JeffIllinois
Prince
- Joined
- Jun 1, 2008
- Messages
- 389
It may just be that the rats are fleeing a sinking ship but many conservatives have begun to turn on John McCain. Most are disgusted with the recent viscous turn in McCain's attacks, and the hostile mood at his rallies. Indeed, someone yelled "off with his head" when Obama was mentioned at a McCain rally on Wednesday.
George Will of the Washington Post:
"WASHINGTON -- Time was, the Baltimore Orioles manager was Earl Weaver, a short, irascible, Napoleonic figure who, when cranky, as he frequently was, would shout at an umpire, "Are you going to get any better or is this it?" With, mercifully, only one debate to go, that is the question about John McCain's campaign.
In the closing days of his 10-year quest for the presidency, McCain finds it galling that Barack Obama is winning the first serious campaign he has ever run against a Republican. Before Tuesday night's uneventful event, gall was fueling what might be the McCain-Palin campaign's closing argument. It is less that Obama has bad ideas than that Obama is a bad person.
This, McCain and his female Sancho Panza say, is demonstrated by bad associations Obama had in Chicago, such as with William Ayers, the unrepentant terrorist. But the McCain-Palin charges have come just as the Obama campaign is benefiting from a mass mailing it is not paying for. Many millions of American households are gingerly opening envelopes containing reports of the third-quarter losses in their 401(k) and other retirement accounts -- telling each household its portion of the nearly $2 trillion that Americans' accounts have recently shed. In this context, the McCain-Palin campaign's attempt to get Americans to focus on Obama's Chicago associations seem surreal -- or, as a British politician once said about criticism he was receiving, "like being savaged by a dead sheep."
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/10/a_landslide_coming.html
David Brooks:
"[Sarah Palin] represents a fatal cancer to the Republican party. When I first started in journalism, I worked at the National Review for Bill Buckley. And Buckley famously said he'd rather be ruled by the first 2,000 names in the Boston phone book than by the Harvard faculty. But he didn't think those were the only two options. He thought it was important to have people on the conservative side who celebrated ideas, who celebrated learning. And his whole life was based on that, and that was also true for a lot of the other conservatives in the Reagan era. Reagan had an immense faith in the power of ideas. But there has been a counter, more populist tradition, which is not only to scorn liberal ideas but to scorn ideas entirely. And I'm afraid that Sarah Palin has those prejudices. I think President Bush has those prejudices."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/08/david-brooks-sarah-palin_n_133001.html
Former McCain campaign manager John Weaver:
"People need to understand, for moral reasons and the protection of our civil society, the differences with Senator Obama are ideological, based on clear differences on policy and a lack of experience compared to Senator McCain and from a purely practical political vantage point, please find me a swing voter, an undecided independent, or a torn female voter that finds an angry mob mentality attractive."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/10/former-mccain-strategist_n_133523.html
David Gergen:
"One of the most striking things we've seen in the last few days, we have seen it at the Palin rallies and we saw it at the McCain rally today and we saw it to a considerable degree during the rescue package legislation. There is a free-floating sort of whipping-around anger that could really lead to some violence. And I think we're not far from that."
Former McCain supporter Frank Schaeffer of the Baltimore Sun:
"John McCain: If your campaign does not stop equating Sen. Barack Obama with terrorism, questioning his patriotism and portraying Mr. Obama as "not one of us," I accuse you of deliberately feeding the most unhinged elements of our society the red meat of hate, and therefore of potentially instigating violence.
At a Sarah Palin rally, someone called out, "Kill him!" At one of your rallies, someone called out, "Terrorist!" Neither was answered or denounced by you or your running mate, as the crowd laughed and cheered. At your campaign event Wednesday in Bethlehem, Pa., the crowd was seething with hatred for the Democratic nominee - an attitude encouraged in speeches there by you, your running mate, your wife and the local Republican chairman.
Shame!
Stop! Think! Your rallies are beginning to look, sound, feel and smell like lynch mobs."
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bal-op.mccain10oct10,0,7557571.story
Dan Balz:
"There is a scene early in "Dead Certain," Robert Draper's book about President Bush, when the Bush campaign, reeling from its loss to John McCain in New Hampshire in the 2000 primary, is plotting its moves for a do-or-die struggle in South Carolina.
As Bush's South Carolina team sketched out one tough step after another, Mark McKinnon, Bush's media adviser, listened with amazement. Draper writes that McKinnon was thinking: "They're letting the dogs off the chain."
John McCain was the victim in that campaign eight years ago. Now, struggling to overcome Barack Obama's lead in the polls, he is unleashing attacks and empowering forces that lead him in the same direction.
Through television ads by his campaign and by the Republican National Committee, Obama is under attack for his association with William Ayers, the 1960s radical. On the campaign trail, McCain's rallies have at times turned into angry rants by his supporters aimed at Obama and the Democrats. Frank Keating, the former governor of Oklahoma and a McCain surrogate went on television this week and played the race card, saying Obama should own up to the fact that he was once a "guy of the street" who used cocaine.
I wrote yesterday about the risks to both McCain and Obama -- and the country -- as they fire at one another in increasingly sharp terms. The danger is that the winner will come to office with a sizable portion of the population poisoned by the effects of the campaign.
But what's also clear is that McCain's tactics are over the line, with no restraint in sight, and threaten to provoke reactions among partisans on both sides that will continue to escalate."
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/10/10/mccain_lets_the_dogs_off_the_c.html
Former Michigan GOP Governor William Milliken:
"He is not the McCain I endorsed," said Milliken, reached at his Traverse City home Thursday. "He keeps saying, 'Who is Barack Obama?' I would ask the question, 'Who is John McCain?' because his campaign has become rather disappointing to me.
