Bereft. Inconsolable.
Not like Chuck Hagel. There are myriad ways of distancing one’s self from the president, many of them diplomatic and presidential. Hagel went after it with a pitchfork and manure spreader.
He used the pitchfork to stuff GeeDub into the manure spreader? Splendid!
Yeah, it’s almost like McCain was thinking about something other than his political future when he made those decisions. What the hell it was, I can’t imagine.
Whatever it was, he apparently thought better of it.
Here’s a crazy thought:
Why don’t you just honestly debate with him and his supporters over the form of government that is appropriate, or whether his proposed policies are better or worse than the Democrats’? So far, both McCain and Obama have been sending strong signals that they want to elevate the tone of this election and debate the merits while respecting the opponent.
Would that be such a bad thing?
He didn’t know the occupation was going to come out so sideways at the time. It was politically calculated all right, the calculation just turned out wrong.
What’s unfair or dirty about going after him on his support for Bush and for the debacle in Iraq? Those are pure policy issues, nothing personal about them, and no policy issue is more urgent at the moment either.
I agree the debate should focus on nothing but policy but that seems to be the gist of the opinion for everyone else in this thread too.
I will tell you that if I see any 527 ads trying to swiftboat McCain for anything that happened in Nam (and some people have tried to make an issue of the fact that he signed some kind of bullshit war crimes “confession” after several straight days of torture) or, God forbid try to revive that sleazy bastard baby smear, I’ll be the first one breaking off a metaphorical beer bottle and looking to to cut a motherfucker.
John McCain is a candidate who I respect and don’t think is evil or inept, but who I have some honest disagreements with on policy and I think that’s where the debate should lie. I also think that’s where it will lie. I don’t believe that either McCain or Obama are dirty campaigners and we’ll see a clean fight.
Bush and McCain’s Iraq policy are totally fair game. McCain is going to have to convince the American people to either agree with him, or to overlook this issue. If I were on your side it would be a pretty big damned deal to me.
What I’m talking about are accusations of adultery, dredging up old enemies, pictures of candidates in turbans, and that kind of nonsense. Character assassination, guilt through innuendo or casual relationship with someone who may have committed a crime, that sort of stuff. Tabloid journalism. The politics of personal destruction. Call it whatever you want, but it would be nice if we could actually have a debate on the merits of what each person wants to do and just start out by conceding that they are both good, honorable people with the best of intentions.
Really? Like he’d be the Republican nominee today if he hadn’t kissed Bush’s ass?
I can’t believe I just read that.
According to the polls I’ve seen on Countdown and CBS News, the Republicans aren’t any more pleased with Bush than anyone else. If 20% of Americans truly do approve of the way Bush has pursued the war in Iraq, they must come from the right-wing fringe of that party. Seems to me Bush’s endorsement would be lethal if there was another viable candidate still in the race.
The people who vote in primaries are the most hardcore true believers. It would have been impossible for McCain to get the nomination without sucking off Bush.
I dunno – I suppose, if the GOP has been so utterly taken over by the ultra-cons and the neo-cons. It ain’t Barry Goldwater’s party any more. On the other hand, maybe I’m a flaming optimist for thinking McCain could have led the Republicans back from whence they came, shedding the Hagees along the way. Honest to God, I cannot believe … nay, I REFUSE to believe that John Hagee is to the Republican party what Billy Graham once was. 'Course, I really had my hopes pinned on Romney – I really thought intelligent Republicans would flock to him in such large numbers that they would flush the ultra-religious from the party and reclaim their GOP. Silly me!
Not at all, but did you read the title of the thread, Sam? The question is what tactics the Democrats WILL use against him, not what tactics they should.
In any event, I strongly suspect an Obama-Someone ticket would just keep working the “Yes we can!” angle and limit its attacks on McCain to his increasing similarity to George W. Bush. At a glance it’s difficult to tell precisely what it is McCain would do differently; he wants to keep slogging in Iraq, is nominally very socially conservative, so on and so forth. An Obama campaign simply has to run a two-point message:
- Barack is wonderful! Yes we can! Woo hoo! Yes we can!
