Back in April, Joe Klein wrote that even thought the extreme right wingers wanted a scorched earth Presidential campaign (George Will - "Obama is an effete snob like Adlai Stevenson "representing the effete strand of liberalism that corrupted F.D.R.'s party of the working people"; Bill Krystol - "positing Obama as a direct descendant of — yes — Karl Marx")The candidate John McCain expressed real doubts about that method of campaigning. Instead, according to Klein "...when asked directly by Chris Matthews if élitism would be an issue in the general election, McCain said no. This may well be strategy: the candidate takes the high road while Schmidt lands the body blows. But McCain has laid down some pretty clear markers that he sees this election in much the same way that Obama (and Hillary Clinton) does. He wants to have a substantive debate about the war, he believes that climate change is a major issue, and he has begun to acknowledge the economic pain visited upon manufacturing workers in places like Michigan and Ohio."
Joe Klein concluded "It's McCain's way. He sees the tawdry ceremonies of politics — the spin and hucksterism — as unworthy. He's not one to put on silly hats; his physical disabilities limit his capacity to engage in bowling photo ops. His shtick is substance, the endless access granted to reporters on his bus. The problem for McCain, and the opportunity for Democrats, is that his positions are either unpopular or sketchy. The problem for Democrats is that McCain has the potential to steal, or take the edge off, some of their favorite issues by offering more moderate-seeming, if sometimes totally inadequate, answers."
Joe's conclusion: "If McCain is as good as his word, we could have a great debate [on war and taxes] this fall. If he isn't as good as his word — and the temptations will be mighty to play the élitism card — McCain will have to live with the knowledge that in the most important business of his life, he chose expediency over honor. That's probably not the way he wants to be remembered."
So Joe - three months ago - expected John McCain to place his personal view of honor up front in the manner in which he ran his campaign for President.
Unfortunately for McCain, since then the al Maliki government has come out strongly in favor of Obama's idea of rapid American withdrawal. In addition, the economy has clearly worsened, showing that the tax cuts McCain proposes will not work. (What would they have done to prevent the collapse of First Heritage Bank Newport Beach, CA and First National Bank, Reno, NV yesterday and IndyMac Bank last Friday? The bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac by putting unlimited amounts of taxpayer money behind them makes any claim that reduced taxes will improve the economy ludicrous.
The McCain campaign has clearly also drawn the conclusion that the reporters from Rasmussen have - Rasmussen on the myth of the close Presidential election: this is going to be a blow-out year for Obama. So what is the result? John McCain's "honorable campaign" has been jettisoned. A measure of their desperation is that is was jettisoned three and a half months before the actual election and more than a month before the Republican convention.
Examples:
- McCain Ad: Obama Isn't There For The Troops Unless Cameras Are Around
- McCain On Maliki's Endorsement Of Obama's Pullout Timeline: He Didn't Mean It (An utterly ridiculous claim.)
- McCain Lampoons Obama: "Audacity Of Hopelessness"
- "McCain was a critic of Bush's Iraqi adventure" Really? after being a cheerleader maybe.
- History Rears Up To Spit In Your Face "For McCain to say that the Anbar Awakening is the product of the surge is either a lie or professional malpractice for a presidential candidate who is staking his election on his allegedly superior Iraq judgment." McCain's lack of understanding the timeline of the Surge against the Anbar uprising was concealed by CBS CBS Sidesteps Questions About Editing Of McCain Interview but clearly shows how the McCain campaign cannot get its act together.
- McCain Falsely Claims That Obama Is Denying The Success Of The Troops
- McCain Explains Czechoslovakia Gaffe ... And Explains ... And Explains For a candidate to base his campaign on his foreign policy expertise, then repeatedly fail to recognize the the previous nation of Czechoslovakia broke up and became the Czech Republic and Slovakia fifteen years ago makes his claim of foreign policy expertise extremely suspect.
- Another John McCain Gaffe -- Iraq Was the First Major Conflict After 9/11
- New McCain Ad: Barack Obama To Blame For Gas Crisis
- And many, many more.
McCain's age is part of the problem. Not anything like Alzheimer's, but he has gotten set in his previous opinions and spends little or no time to learn new things. John McCain is now in the business of justifying his life to himself and his previous career for posterity rather than learning about the new problems that America faces today. His failure to have already learned how to use email and the Internet on his own gives this away. His election to the Presidency will, in his opinion, show that he is as good as his father and grandfather who were both four-star Admirals were. But it will be a major failure for America.
Part of the McCain misunderstanding is that McCain believes that he is a leader, capable of leading large organizations. Unfortunately, he has no experience in management at any level above being a mid-level manager either as a squadron commander on board of an aircraft carrier or running his own Senate office.McCain has never been an executive of a really large and diverse organization where he was responsible for strategy of his organization, but he believes that he can do it. So, like snake-oil salesmen from time immemorial have done, he claims he can do it. The disaster of disorganization that his campaign displays clearly shows that he cannot. His inclusion of the failed stragtegic manager of Hewlit Packard, Carly Fiorina is a clear demonstration of his inability to understand strategy. She belongs to his campaign because of her previous status in spite of her failure as an HP strategic manager. The same was true of ex-Senator Phil Gramm. His status as n ex- Senator is more important to McCain than is totally failed policies. McCain's judgment is that poor.
As of right now America has a Presidential election that is clouded by a Republican President - Bush - who lied his way into a voluntary war in Iraq that clearly has no valid purpose in providing security for America but has now cost as much financially a Vietnam. Bush's financial mismanagement of the American economy - driven also by the conservative controlled Republican Party in Congress - through tax cuts and financial deregulation (based on conservative principles out of the Reagan Revolution) has led directly to the current credit crisis that has brought the American economy to a low level not previously seen since the Great Depression of the 1930's. McCain represents and approved of all of these disastrous decisions.
McCain claims he is not running for Bush's third term, but his only possible voter base is the one that elected Bush and he is catering to them at every turn If he is elected President, is it really reasonable to believe he will abandon Bush's electoral base? No. He is Bush's third term, selling all of bush's and Cheney's worst disasters and hoping to add to them.
All of this is obvious to the general electorate, if not to the mainstream media pundits.
This is a description of a Presidential campaign that is without hope. They have no proposals to offer and no willingness to even recognize the may problems America faces (most of which are the direct result of the conservative movement and the Reagan Revolution.
McCain and the conservatives have nothing left to run on this year except spreading fear of Obama as President. Nothing.
And Obama is running on a vision of hope. Hope wins over fear in the long run.
Count on it. The Republicans are America's masters of negative and crooked politics and have been since the crimes of Nixon. This election will be the nastiest in living memory.
Still, Obama is going to win.
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