"I'm disappointed in the tenor and the personal attacks on the part of the McCain campaign, when he ought to be talking about the issues."
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-ap-mi-mccain-milliken,0,831405.story
George Will of the Washington Post:
"WASHINGTON -- Time was, the Baltimore Orioles manager was Earl Weaver, a short, irascible, Napoleonic figure who, when cranky, as he frequently was, would shout at an umpire, "Are you going to get any better or is this it?" With, mercifully, only one debate to go, that is the question about John McCain's campaign.
In the closing days of his 10-year quest for the presidency, McCain finds it galling that Barack Obama is winning the first serious campaign he has ever run against a Republican. Before Tuesday night's uneventful event, gall was fueling what might be the McCain-Palin campaign's closing argument. It is less that Obama has bad ideas than that Obama is a bad person.
This, McCain and his female Sancho Panza say, is demonstrated by bad associations Obama had in Chicago, such as with William Ayers, the unrepentant terrorist. But the McCain-Palin charges have come just as the Obama campaign is benefiting from a mass mailing it is not paying for. Many millions of American households are gingerly opening envelopes containing reports of the third-quarter losses in their 401(k) and other retirement accounts -- telling each household its portion of the nearly $2 trillion that Americans' accounts have recently shed. In this context, the McCain-Palin campaign's attempt to get Americans to focus on Obama's Chicago associations seem surreal -- or, as a British politician once said about criticism he was receiving, "like being savaged by a dead sheep."
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/10/a_landslide_coming.html
David Brooks:
"[Sarah Palin] represents a fatal cancer to the Republican party. When I first started in journalism, I worked at the National Review for Bill Buckley. And Buckley famously said he'd rather be ruled by the first 2,000 names in the Boston phone book than by the Harvard faculty. But he didn't think those were the only two options. He thought it was important to have people on the conservative side who celebrated ideas, who celebrated learning. And his whole life was based on that, and that was also true for a lot of the other conservatives in the Reagan era. Reagan had an immense faith in the power of ideas. But there has been a counter, more populist tradition, which is not only to scorn liberal ideas but to scorn ideas entirely. And I'm afraid that Sarah Palin has those prejudices. I think President Bush has those prejudices."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/08/david-brooks-sarah-palin_n_133001.html
Former McCain campaign manager John Weaver:
"People need to understand, for moral reasons and the protection of our civil society, the differences with Senator Obama are ideological, based on clear differences on policy and a lack of experience compared to Senator McCain and from a purely practical political vantage point, please find me a swing voter, an undecided independent, or a torn female voter that finds an angry mob mentality attractive."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/10/former-mccain-strategist_n_133523.html
David Gergen:
"One of the most striking things we've seen in the last few days, we have seen it at the Palin rallies and we saw it at the McCain rally today and we saw it to a considerable degree during the rescue package legislation. There is a free-floating sort of whipping-around anger that could really lead to some violence. And I think we're not far from that."
Former McCain supporter Frank Schaeffer of the Baltimore Sun:
"John McCain: If your campaign does not stop equating Sen. Barack Obama with terrorism, questioning his patriotism and portraying Mr. Obama as "not one of us," I accuse you of deliberately feeding the most unhinged elements of our society the red meat of hate, and therefore of potentially instigating violence.
At a Sarah Palin rally, someone called out, "Kill him!" At one of your rallies, someone called out, "Terrorist!" Neither was answered or denounced by you or your running mate, as the crowd laughed and cheered. At your campaign event Wednesday in Bethlehem, Pa., the crowd was seething with hatred for the Democratic nominee - an attitude encouraged in speeches there by you, your running mate, your wife and the local Republican chairman.
Shame!
Stop! Think! Your rallies are beginning to look, sound, feel and smell like lynch mobs."
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bal-op.mccain10oct10,0,7557571.story
Dan Balz:
"There is a scene early in "Dead Certain," Robert Draper's book about President Bush, when the Bush campaign, reeling from its loss to John McCain in New Hampshire in the 2000 primary, is plotting its moves for a do-or-die struggle in South Carolina.
As Bush's South Carolina team sketched out one tough step after another, Mark McKinnon, Bush's media adviser, listened with amazement. Draper writes that McKinnon was thinking: "They're letting the dogs off the chain."
John McCain was the victim in that campaign eight years ago. Now, struggling to overcome Barack Obama's lead in the polls, he is unleashing attacks and empowering forces that lead him in the same direction.
Through television ads by his campaign and by the Republican National Committee, Obama is under attack for his association with William Ayers, the 1960s radical. On the campaign trail, McCain's rallies have at times turned into angry rants by his supporters aimed at Obama and the Democrats. Frank Keating, the former governor of Oklahoma and a McCain surrogate went on television this week and played the race card, saying Obama should own up to the fact that he was once a "guy of the street" who used cocaine.
I wrote yesterday about the risks to both McCain and Obama -- and the country -- as they fire at one another in increasingly sharp terms. The danger is that the winner will come to office with a sizable portion of the population poisoned by the effects of the campaign.
But what's also clear is that McCain's tactics are over the line, with no restraint in sight, and threaten to provoke reactions among partisans on both sides that will continue to escalate."
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/10/10/mccain_lets_the_dogs_off_the_c.html
Former Michigan GOP Governor William Milliken:
"He is not the McCain I endorsed," said Milliken, reached at his Traverse City home Thursday. "He keeps saying, 'Who is Barack Obama?' I would ask the question, 'Who is John McCain?' because his campaign has become rather disappointing to me.
"I'm disappointed in the tenor and the personal attacks on the part of the McCain campaign, when he ought to be talking about the issues."
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-ap-mi-mccain-milliken,0,831405.story
