’)Campaigns that aren’t winning usually leak information to the press. Campaigns divide, with one faction seeking to have an upper hand on the other by leaking something damaging to the media. We most recently saw this with Sen. Clinton’s campaign and now it’s John McCain.
Some McCain campaign officials are becoming concerned about the hostility that attacks against Sen. Obama are whipping up among Republican supporters. During an internal conference call Thursday, campaign officials discussed how the tenor of the crowds has turned on the media and on Sen. Obama.
Someone yelled “Off with his head” at a rally Wednesday for Sen. McCain and Gov. Palin in Pennsylvania. Later that day in Ohio, a man stood outside a rally holding a sign that said “Obama, Osama.” At a rally in Jacksonville, Fla., on Tuesday, someone in the crowd wore a T-shirt depicting Sen. Obama wearing a devil mask.
The Obama campaign, with widening leads in several national polls, dismissed the attacks. “Sen. McCain’s campaign has admitted that if he talks about the economy, he’ll lose, so we fully expect him to continue his angry, personal attacks,” Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor said. “Barack Obama will continue to talk about his plans to strengthen our economy and create jobs because that’s what American families care about.”
There is another faction (call them the Rove faction) that desperately wants McCain to launch ads with a Jeremiah Wright theme. This back and forth confirms what those of us from the outside see: John McCain is losing and he wants to fling poo against the wall in the hopes that something sticks. In the midst of that, Palin is whipping up the crowds into a racist xenophobic frenzy that doesn’t play well with anybody but the inner core of the conservative movement.
Have you noticed that there are never any of these kinds of leaks from the Obama campaign? Much like the Bush campaign in 2004 only strategically leaked to the press, so too does Sen. Obama’s group.
Winning campaigns work that way.
It helps that the inner mantra of the Obama campaign is “No drama.” Now, whether that would hold if they were down double digits right now instead of up by the same amount, who knows.
It feels great to be on the good side of campaign hysterics! It feels not so good to be facing global financial and political collapse. Democrats need to be able to get elected in good times, not just economic Armageddon.
But that’s an argument for another time. Obama ‘08!
Hmm.
For somebody who been unfairly maligned as “inexperienced”, Obama’s campaign for the past two years has been a textbook example of an efficient, well-organized and deadly political machine.
What that tells me is that Obama surrounds himself with people who know how to do their jobs. This also tells me that when Obama wins the White House, he’ll do more of the same and incompetence in his administration will not be tolerated.
Quite a difference from Dubya’s reign of error, huh?
“Palin is whipping up the crowds into a racist xenophobic frenzy.”
That is an apt way of describing the situation.
D.R.Scott,
I agree with your assessment of Obama’s campaign. I’d add that is also confirms what Obama supporters already know; Obama is a very smart man.
Feminists have been making the argument for years that we need a woman as our president because many women posses what some people call emotional intelligence (something that GWB severely lacks). Many women posses an intuition about human relationships and human behavior and they understand how to negotiate with others in a way that some men don’t understand. Hillary actually is highly emotionally intelligent, in my opinion, but she used her wiles for evil. Obama is also highly emotionally intelligent, more so than Hillary in my opinion. He doesn’t lose his temper. He is calm, cool and exacting in his decisions.
So, I’m off on a tangent… my point is that Obama is a very clever man.
Any Republican who wants their party to be part of the 21st century SHOULD be concerned. As Oliver has pointed out, the footage of the people at the rallies shows what the basest part of the Base is really made of. The content and tone of the speeches by M/P, and their refusal to disown or even reprimand those shouting violent remarks, puts the Republican Party, which was already in decline, beyond the pale.
I keep waiting for JM to put up a hand and say “No, no none of that, that’s not what we’re about.” Which tells me he’s ok if that IS what they’re about. Republicans who want their party to be about something non-hateful, and who don’t want JM’s last flailings to take down the whole party, better start speaking out.
“your racism is awesome”-Joe Lieberman to Sarah Palin
Does any of this matter? Election is over. I don’t think the end result is going to be close.
Hedley, I do think that this is important. The Republican party is an important institution in America that has occasionally been catastrophically wrong. For example, non-intervention in WWII or opposition to the New Deal. These have been moments when the intellectual backbone of the party took over and redirected their vision. Now is the time to begin redefining the mission. Do you want to be the party of Religious fanatics and dirtbags? I hope not.
This is why it matters.
I keep waiting for JM to put up a hand and say “No, no none of that, that’s not what we’re about.”
He’d get booed off the stage.
Occasionally, z? You’re being kind.
