It seems as if someone’s not listening…to any media outlet…to any influential individuals…to anyone, about where the McCain campaign has gone wrong. And by “someone“…I of course mean the entire campaign staff, all the advisors, McCain, Palin, and several GOP members in Congress.
All the outlets…yes, even FOX…are observing that the negative attacks don’t even make ANY sense anymore:
1)After McCain refers to Ayers as a “washed up terrorist“…a series of robocalls go out from the McCain campaign attempting to insinuate friendship between Obama and Ayers.
2)Palin criticizes the use of robocalls, says if it were up to her she wouldn’t use them…not because of their hateful content, but because the calls themselves are annoying in nature. The same day several robocalls recorded by her are initiated.
3)As people at McCain/Palin rallies make racial slurs, threats of violence, allegations of ties to radical Islam, and occasionally actually beat someone up…McCain when confronted says he is actually the one owed an apology for the insinuation that he is inciting racial hatred that could lead to violence.
4)When confronted with the same information, Palin also demands an apology for insinuating that these people are anything but salt-of-the-earth, blue collar heroes.
5)McCain WAY overplays the “ACORN is destroying the entire electoral process” card…especially since it’s been revealed that it was nothing more than a few lazy workers writing fake names (like “Mickey Mouse”) on registration forms. Even the Republican governor of Florida, Charlie Christ, called it an tempest in a teapot.
The voices against them are strong and contain some old friends of the party…Colin Powell…George Will…Christopher Buckley (fired from the magazine his father founded, the National Review, for supporting Obama)…Kathleen Parker…William Kristol…David Gergen…and the following 26 newspapers who endorsed Bush in 2004 but have endorsed Obama in this election:
CALIFORNIA
Long Beach Press Telegram
Pasadena Star-News
San Gabriel Valley Tribune
The (Stockton) Record
San Bernardino Sun
Tri-Valley Herald
COLORADO
The Denver Post
CONNECTICUT
New Haven Register
FLORIDA
Naples Daily-News
ILLINOIS
Chicago Tribune
INDIANA
Palladium-Item (Richmond)
IOWA
Mason City Globe Gazette
NEW JERSEY
Asbury Park Press (Neptune)
NEW MEXICO
Las Cruces Sun-News
NEW YORK
Daily News
OHIO
Hamilton Journal-News
The Repository (Canton)
The Times-Reporter (New Philadelphia)
OREGON
Yamhill Valley News-Register (McMinnville)
PENNSYLVANIA
The Express-Times (Easton)
TEXAS
Austin American-Statesman
Houston Chronicle
UTAH
The Salt Lake Tribune
WASHINGTON
The Columbian
Yakima Herald-Republic
WISCONSIN
Wisconsin State Journal (Madison)
The campaign and party in general have been criticized roundly for the poor choice of a VP candidate in Sarah Palin, the scattershot focus of message, and the generally negative and divisive speech as of late.
So what does the campaign do?
Palin recently stated that the small towns in America are the “pro-American” part of the country…spokesperson Nancy Pftotenhauer committed to saying that only part of Virginia (the part that supports McCain) is the “real Virginia“…McCain said that Obama’s people had been unfair in characterizing Western Pensylvania as racist, before strangely saying “and you know, I couldn’t agree with them more. **awkward pause** I couldn’t disagree with you…I couldn’t agree with you more than the fact that Western Pennsylvania is the most patriotic, most god-loving, most, most patriotic part of America, and this is a great part of the country.” Michele Bachmann, Minnesota’s Sixth District member of Congress, goes on Hardball and says we should start finding out which members of Congress are “Pro-American” and which are “Anti-American” (she later, perhaps unfamiliar with the invention of the YouTube, claimed she had said none of these things).
Then something magical happened: at a McCain rally, several muslim McCain supporters (really?) including Daniel Zubairi, a McCain grassroots organizer, told a bigot selling offensive bumper stickers that he should leave…
Wow. Here was their chance…CNN immediately vetted Mr. Zubairi and wanted to speak to him. McCain could now say “look, muslims are welcome in our rallies…the bigots are the minority and we don’t approve of their message.“Well, here’s what happened:
Yeah…that’s right. The McCain campaign wouldn’t let Zubairi speak on air. Have you figured out why yet? It’s simple math: the campaign has put all of its eggs in one big negative basket. Right now, the reasonable people McCain could win back by making this decent gesture…do not outweigh the unreasonable, ignorant people he will lose if he shows ANY tolerance of Islam. Like this woman:
Tracy isn’t some sort of “aberration.” This great country is full of people just like her. And therein lies the point: McCain and his ilk are trying to tell us that what makes America great is, in fact, the multitude of ignorant, intolerant, violent, and fanatical people…people who barely have a grasp on what makes this country TRULY great.
This is incorrect – how could a group of people with little or no knowledge of our Constitution or our nation’s history possibly “make this nation great?” So does that mean that it is instead the elites, the aristocrats, or the academics that make our nation great?
No.
It’s not the people…it’s the principles. And, it’s the PEOPLE who DEFEND and PRACTICE the PRINCIPLES. These principles and our practice of them is what gives this country POWER and nearly unlimited POTENTIAL. If you reflect back on our history, our darkest hours (both economically and socially) have been when we most deviated from these ideas. Because you know what…there will always be ignorant and intolerant people. But if we hold to our principles these people may live and speak free, while at the same time they are prevented from causing harm…or holding office.