I’m sitting back and watching this campaign roll by and am constantly amazed by the one-sidedness of the race. Everywhere I look I see news stories and editorials ripping McPalin a new one!
Some people might suspect that it’s just “the biased liberal media”, but I’m not so sure. I remember 4 years ago when Al Gore was getting all of the heat for being a heartless, robotic, tree-hugger. In the Bush/Gore race, it seemed like there was a greater balance in the political ecosystem than there is now.
I suspect that this race has boiled down to a large number of mistakes by Senator McCain, Governor Palin, and the people actually running the campaign, and I’ve accumulated a list of thematic discussions which I believe have characterized the race and shaped the election.
- Cops: McCain Worker Made Up Attack Story – CBS News reports that a John McCain campaign volunteer made up a story of being robbed, pinned to the ground and having the letter “B” scratched on her face in a politically inspired attack, police said Friday.
- McCain Campaign Violated McCain-Feingold law with Palin Clothing Purchases – In what has to be one of the most embarrassing turn of events for the McCain campaign thus far, it appears that in purchasing $150,000 worth of clothes for Sarah Palin and her family, McCain and his campaign and/or the RNC have violated the 2002 McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform Act.
- Making Sure Every Vote Isn’t Counted – Accusations of mass voter disqualifications, “legalized vote suppression”, disqualifications based on grammatical errors made by the state, and more are not helping Republicans in general.
- Joe McCain is not helping his brother John – 911 calls cursing at the police, jokes about Virginians being communists, nasty e-mails… it’s like Billy Carter all over again!
- Al Qaida Web site Endorses McCain – Senior advisers to John McCain on Wednesday lashed out at the news that a prominent al-Qaida sympathizer is rooting for their candidate.
- New Questions Over McCain’s Health, Times Reports – Last May, McCain’s campaign and doctors released nearly 1,200 pages of medical information, far more than the three other nominees. But the documents were released in a restricted way that leaves questions, even confusion, about his cancer.
- Prominent Republicans Line Up Behind Obama – Charles Fried, a Harvard Law professor and former Solicitor General in the Reagan administration, Scott McClellan, a former spokesman for President George W. Bush, former Minnesota Gov. Arne Carlson, former Massachusetts Gov. William Weld, Ken Adelman, a prominent conservative on foreign policy matters and more.
- Palin says Obama friendly with terrorists – Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin accused Democratic candidate Barack Obama on Saturday of “palling around with terrorists,” in the latest sign the campaign is turning increasingly nasty.
- McCain supporters constantly calling Obama Un-American – In this video McCain is forced to stick up for Obama twice in one rally when supporters attack Obama’s patriotism. The Obama camp claims this is the norm.
- Palin paints picture of “American” and “Un-American” parts of country – Among Colin Powell’s reasons for endorsing Barack Obama was a criticism of the Republican Party and the McCain campaign’s attempts to paint Obama and his supporters as “un-American”. Sarah Palin refers to “pro-American” parts of the country and to McCain supporters as “patriotic Americans”.
- McCain Criticized for Racial Slur against Asians – “If Sen. McCain had been captured by Nigerians, could he call those people `niggers’ and think he wasn’t going to offend everyone who is black?” Akoi asked. “We can all feel for what he went through, but if that’s his level of sensitivity, I’m very disappointed.”
- Joe the Plumber isn’t really a plumber. And doesn’t make $250,000. – McCain’s choice of unvetted citizens to thrust into the American spotlight has been unfortunate. They all seem to hurt more than help.
The bottom line is that I just don’t see any good news coming McCain’s way. Every story seems to be one of distraction or defection. At some point, you want something to go right for the guy. After all, the only thing I’m likely to remember coming out of the 2008 Republican campaign this year is “Drill baby drill!”
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I’m sitting back and watching this campaign roll by and am constantly amazed by the one-sidedness of the race. Everywhere I look I see news stories and editorials ripping McPalin a new one! 
The gaffs of McPalin will pale in comparison to the ugliness of an Obama regime. We’ll all forget what could have been and will settle for the joy of seeing the fruits of our labor going to our neighbor. Palin’s clothes are nothing compared to the slaughter of millions that will be credited to Obama’s unchecked promotion of abortion. Obama certainly has harnessed the nation’s youth to do his will. Let’s call them the Red Brigades for our the American cultural revolution. American should be in fear that life as we know it will come to an awful end if Obama is our leader.
denver todd, you can hardly characterize abortion as “the slaughter of millions” and still expect to be taken seriously. it’s one of the most massive failings of the republoconservative agenda that abortion — a personal medical decision best made between a woman, her family, her spiritual advisor and her doctor — has become a political lightning rod at all.
obama is the best thing that has happened to american politics in quite some time. he is honest, smart, ethical and willing to take appropriate risks. you can come back here in 2012 and eat your hat when you watch how the country, and how this country’s reputation in the world at large, has improved.
john, this is a great roundup of the highlight of mccain’s epic failure. thanks for creating the “cliff notes” version for us this way.
