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so did McCain just blow it? (pg. 156)
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| Lebezniatnikov |
| quote: | Originally posted by RJT
Unfortunately I'm still quite worried about that 50% that says either "qualified" or "not sure."
She needs to go down in a blaze of flaming glory for me to be happy - something not even the most stubborn of straight ticket, "I don't even pay attention, I just vote Republican" voters can deny. |
I think it says something that her favorable rating is now at -10 and holding... that means that when asked "do you think favorably about Sarah Palin as a person" 45% of people say yes, but a majority of the American public says "hell no."
Also, there are very few journalists with tunnel vision anymore:
| quote: | October 6, 2008 10:07
Embarracuda
Posted by Joe Klein | Comments (214) | Permalink | Trackbacks (0) | Email This
I'm of two minds about how to deal with the McCain campaign's further descent into ugliness. Their strategy is simple: you throw crap against a wall and then giggle as the media try to analyze the putresence in a way that conveys a sense of balance: "Well, it is bull-pucky, but the splatter pattern is interesting..." which, of course, only serves to get your perverse message out. I really don't want to be a part of that. But...every so often, we journalists have a duty to remind readers just how dingy the McCain campaign, and its right-wing acolytes in the media (I'm looking at you, Sean Hannity) have become--especially in their efforts to divert public attention from the economic crisis we're facing. And so inept at it: other campaigns have decided that their only shot is going negative, but usually they don't announce it, as several McCain aides have in recent days--there's no way we can win on the economy, so we're going to go sludge-diving.
But since we are dealing with manure here, I'll put the rest of this post below the fold.
It is appropriate that the prime vessel for this assault is Sarah Palin, whose very presence on a national ticket is an insult to your intelligence. She now has "credibility," we are told, because she managed to read talking points off notecards in the debate last week with unwitting enthusiasm.
Over the weekend, she picked up on an article in The New York Times, which essentially says that Barack Obama and the former terrorist Bill Ayers have crossed paths in Chicago, served on a couple of charitable boards together, but aren't particularly close. To Palin--or her scriptwriters--this means that Obama has been "palling around" with terrorists. Now, I wish Ayers had done some serious jail time; he certainly needed to pay some penance for his youthful criminality--even if most people in Chicago, including the mayor, have decided that he has something of value to say about education. But I can also understand how Obama, who was a child when Ayers was cutting his idiot swath, would not quite understand the enormity of the professor's background. (I got to know Alger Hiss twenty years after the fact--he was a printing salesman then, a friend of my father's--and thought of him as a sweet old man, if a good deal more liberal than dad's other friends.)
In any case, this is rather rich coming from Palin, who is married to a man who belonged to a political party--the Alaskan Independence Party--that wanted to secede from the union. (I should add here that the Times may have been overreacting to the McCain campaign's attack on its fairness here: the Ayers story was a nothingburger, but it was placed prominently in the top left hand corner of page one--a position that would seem to indicate that it contained important news, which it didn't.)
Then we have the ever-reliable Bill Kristol, in today's New York Times, advising Palin to bring up the Reverend Jeremiah Wright. Palin, of course, believes that's a darn good idea:
| quote: | | “To tell you the truth, Bill, I don’t know why that association isn’t discussed more, because those were appalling things that that pastor had said about our great country, and to have sat in the pews for 20 years and listened to that — with, I don’t know, a sense of condoning it, I guess, because he didn’t get up and leave — to me, that does say something about character. But, you know, I guess that would be a John McCain call on whether he wants to bring that up.” |
So then, I'd guess, it would be appropriate to bring up some of the nuttiness that passes for godliness in Palin's religious life. Leave aside the fact that The Embarracuda allowed herself to participate in a cermony that protected her from witchcraft, how about her presence--she didn't "get up and leave"-- at a sermon by the founder of Jews for Jesus, who argued that the Palestinian terrorist acts against Israel were God's "judgment" on the Jews because they hadn't accepted Jesus.
Speaking of Jews, the ever-execrable Sean Hannity has been having intercourse with a known Jew-hater named Andy Martin, who now wants to expose Barack Obama as a Muslim. According to the Washington Times:
| quote: | | In 1986, when Mr. Martin ran as a Democrat for Connecticut's 3rd Congressional District seat under the name "Anthony R. Martin-Trigona," his campaign committee filed papers saying its purpose was to "exterminate Jew power in America and impeach U.S. District Court of Appeals judges in New York City." |
Calling all Podhoretzs! Where's the outrage? I mean, don't the hateful doings at Palin's church and Hannity's perfidy deserve a lengthy exegesis from Pete Wehner or Jennifer Rubin or one of the other empretzled ideologues over at Commentary?
