McCain had an event today in Florida which was moved to a 15,000 person capacity venue due to the Palin buzz. Only McCain appeared without Palin and only managed to fill it to about 20% capacity.
Newsweek had a great wide shot of McCain speaking before the mostly empty stadium but they’ve switched it for a tight shot of him looking swamped. That’s the liberal media bias for ya.
Well, you know, the poor thing can’t handle much inspection or questioning.
Funny how things change in a year. As Mark Steyn of the National Review Online said of SCHIP recipient Graeme Frost,
The bit about hiding behind biography and identity was a special added bonus. 
Anybody else read the title and flash on “Georgie…Tirebiter! He’s Not Insane!”
Nah, but it’s certainly popped into my head at other times during this campaign. And in 2004.
One good thing about all the Palin coverage is that Biden has been allowed to disappear for the time being. One thing that worried me about Biden was his long service in the Senate. I’m sure there are a few votes he’d like to have back and a few he had to hold his nose to vote for.
But, no coverage at all of Biden’s voting record.
Who is funding him is really a good story. That if lookedinto wouldhave him ina court room.
Media is fawning all over him because he is a communist.
Yeah they show up alright but most of them are sorta not really legal to vote. ACORN ring any bells? Part of obamas efforts. OOOPPS.
Best Canidate? A communist? Are really sure about that? Empty suit maybe. No history at all to speek of. Well maybe announcement coming out of a domestic terrorist home.
But more over we have a debate coming up.
One is gonna see obama break. I would say nervouse break down.
Your messia people is hiding. A secret he has used force of threat to silence.
His history is one of freinds that are questionable in terms of legal law abiding Americans.
Slap down a truth is a lot harder in front of the nation in direct confrontation.
So when you find out what this guy really is can you have the courage to tell yourself you picked a dangerouse man for the job of running the country?
Hey I can forgive. Just not forget.
duplicate
At least the Democrats picked a man who can write a coherent thought.
Funding? Well, clearly it’s coming from Chavez and Castro. Those commies stick together like glue!!
Okay, I’ll play.
Tell me who is funding Obama. You know, right? Anyone can send Obama money. It’s not a private club. They even take donations from the marginally literate, so you can send a check today. Get someone else to fill it out though.
Define “communist”. You have to get the definition from a legitimate source. Chick tracts don’t count. Neither does Klan literature.
Define “empty suit”. If by empty suit, you mean top of his class Harvard Law School, 20 years in Chicago politics, and running one of the most effective, well organized presidential campaigns in recent history, while winning the endorsement of numerous senior politicians and business leaders, well then, yeah, empty suit is it.
Tell us! Tell us what it is!
blackcatrun, you don’t really come here for the hunting, do you?
I understand voting on the basis of race, but on the basis of legs?
Maybe Obama should have picked Jennifer Granholm, and instead of a VP debate we could have had a swimsuit competition.
Wow.
Yet another scathing WaPo piece about McCain from someone who used to admire him.
Compare that piece with the oneCohen wrote a few months back called “McCain’s core advantage”: a classic example of a pundit going out of his way to give McCain the benefit of the doubt.
I don’t particularly care for Cohen who is a spouter of the CW if there ever was one but that’s what makes his two pieces especially valuable as an indicator of the prevailing wisdom. They summarize what IMO is the fundamental story of the McCain campaign over the last two weeks: he has sacrificed a core advantage for a short-term political boost. I don’t think the boost is that big anyway and I don’t think it will last till November.
The thing that concerned me about Palin was the palpable sense of relief she seemed to elicit. Not relief that McCain had picked a winner of a running mate (uh-huh), but that “now we have a reason we can tell ourselves we don’t have to vote for that ." (Fill in the blank for "”.)
It seemed like a segment of the population is grasping for something, anything to give them a psychological defense against facing the fact that they really don’t want to vote for a _____. What else would account for the ridiculous lengths they would go to, to defend such a cynical and unqualified choice?
And if that’s what’s going on, then no amount of persuasion will work on such people. IME, pointing out the irrationality of someone’s psychological whatchamacallit only encourages them to cling to it more tenuously.
Or tenaciously, even.
Anybody but the… well, you know.
There’s a substantial amount of red state, white working class identity politics at work here too. It’s the “she’s one of us” vote.
It’s what they did to Kerry 4 years ago. Kerry is a war hero. They attacked him on the grounds that he was supposed to be the strongest on and told lies to undermine him. That’s why McCain has been following the leader and parroting everything Obama says after a while (so far as campaign themes go, of course); to attack him at his strongest point.
Around here, that kind of statement requires a cite.
And that kind of statement requires at least an argument.
The idea is to throw so much crap around that the average dispassionate voter ends up saying “you know, it’s dirty on both sides, they are all dirty, I give up”. If everyone is dirty, then you are allowed to pick a guy who has been dirty without feeling bad.
The mudslinging is intended to allow the person uncomfortable with Obama (for reasons of experience, race, religion, culture, whatever non-policy reason) but not sold on McCain to vote against their discomfort. If they are the same, McCain is less of a risk.
This is why the reaction of the media in this case is so important. If there are really stories in mainstream publications where McCain is hit without the requisite “Obama is also dirty” paragraph, peoples’ perceptions could begin to shake a bit. It’s apparent to me anecdotally that one of the things we can agree on is that media driven trivia politics is bad for us and bad for our relationships with each other. No candidate wants to become the sole flagbearer for dirty fighting.
I anticipate a retreat or at least a “balance” attempt on this issue, as media personalities seek to avoid being blamed for an Obama victory for four years. You know what? They will be anyway, and maybe some of them are realizing that.
Beg pardon? what about the time in 2000 when Bobby Rush cleaned Obama’s clock in the Democratic primary for a congressional seat? Rush won, taking 61 % of the vote to Obama’s 30%.