- Things are not good now, so why elect a guy who wants more of the same?
There’s no need to swiftboat McCain with lies about Vietnam confessions. There’s not even really any reason to bring up his about-face on social issues and radical Christianity, or point out that he helped Charles Keating loot the American public. None of that fits with Obama’s strategy, which is based almost entirely on being really, really, glee-club nutty about Barack Obama and how he’s going to Change Everything and can heal injured puppies with the touch of his hand. Going super-negative is simply not what’s worked for him so far, so why get away from what works? He doesn’t even have to attack McCain directly; he just needs to appeal to the 80% of Americans who think Bush has done a bad job and then point out that McCain differs little, at least in terms of policy. Then just throw out some more "Yes we can!"s. The silly cheerleading thing isn’t going to work forever, but it’s working in 2008. He’ll need something new in 2012, but he can worry about it then.
Now, a Clinton ticket would have to take a different approach. The Bush-McCain-Lack-Of-Difference argument would have to be the focus of her campaign, because she doesn’t have Obama’s Hypnotoad appeal; in fact, she’s quite unlikeable. Her personal impression campaign will have to be based on her appearance of strength and stateswomanship, but she’d be better off putting most of her effort into attacking McCain’s lack of policy alternatives.
Of course, for McCain, precisely the opposite holds true. Obama should be attacked as being an empty suit whose “Yes we can!” campaign lacks substance. He can be hit hard on his apparent lying about his attitude towards NAFTA; if McCain’s people are smart they’ll paint Obama as all campaign, no President. To beat Obama McCain must look to turning a few big blue states, like Pennsylvania or Michigan, on an “I have experience and he’s a suit” pitch. Simply defending Bush’s red state wins probably won’t be enough because Obama will steal some southern states, especially ones with lots of black or working class voters who’'l be motivated to turn out for him. Clinton, meanwhile, should be played hard on her unlikability; McCain’s approach should be to defend all the red states, which in most cases won’t be hard, and assault a few borderline blues where her liberal reputation and personality might turn off enough voters to switch the state.
Precisely the point on which many on all sides are in varying ways skeptical. In fact, are you sure you entirely believe it yourself? WRT both (or even all three) candidates?
20% hardly constitutes a fringe. That’s almost half of all Republicans.
Back to the OP: I imagine the tactics will depend greatly upon McCain’s choice of VP.
Made me laugh :p.
If all else fails, try the truth: McCain is an even scarier neocon than W.
I’m not even sure you have a consistent definition of what a “Neocon” is except “Someone I dislike.” A willingness to change things isn’t “conservative.”
Let’s parse your quote:
Islamic extremism IS a challenge. He’s absolutely right. The greatest failure of the Bush administration was its failure to understand this; instead, they poured the country’s might into an unnecessary war with a largely secular state that wasn’t a threat.
An international league of countries restricted to democracies? Fabulous idea.
Potent coveert ops units? This is just silly talk; the USA already HAS potent covert ops units.
Wait a second. According to this person, McCain wants a LEague of Democracies and an expanded NATO (which could be the same thing, if you dumped the NA in NATO) but wants a revived unilateralism? Which is it? It sounds like he’s not quite sure what McCain is actually saying.
I mean, isn’t this just common fucking sense? The United Nations was created in response to World War II, and shaped by the Cold War. Shouldn’t it be considered at least an interesting idea to put forward ideas for a new international, maybe even transnational, structure for the 21st century? Does the current Treaty of Westphalia-inspired system really confer that many benefits upon us?
McCain wants to revisit this? Great idea.
Is this list supposed to be scary to anyone? Ralph Peters has been very honest and outspoken about his perception that the Bush administration is wildly incompetent and bunged up the war in Iraq eight days from Sunday. He once wrote about a meeting he had with Bush admin people that he went in hoping they had come up with a Plan B… and was horrified to realize that they didn’t appear to have a Plan A.
If McCain is surrounding himself with conservatives who think Bush screwed the pooch, that’s a good thing. If McCain is willing to look into different ways of conducting foreign affairs, isn’t that sort of a good idea? The CURRENT methods certainly don’t work for shit.