As I said, I'm of two minds about this. I don't want to give currency to this sewage, so it will remain below the fold. And I'll try to devote the lion's share of my time to the issues--the war, the economic crisis, the fraying health insurance system, the environment--that should define this campaign. But what a desperate empty embarrassment the McCain campaign has become. |
http://www.time-blog.com/swampland/...mbarracuda.html
Worth mentioning that Joe Klein used to be one of Senator McCain's fondest admirers in the press.
After watching McCain's campaign sink to even deeper levels of depravity today, I don't think there's any recovery from this. The numbers don't work in their favor any way you cut it. Even if the Ayers line works, it's only going to work with the GOP base... who are not only in a minority of the voting public but also were already in the tank for McCain. You really think this is going to fly with independents and Dems? When given the choice between an obviously desperate candidate and his unqualified sidekick and a green but steadfast candidate that uses ad buys to actually talk about issues... I know how I'm doubling down on.
One thing's for sure though - if anything were to happen to Obama between now and Nov. 4 - McCain and Palin would have blood on their hands. |
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| Lebezniatnikov |
I can't figure out how to embed this... but this is indicative of what I'm talking about :
http://www.pollster.com/
Pollster doesn't move states until there's unanimous consent among polls for a certain period of time. Hence why VA is still listed as tossup even though SUSA and Suffolk both have Obama +10 there.
Where is McCain going to win? Maybe Ohio? Great, I'll give him Ohio. Because Obama is going to win in VA and NV anyway... and losing Ohio still gives him 270+.
Face it guys, this election turned out to be a landslide. |
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| cmay119 |
| Do you guys think this election is going to be down to the wire or does it seem as of right now that Obama is going to take this one down without too much trouble? |
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| Lebezniatnikov |
| quote: | Originally posted by cmay119
Do you guys think this election is going to be down to the wire or does it seem as of right now that Obama is going to take this one down without too much trouble? |
Not even gonna be close.
http://www.pollster.com/
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/ep..._mccain/?map=10
I don't know if he's going to get to the 364 predicted by RCP (which leans republican for crying out loud!), but 350 is a real possibility. |
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| cmay119 |
Holy hell. What happened in '72 to provoke such a landslide victory for Nixon? I'm not very knowledgeable on politics of that era, so I'm sure I'm a bonehead for not knowing. |
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| woscar99 |
| quote: | Originally posted by cmay119
Holy hell. What happened in '72 to provoke such a landslide victory for Nixon? I'm not very knowledgeable on politics of that era, so I'm sure I'm a bonehead for not knowing. |
The 1984 election was even worse...
Reagan/Bush 525
Mondale/Ferraro 13
:wtf: |
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| cmay119 |
| Good god. I completely overlooked '84. That's just sick. Did it just come down to not having enough financial resources to get the word out for the other side? Or something else? |
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| Lebezniatnikov |
| quote: | Originally posted by cmay119
Good god. I completely overlooked '84. That's just sick. Did it just come down to not having enough financial resources to get the word out for the other side? Or something else? |
Geraldine Ferraro was a woman and Walter Mondale was successfully portrayed as too old.
Trivia bonus: what was the only state that went blue in 1984? |
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| Alex |
Wasn't it Minnesota? Or am I way off, no I think it was Minnesota.
Anyways, I see why McCain wants to associate himself with Reagan so badly :stongue: |
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| Lebezniatnikov |
The desperation continues. Now it's the media's fault that Palin is an idiot.
| quote: | | Palin's routine attacks on the media have begun to spill into ugliness. In Clearwater, arriving reporters were greeted with shouts and taunts by the crowd of about 3,000. Palin then went on to blame Katie Couric's questions for her "less-than-successful interview with kinda mainstream media." At that, Palin supporters turned on reporters in the press area, waving thunder sticks and shouting abuse. Others hurled obscenities at a camera crew. One Palin supporter shouted a racial epithet at an African American sound man for a network and told him, "Sit down, boy." |
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy...8100602935.html
With friends like these... |
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| Lebezniatnikov |
| quote: | Originally posted by Alex
Wasn't it Minnesota? Or am I way off, no I think it was Minnesota.
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Damn straight it was! We haven't voted GOP since '72. |
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