How can you say that abortion is a “personal medical decision best made between a woman, her family, her spiritual advisor and her doctor.” It comes done to one thing, when does life begin. If life begins before birth then abortion is violating our natural born unalienable right to life. Obama is Honest? funny it would be to honest to go back on your word, which is what he did on the matter of public funding. Ethical??? When asked to prove that he is a U.S. citizen, the ethical thing to do would be comply, not for Obama, he takes it to court because he has something to hide. “Willing to take appropriate risks.” What do you mean by this??? talk to leaders of countries that hate us??? Support the increase in risky loans given out leading us into the financial crisis we are in today? If Obama wins 2012 will be wonderful because it will be the time when we can start to rebuild the country that he will surely ruin.
If Obama/Biden wins, this country will have “buyers remorse” of epic proportion. I would love to comment on the substantive weaknesses of your 13 points, John but that would take a whole new post. I would make one point and say your attention to Joe the Plumber ignores the “spread the wealth” comment Obama made which is the real issue. It doesn’t matter who asked the question. It is the response that matters.
Joe doesn’t make $250,000!! OMG! How horrible. Actually, he never said he made that much. He said that he wanted to buy a business that would be worth that much, but won’t be able too with the taxes Obama wants to burden those bad “rich people”. You seem to think Republicans are bad so you only hear what you want to hear that’ll comport with that belief.
One blatant Obama lie was when he said that he voted against the anti-infanticide bill only because it didn’t have a piece of info in there that he wanted, but the bill was revised to include it, he voted against it again! Obama is pro-infanticide. That is pretty radical. Leaving a baby borth through a botched abortion to be put in some room to die without medical care is not humane. We treat animals better than that.
The pro-Obama crazies pales in comparison to the couple instances from the other side. Open your eyes for goodness sake. And why is it that across the country people are afraid of putting McCain bumper stickers on their car? Because the Dems love to key cars with pro republican bumper stickers. And people have had rocks thrown through windows! It’s rampant. You never hear that about Reps keying or damaging Dem cars or property! Actually, you only hear about this if you listen to talk radio other non-mainstream sources. The bias is sick and wrong.
McCain released reams of medical info, which you criticize, meanwhile Barack has released..drumroll please…Nothing! What is he hiding?
Barack is so shady. The more you look into his background the more and more radical people pop up that he’s surrounded himself with and learned from who’s formed him into the radical left person that he is today. He’s just hiding it pretty well. But get him off teleprompter and talking points, aka Joe the Plumer, and the truth comes out. “spread the wealth”. If you take from the rich and give to the poor you’ll just end up with a bunch of poor people…but, hey that’s good, because everyone will be equal, right?!
Where is the outcry over Barack flying solo in his campaign funded airplane to Hawaii to visit his grandmother?! I’m not saying I have a problem with that, she is dying after all, I’m saying there’s an obvious bias. I’m sure jet fuel costs a fortune.
Anyway, do you really have to post polical stuff? I get bombarded with enough propaganda in the mainstream media. I subscribed to your newsletter for the fun stuff, not these political rantings.
Does anyone actually think that our current system does not spread the wealth? That is how all non-communist countries operate.
If you want to live in a country that doesn’t, try North Korea, Cuba, China…and hope that you are lucky enough to be born into the ruling elite.
BTW…abortion will always be legal and so will guns…so both sides have something to cry/cheer about.
Well it looks like the first time I tried to post this comment it didn’t work, so here it is again.
These are the kind of posts that make me thing about unsubscribing from your blog. There are just so many things wrong with it., So I’m just going to go down the list.
1. This was not done by the McCain campaign in any way, Obama supporters have done things much worse than make up a story.
2. This is the only website I have seen report this story, the author has “held positions within the Democratic Party.” I’d say it’s safe to say his in the bag for Obama. Also he does not link to any thing to back up what he writes. How do they know where Sarah Palin got her clothes, how much they cost and who payed for them?
3. Obama has very strong ties to Acorn. Acorn is commiting fraud like crazy.
4. Not done by the campaign, look at Obama’s brother.
5. Not done by the campaign again, Obama has also been endorsed by terrorists.
6. At least McCain released them, Obama will not, along with his birth certificate.
7. Not done by the campaign, and only a few people jumped ship, that happens, McCain is not Bush.
8. Well he does have links to them so I can’t see how this is a “mistake.”
9. Try looking at the other side, I have seen people being yelled at, flipped off, and cussed at just for supporting McCain.