Duros, I do believe that there have been principled Republican positions. They were right about the Soviet Union. They were right about slavery. I used to consider myself a Republican, but find the current variety looks a heck of a lot more like Southern Democrats circa 1957.
z_adura,
I agree that a healthy opposition is vital to our country. For example, I still haven’t seen a good argument in favor of card check and I wish Obama would talk to McGovern and reconsider his position. If true conservatives let themselves be drowned out by the populist nitwits (as Christopher Buckley says WFB put it, “I’ve spent my entire life time separating the Right from the kooks,” WFB being famous for expelling the Birchers), then all conservatism will become irrelevant and there will be no check on OUR side’s kooks.
The trouble is that McCain is becoming one of those populist nitwits, with his proposals for having shareholders have direct, binding votes, not just on executive compensation but how much the corporation should spend on R&D (thus gutting the corporate law separation between ownership and control that has served us reasonably well for the last few centuries). Or his proposal to have a legal prohibition on paying executives of the troubled finance companies more than $400k a year (because the way to attract new talent to a troubled company that will need leaders to work 18 hour days, 7 days a week is to institute wage controls).
As screwed up as many of Reagan’s ideas were, the 1986 tax reform ended up being a pretty good move by the Republican White House and Democratic Congress that simplified the code, eliminated loopholes and brought down tax rates without reducing revenues. Unfortunately, McCain doesn’t belong to that version of conservatism. The GOP needs to recapture its sanity for the good of this country.
Duros, I do believe that there have been principled Republican positions. They were right about the Soviet Union. They were right about slavery.
Well, that’s 2, PG’s got one. so yeah, not a complete wash-out.
the 1986 tax reform ended up being a pretty good move by the Republican White House
Buh…buh…but PG! You can’t expect today’s Republicans to admit that St. Reagan ever raised taxes, do you?
BTW, just thought I’d add this for the mouth-breathers in the house.
http://www.balloon-juice.com/?p=12129
Shorter: STFU, already.
PG, TRA ‘86 is not without criticism, even from a conservative economic perspective. For the first time, home mortgage debt was favored to credit card and other personal debt. It is no surprise that in leaner times, middle class home owners began using their home equity as a credit card. All market interventions create distortions, even those with the best intentions.
Hey, I grew up in Mill Valley. My mom still lives there.
z_adura, lets not forget the marvelous actions of the Democrats during WWII. Turning away a boatload of Jewish refugees and imprisoning Japanese-American citizens are not exactly actions to be proud of. Where was the intellectual backbone of the Democratic party during those catastrophically wrong actions?
Bottom line, both party has its share of idiots.
Hedley, Roosevelt, a Democrat, signed EO 9066, which resulted in Japanese internment, but it was the liver-lillied Eleanor Roosevelt, the ACLU and religious left-leaning liberals who opposed it, not the righteous Republican party, which was toying with fascism at the time.
z_adura, I didn’t say the Republicans’ actions were honorable, just that the Democrats had their own equally reprehensible actions.
Book recommendation: “The Plot Against America”, by Philip Roth, from a couple of years ago. It posits a win by Lindbergh against Roosevelt in 1940 in a kind of “what-if-history” kind of way. Pretty chilling.
Hedley, not to put a fine point on this, but there is a bit of false equivalence in your statements. It was the Republicans in World War II who opposed action against Germany, because many of them supported Hitler, or at least the idea of Hitler. Likewise, it was not the Republicans who opposed Japanese internment, it was a division inside the Democratic party. Republicans are not always wrong but they were from about 1929-1953. Eisenhower was actually a pretty honorable guy, but he isn’t exactly revered by today’s Republican party.
z_adura, you are missing my point. I am in no way defending the actions or the inactions of the Republicans during WWII. Merely, I am saying that the actions and inactions of the Democrats were at least equally reprehensible.
Hedley, you are missing my point. Republicans actions/inactions were MORE reprehensible in WWII, significantly so. There is a difference between shoplifting and grand theft auto even though they are both property crimes.
z_adura, so essentially you are playing, “my party can beat up your party.” You are right though, imprisoning Japanese-Americans was no big deal. And those Jews trying to get in? Who needs more Jews, right?
Hedley, excuse me for falsely thinking you were one of the conservative idiots around here who can see more than black and white. You are clearly not.
Book recommendation: “The Plot Against America”, by Philip Roth, from a couple of years ago. It posits a win by Lindbergh against Roosevelt in 1940 in a kind of “what-if-history” kind of way. Pretty chilling.
A similar book (a what if of Roosevelt actually getting assassinated in Miami) would be Man in the High Castle.
z_adura, so essentially you are playing, “my party can beat up your party.”
No, but my ideology can beat up your ideology.
z_adura, excuse me for thinking that you were one of the liberal idiots around here who thinks their shit doesn’t stink. Clearly you recognize that it stinks just as bad.