired political maverick, as well as presumed Republican nominee for president, had a message for Elisabeth Bumiller, the venerated New York Times reporter, along with the rest of the media assigned to travel with him the week of July 20.
“What do you want, you little jerks?” McCain said to Bumiller and those behind her, as the press surged forward on the “Straight Talk” Boeing 737 on July 21.
Jamison Foser at Media Matters points out how the McCain campaign's attempt to subject the press corps to Pavlovian conditioning has been working pretty well.
This new anti-McCain video, THE COMMANDER IN CHIEF TEST from Humanitainment.com feels a little too harsh to be effective. That's a shame in a way, since the clips are very damning. But to my eye the overlays somehow trivialize them and reduce their sting.
Faced with reporters calling him on his dishonesty in his latest campaign commercial, McCain doubles down and stonewalls. See Kos, Who's Lying? John McCain or Andrea Mitchell?.
In my opinion this is a very serious error: the political press will stick to its 'objective' he said/she said approach no matter how ridiculous the issue except for facts they personally witness. You can bamboozle the press with fake numbers if you can find one economist to vouch for them. You can say your goal is a balanced budget and world peace while you propose huge deficits and wars (worked for Bush!). But you can't tell the press not to trust their lying eyes.
I'm surprised that McCain has learned to take the press so much for granted that he thinks they will sit still even for this. I think it may reach up to bite him — at least until he makes nice again.
Mr. McCain’s comments were mild compared with the bleak mood and frustration on the part of his advisers, who have taken to referring to Mr. Obama sarcastically as “The One” and railing against the large amount of coverage Mr. Obama is receiving compared with Mr. McCain.
Bad luck: McCain was going to do a photo-op on an oil rig to demonstrate his call for more drilling offshore — it's so safe, you know — but then had to call it off due to 'weather'…or maybe this: Spill Contaminates Water Supply Before McCain Oil Rig Visit
MSNBC, McCain questions speech, forgets Canada: McCain attacks Obama for speaking in Germany (“I would rather speak at a rally or a political gathering any place outside of the country after I am president of the United States,” apparently forgetting his own political speech in Canada a short time ago.)
McCain Tries Subliminal Ad to Link Obama to Terrorism
The McCain electoral strategy is coming into focus: they figure their only hope is to get American to think that a dark-skinned Democrat must be a terrorist. Why else highlight letters that spell out something like “Al-Qaeda Commentary” over a picture of Sen. Obama? (The full video is the McCain site under “Obama on Iraq”.
I think McCain's 'tell' — the sign he is prevaricating — is when he blinks a lot. Just watch any video on YouTube and judge for yourself. (Hmm. Turns out I'm not the only one to notice this. See, for example, Matthew Yglesias.)
Another issue that could hurt McCain with women: apparently, polling shows John McCain's votes against insurance coverage for birth control have tremendous resonance with women, including independents and Republicans. Thus, this ad from Planned Parenthood:
NY Times, Editorial, There He Goes Again (“Mr. McCain and his advisers must know that his numbers do not add up. But adding up is not their point. Their point is to perpetuate the fantasy that Americans can have ever bigger tax cuts and a balanced federal budget. They cannot.”)
Dale Carpenter of the Volokh Conspiracy says McCain's latest stance on adoption by gay parents is Thoughtless. Worse than that, it has created, McCain's Perez Hilton Problem (per HuffPo)
Carpetbagger, So much for the ‘respectful campaign’ (“McCain’s campaign has said Obama should not be “taken at his word,” and his “word cannot be trusted.” McCain was asked directly whether he questioned Obama’s patriotism, and McCain wouldn’t give a straight answer. Today, it seems as if the McCain campaign has kicked things up a notch, arguing that Obama and Democrats want to see the U.S. fail in Iraq in order to benefit politically.”) Cf. Talking Points Memo, McCain Camp: Obama Wants U.S. to Lose in Iraq
The thing about the McCain rape joke is that it isn't just horrible because it's a a joke about a woman liking rape, it's about a woman who is explicitly beaten senseless until she becomes unconscious and raped and she enjoyed the experience.
While we're doing ancient history, how about Crooks & Liars, Flashback: McCain Admits He’s Dumber Than Bush? The serious point here isn't that McCain was a feckless privileged youth, but rather than all these years later he still likes to glory in his anti-intellectualism. Wouldn't it be nice to have another President who thought brains (and facts!) were a good thing?
Huffpo, Reporters Spar With McCain Press Aides Nicolle Wallace, Brooke Buchanan (VIDEO). Now, this is a pretty trivial event, except for two things: first, the journalists who got mad about the McCain campaign's attempt to totally control them were from a FOX affiliate—if even FOX is getting bolshie with a Republican, well, you're doing something odd. Second, these guys were local, experienced, journalists. What odds will you give that the national guys are tamer poodles?
