"When the Democratic ticket took the high road and when Obama was seen a healer, as an outsider, as an agent of change without a lot of political baggage, his scores soared with voters and undecideds. That was why he was able to get more votes than Hillary in the primary. When he looks like another politician with experience and is an attacker and gets dirty in the mud, he loses esteem with voters."
You beat the Clintons. McCain is going to be easy. DO NOT take the bait. That’s the only chance they now have. Stay calm.
I’m in two minds whether John McCain has lost his mind or never had a soul. But I have to say I am surprised by the barrage of lies and distractions his campaign is throwing out. The farce of the Palin candidacy is one such distraction – but the lies about sex education, the lies about Palin’s pork record, the lies about "tiny" Iran, the lies about the lipstick-pig nonsense, the lies about the bridge to nowhere, the lies about the oil pipeline … I mean, what is going on?
Some believe this is just GOP hardball. But it actually isn’t. They’re usually not this stupid. If you are going to broadcast a series of outrageous, demonstrable lies to smear your opponent, you tend to to that in the last two weeks of a campaign, so the lies can actually stick before they are debunked. But in September?
I know many people believe that the American people – especially the under-informed swing voters – are too dumb to know when they are being lied to. But these lies are so obvious that this cannot be true. And the sheer viciousness of the personal attacks on Obama make Rove’s attack on McCain in 2000 seem mild.
Here’s what I think. I think McCain is out of it. I think he checked out of his own campaign and handed it over to Schmidt and his fellow Rovians. This does not mean he does not have total responsibility. John McCain is now for ever a despicable and dishonest and dishonorable man. He has destroyed his reputation. But he is also trying to do what he can to win this election. My view is: if this is how he intends to win this election, he has mis-timed his lies.
So my assumption is that this is all about trying to get into Obama’s head and get him to make a mistake. Which is why Obama needs now more than ever to stay calm and confident and focused.
I am a Kentuckian, registered in Florida. Today, I crossed the river into Ohio and volunteered to do campaign work for Obama in Cincinnati. A number of Kentuckians are doing this since Kentucky is a done deal for the Republicans. Two things motivated me to go work for Obama.
1. The nomination of Joe Biden. He was my first pick in the primaries.
2. The nomination of Sarah Palin. She was the reason I lost all respect for McCain.
This morning I was watching the news. Saw an interview with Queen Noor. Thought it was a shame that McCain did not think of her as a VP. Smart woman, lots of kids, foreign policy experience, never asked for earmarks.
"’The only modern president with less of a mandate was Gerald Ford in 1974, who received zero popular votes,’ Heclo said. But he added that in contrast to Bush’s image as a slacker, ‘focus, self-control and unblinking perseverance prepared Bush to be a wartime president before he, or America, knew it was at war,’" – Washington Post, April 27, 2003.
He writes a column – a sadly misguided view of what’s wrong with conservatism – that he could have written at any time in the last ten years. Why can he not tell us what he thinks of Palin? A wonderful writer he sure is. A profile in courage he isn’t.
The Dish 