McCain's really, really bad day

I don't know how accurate this is, but by the looks of it McCain has really pissed off the religious right. First by rejecting the influential Rev. John Hagee, then by adding to that his rejection of the very influential political operator (besides being an evangelist preacher) Ron Parsley.

Then McCain's appearance on the Ellen DeGeneres Show appears to "support the gay agenda."

Then look at who he is interviewing as VP candidates:

*Charlie Crist, a gay man;

* Bobby Jindal, not just of South Asian origin and 'darker than Obama' but also a conservative Catholic who has expressed support — in his campaign — for the idea that "outside the Church there is no salvation" and many of the other attitudes towards the Reformation I was taught in pre-Vatican II Catholic school; and

* Mitt Romney, a Mormon

I find these to be effective political suicide - if they are true.

But is it a McCain head fake?

There is a possibility that this is all a public pander to the independents, to be countered in the religious right by preachers explaining to their evangelistic flock that McCain doesn't mean any of it. That he's just doing what he needs to do to get elected in the face of a political season that really favors Democrats this year.

Hagee has already made strange sounds that resemble a statement that "I said it, but I didn't mean it to be a bad thing! Vote for McCain anyway."

Parsley is a strong Republican activist, and if the appearance that he is being thrown under the bus will permit the election of a Republican President in these times which are very trying for Republicans, then he would support that appearance, while depending on evangelist preachers to convince their flocks away from the eyes of reporters that McCain doesn't really mean it.

And it is clear that inviting Crist, Jindal, and Romney to the McCain lair in Sedona is not a serious effort to induce them to accept the Vice Presidency nomination. It is an effort by those individuals to signal to their Republican constituencies that they support McCain. McCain's VP is going to be someone else and any current public actions are aimed primarily at titillating the media so that he gets coverage he doesn't have to pay for.

This is a really bad year for Republicans. Political Scientists, studying what (public) factors lead to the election of a President, have concluded that when the economy is bad, the current President has low approval ratings and there is an on-going unpopular war all during election year then the Party in power loses no matter what positions the candidates take or what the media focuses on. But those are all surface public factors.

The Republicans have worked hard to develop under-the-surface methods of influencing the outcome of an election. Opposition Research has been one of those methods. Another is the art of planting underground rumors about the Democratic opposition. Karl Rove famously planted rumors in conservative East Texas that the very popular Texas Governor Ann Richards was appointing as many lesbians to public office as she could. Then there are the many efforts at voter suppression that have been used in the past and which are currently being worked up.

• Texas (Republican) Attorney General practices voter suppression
• How one Republican rigged elections for the RNC
• Caging: What Bob Woodward doesn't know (or care) about Voter Suppression
  
• Another great moment in voter suppression
  
• Florida Republicans working hard to suppress minority voter registrations
  
• Vote Suppression is the issue
  
• "Caging" - an explanation of the term
  
• Where is the REAL voter fraud?
  
• More on the New Hampshire phone-jamming incident
  
• More evidence that the 2004 election was hacked for Bush

McCain is himself positioned as the "maverick" Republican in spite of his extremely strong conservative voting record. This is already an effort to run publicly one way and conceal what he really stands for from independent voters, while depending on under the radar efforts to get the base to turn out for him. The appearance is one thing, but the real campaign by Republicans is going to be under the surface - viral email and rumors that carry the nastiest stories about Obama possible, extensive efforts to get the corporate media to support McCain augmented by the Republican noise machine of FOX, the American Standard and the right-wing think tanks, evangelistic preachers turning out the vote, and extensive efforts at voter suppression.

At least that's how I see this Presidential election shaping up on the Republican side.