During this past week: McCain called the most import entitlement program in the U.S. a disgrace, his top economic adviser called the American people whiners, McCain released an economic plan that no one thought was serious, he flip flopped on Iraq, joked about the deaths of Iranian citizens, and denied making comments that he clearly made - TWICE. All this and it is not even Friday! Yet watching and reading the mainstream press you would think McCain was having a pretty decent political week, I mean at least Jesse Jackson didn't say anything about him.
And here we are, just four months from Election Day, and McCain is presenting a bizarre economic plan, which doesn’t make any sense on its face, and which also lacks any and all support from the campaign itself. Knowing we might look at the numbers to see if they add up, the McCain campaign decided not to include any numbers.
There’s a $410 billion budget deficit, which McCain will eliminate in his first term. How? He just will. He wants to cut taxes by about a trillion dollars. How can we afford it? We just can. McCain realizes the value of the dollar is down, and he’s committed to reversing this. How? He just will.
I’ve seen more details from candidates running for student government.”)
TalkLeft, Librarian Booted From McCain Event in Denver. They threw out a 61-year old librarian from a public meeting for carrying a sign saying the most evil thing you can imagine: “McCain = Bush”. Yes, it's the Bush Bubble all over again. See the movie. Plus she gets her 6:08 minutes of fame on MS-NBC:
Here's the sort of shocking flip-flop on a basic issue of principle for which I can imagine no justification other than naked ambition: McCain in 2005: Gitmo Detainees Deserve Trials Or Should Be Released. Now, of course, McCain claims that a Supreme Court decision giving minimal habeas rights is one of the worst decisions in the the Court's history….
Sen. Pete Domenici (R-N.M.)
“No. I’m too old.”
Born: May 7, 1932
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa)
“I’m too old to be vice president”
Born: September 17, 1933
Sen. John McCain
Wants to be President
Born: August 29, 1936
Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.)
“When I was much younger I would have probably said, ‘Sure, I’ll be glad to accept it,’ but I’m 70 years [old] and they need a younger person for the job.”
Born: December 7, 1937
2. “Great progress economically” during the Bush years. If Americans’ financial woes are all in their heads, John McCain’s assessment of George W. Bush’s economic leadership is pure hallucination. Asked by Bloomberg’s Peter Cook on April 17 if Americans would say they are better off today “than before George Bush took office more than seven years ago,” McCain replied:
“I think if you look at the overall record and millions of jobs have been created, et cetera, et cetera, you could make an argument that there’s been great progress economically over that period of time.”
Mugged by reality, McCain’s firm response to the classic Ronald Reagan question (”are you better off now?”) lasted exactly 24 hours. The next day on April 18, the so-called maverick acknowledged Americans are “hurting badly” and concluded, “Americans are not better off than they were eight years ago.”
Slowly but surely, Republican presidential candidate John McCain is putting some distance between himself and unpopular President Bush.
This week it was the ill-timed “Mission Accomplished” banner that the White House hung behind Bush five years ago when Bush declared major combat operations over in Iraq.
“I thought it was wrong at the time,” McCain said in Cleveland Thursday
CAVUTO: … Senator — after a conflict means after the conflict, and many argue the conflict isn't over.
MCCAIN: Well, then why was there a banner that said 'mission accomplished' on the aircraft carrier? … the conflict — the major conflict is over, the regime change has been accomplished.
It sounds as if McCain is trying to get into a Bush Bubble, where he'll be protected from anything he doesn't want to see or hear. Which makes sense if you consider he's running to serve Bush's third term. But definitely makes you wonder who he'll find to reprise the Cheney role as veep….
There is a country in which the ruling party has made a concerted effort to keep a factually accurate advertisement by the largest opposition party off TV by appealing to the owners of TV stations to prevent the ad from airing.
Gov. Howard Dean and Joe Sandler, the DNC's General Counsel, held a telephone press conference a few minutes ago. (As it was a last-minute deal, even I got to listen in.) They started by categorically denying the RNC's charge that the DNC's ad was in any way coordinated with either the Clinton or Obama campaigns. Dean said “I know of no conversations of any kind that have taken place with the campaigns” about the ad. (Had the ad been coordinated, it would count as an in-kind contribution which would have legal consequences; if it's fully arms-length, it's a legal independent expenditure.)
Sandler said that so far none of the networks running it (MS-NBC and CNN) have said they will pull the ad. So far, the ad is slated for cable only. From which I deduce this isn't a hugely expensive ad buy. Ordinarily you would not expect the RNC to add oxygen to such a small flame; tying McCain to his own remarks about Iraq must really hurt.