10. Obama is going to mess with things that are American. Guns, Baseball and Capitalism, just to name a few.
11. At least he did not go to a white supremacist church for many years. Imagine if he was married by a member of the KKK???
12. That’s not the issue, Obama told the man to his face, “The government will determine who gets your money, not you.
13. I only count 12 but the title says 13?
I’m sorry for making such a long comment, but like I said these are the kind of post that make me think of leaving this blog once and for all. If any one questions the claims I have made, I beg you to google it first, then claim I made it all up.
Philip
Philip,
Thanks for responding to each of the points, but I think you missed my point entirely. I was not promoting that those things were true or untrue, merely making an observation about the main issues I’ve observed hurting the McCain campaign.
You are obviously a McCain supporter, so you cannot be happy about the fact that Obama is leading considerably in the polls. Furthermore, if you think Obama is a weak candidate, then there is all the less reason for him to find himself with a lead.
So, if you don’t think the issues I’ve addressed above are the ones hurting McCain, then what do you see as the main reasons he’s losing this election? I’m just trying to figure out where the wheels fell off the bus?
John
Obama is not leading by lot in all polls. I have seen some with him in up by only 3 or 4 points. There are a few reasons why Obama is leading in the polls. The media is giving him a free pass. His campaign has made many mistakes but the mainstream media will not cover them. Also he is black, some people will vote for him just because of that. But at the same time some people will tell a pollster that they will vote for him but when it comes time to vote they will not because he is black. McCain has taken some heat because he has had to run quite a few negative ads where as Obama doesn’t have to because the main stream media does it for him. Other then that, I see no reason why Obama is leading in any poll, other then the fact that I think most Americans don’t know that much about him and his past. From what I have seen I can not believe any one would support him or even vote for him.
I’m not a McCain supporter, I’m just trying to save America from Obama.
And lastly you say you were not posting these as true or untrue, why would you post something that is a lie, and then still try to link to some sort of evidence?
Philip
P.S. I dare you to look in to Obama’s campaign and past and make a post like this one.
As someone that won’t be voting for Obama but doesn’t really care for McCain either, I would say some of the reasons I personally don’t like his campaign are probably similar to many.
1) After the convention he had a great bounce in the polls and I was very interested in hearing his plan for the future. Here he failed to build on his lead by effectively communicating his economic plan for America. It took a guy like Joe the Plumber (who cares if he is really a plumber) to actually convey the message that raising taxes on Small Businesses is bad. Also, in my mind many of his plans did not relay to me confidence that he was going to reduce the role of Gvt. in my life. Quite simply he never effectively related his economic vision to the American people but instead relied on slogans.
2) During the crash he failed to show how he was someone that called out for further regulation on Fannie & Freddie but was apposed by congressional democrats. He could have further tied an Obama presidency to these Democrats that could possibly have a super majority and not have anyone in the Executive branch to oppose them. The only group with lower approval ratings than Bush is typical congress.
3) Palin got to be a very popular Governor with bi-partisan support how? What projects/programs would she work on as VP to help eliminate Gvt waste? Too focused on micro-managing her and not letting her be natural. When she goes “off-script” she does pretty well.
4) Not controlling his camp and personnel. Leaks in the Obama camp are rare and infighting rarer.
5) Calling Obama out for going back on his word on public financing late in the game.
6) Over dramatizing the Ayers story and making it a center campaign piece. Why not simply make this a side issue and use Ayers, Wright, Resco, etc. and make it a story about who would be surrounding him and not try to make it a story about these people reflect his view points. I personally don’t really care for these types of ads as you can play 7 degrees and link them both to Kevin Bacon I am sure.
7) Not working closer with the press to get out the positive messages of his campaign. This is probably one of the key failings. There are nearly twice as many negative articles and stories printed or televised about McCain than Obama. People are naturally biased and will take the food that McCain is throwing them in terms of divisions in his camp and miscues and pounce if he is not working with them. He is being outspent by record amounts and the only way he can get his message out is to use the press in a positive manner and use the internet. He is failing at both.
I am sure there are more if I thought about it but felt these are more on target than some of the symptoms you mentioned above.
Very less days left now. We will have a new president though :)
Lets hope it is not the one you dislike.
very simple, a failure to get the money required to mount a campaign. The GOP today took out a loan to finance congressional candidates. follow the money, no truer words ever spoken.