The RNC also claimed in its publicity blitz that the ad is false, and thus could expose stations that run it to some sort of liability. That's a weak argument, since the ad uses McCain's own words, and DNC Chairman Dean made hay with it. “I understand the RNC thinks it is illegal to criticize Sen. McCain,” Dean said, and he basically invited them to sue.
Here's one bet that they won't: this is just scare tactics. And if they do sue, they'll lose. (Outside Zimbabwe.)
Lots of buzz about Cliff Schecter's new book “The Real McCain”. It certainly supports what I've heard — that he's a real hothead. For example, McCain Once Physically Attacked Fellow Congressman. And there's another alleged unsavory episode here, which the author says is vouched for by three witnesses, but apparently McCain now denies it.
Are these disqualifying issues? Not alone, no. But they are not exactly encouraging either.
There's no debate that John McCain was heroic as a POW. Unfortunately, his behavior in uniform in more normal circumstances is more controversial.
The case for the prosecution is laid out at John Mccain: Unfit to serve as Commander-In-Chief, a screed aptly summarized by its subhead: “The spoiled son of military privilege got a free ride throughout his military career despite repeated instances of sex scandals and screw-ups.”
I knew he dated strippers. (And so what?) But losing five planes, three in training accidents or while joyriding (or should that be 'skylarking'?) and two in the field—is that some sort of post-WWII record?
And this doesn't even begin to get to the question of his more recent judgment about Iraq, Iran, or other wars…
In what likely will be my only decent piece of political prognostication this electoral cycle, back in November 2006 I predicted that John McCain would be undone by YouTube, saying “it's interesting to see just how out of touch with modern realities the increasingly aging McCain seems to be. Pre-YouTube it might have been possible to campaign out of both sides of one's mouth, but that approach is in the dustbin of history now.”
The media will let you run away from what you say in the primaries. YouTube will not. Yesterday I posted a masterly example of what McCain is in for. Here's another, hot on its heels, that's almost as good, YouTube - John McCain: No, You Can't.
In the competition between the YouTube generation and a 71-year-old with a penchant for gaffes and the occasional doubletalk, don't bet on the get-off-my-lawn guy.
Carl Pope, Sierra Club Executive Director, takes a ride on the Forked Tongue Express, and writes that John McCain Should Be Ashamed. Here's the start:
I have just listened to carefully coached staff members for Senator John McCain lie repeatedly about the Senator's failure to show up and vote on the first Senate economic-stimulus package, which included tax incentives for clean energy. I am in a state of shock not because of the Senator's vote, although that disappointed me, nor over his desire to avoid public accountability for that vote — that's politics. But to carefully coach your Senate staff (I assume the Chief of Staff, not the Senator, was the author of this shameful performance) in how to mislead callers in such depth is appalling, and surprising, because it was almost certain to be found out.
I think this part is not only fair criticism, but gets at the heart of one of the main reasons I can't trust the guy and get steamed every time I hear about his 'Straight Talk':
McCain's tragic flaw: He knows the right thing. He often sets out to do the right thing. But he doesn't follow through. We saw McCain's weak character in 2000, when the Bush campaign defeated him in the crucial South Carolina primary by smearing his family. Placing his presidential ambitions first, he swallowed his pride, set aside his honor, and campaigned for Bush against Al Gore. It came up again in 2005, when McCain used his POW experience as a POW to convince Congress to pass, and Bush to sign, a law outlawing torture of detainees at Guantanamo and other camps. But when Bush issued one of his infamous “signing statements” giving himself the right to continue torturing-in effect, negating McCain's law-he remained silent, sucking up to Bush again.
But the main thrust of the Smirking Chimp article is that McCain is to be blamed for cracking after days of very vigorous torture that he suffered as a POW and/or for not correcting people who say he didn't. I don't buy that.
The Carpetbagger Report notes McCain's flourishing flip-flop list. This weekend, McCain added Roe v. Wade to the list of issues on which he's done an about-turn.
It really is a little sad to watch someone of at least occasional integrity totally disintegrate into a pandering puddle due to his desparation for the Presidency. I presume the strategy is to run right for the primaries and then try to loop back. But I think the brand will be pretty tarnished by then. Indeed, it is already, although mass media are still clining to the St. McCain narrative.
Actually, that's good for the Democrats: better if the scales fall from the media's eyes when more people are paying attention.
Meanwhile, it's interesting to see just how out of touch with modern realities the increasingly aging McCain seems to be. Pre-YouTube it might have been possible to campaign out of both sides of one's mouth, but that approach is in the dustbin of history now.