Best McCain ad yet

[ajmccarrell]

Originally Posted by strandinthewind

I get that this is an opinion, but I agree with what she says in that McCain has chosen to take the low road - a pity if you ask me:

August 6, 2008

Op-Ed Columnist

McCain’s Green-Eyed Monster


By MAUREEN DOWD
WASHINGTON

Not since Iago and Othello obsessed on the comely Cassio, not since Richard of Gloucester killed his two nephews, not since Nixon and Johnson glowered at the glittering J.F.K., has there been such an unseemly outpouring of boy envy.

Bill Clinton, Jesse Jackson and John Edwards have all been crazed with envy over the ascendance of the new “It” guy, Barack Obama.

Unlike his wife, Bill Clinton — the master of fake sincerity — still continues to openly begrudge his party’s betrothed.

Asked by Kate Snow of ABC News in Africa whether Obama was ready to be president, Clinton gave a classic Clintonian answer: “You could argue that no one’s ever ready to be president.”

As always, the Big Dog was more concerned with himself — asserting that he’s not a racist — than his party. Bill Clinton is not a racist. We can posit that. But he did play subtle racial politics in the primary. It’s way past time for him to accept the fact that there’s a new wunderkind in town.

Just as Bill Clinton looks at Obama and sees his own oblivion, so does Jesse Jackson. As Shelby Steele wrote in The Wall Street Journal, Jackson and his generation of civil rights leaders “made keeping whites ‘on the hook’ the most sacred article of the post-’60s black identity,” equality pursued by manipulating white guilt.

Now John McCain is pea-green with envy. That’s the only explanation for why a man who prides himself on honor, a man who vowed not to take the low road in the campaign, having been mugged by W. and Rove in South Carolina in 2000, is engaging in a festival of juvenilia.

The Arizona senator who built his reputation on being a brave proponent of big solutions is running a schoolyard campaign about tire gauges and Paris Hilton, childishly accusing his opponent of being too serious, too popular and not patriotic enough.

Even his own mother, the magical 96-year-old Roberta McCain, let slip that she thought the Paris Hilton-Britney Spears ad was “kinda stupid.”

McCain’s 2000 strategist, John Weaver, was equally blunt with Newsweek’s Jonathan Alter: “It’s hard to imagine America responding to ‘small ball’ when we have all these problems.”

Some of McCain’s old pals in the Senate are cringing at what they see as his soulless transformation into what he once scorned.

“John’s eaten up with envy,” said one. “His image of himself was always the handsome, celebrity flyboy.

“Now somebody else is the celebrity,” the colleague continued, while John looks in the mirror and sees his face marred by skin cancer and looks at the TV and sees his dashing self-image replaced by visions of William Frawley, with Letterman jokes about his membership in the ham radio club and adventures with wagon trains.

For McCain, being cool meant being a rogue, not a policy wonk; but Obama manages to be a cool College Bowl type, which must irk McCain, who liked to play up his bad-boy cool. Now the guy in the back of the class is shooting spitballs at the class pet and is coming off as more juvenile than daring.

Around the McCain campaign, they grouse that Obama “hasn’t bled.” He hasn’t bled literally, in military service, just like W., the last holder of an E-ZPass who sped past McCain. And he hasn’t paid his dues in the Senate, since he basically just stopped by for directions to the Oval Office.

As a new senator, Obama was not only precocious enough to pounce on turf that McCain had invested years in, such as campaign finance lobbying, ethics reform and earmarks. When Obama did reach across the aisle for a mentor, it was to the staid Richard Lugar of Indiana, not to the salty Republican of choice for Democrats, McCain.

When the Illinois freshman took back a private promise to join McCain’s campaign finance reform effort, McCain told his aide Mark Salter to “brush him back.” Salter sent an over-the-top vituperative letter to Obama. “I guess I beaned him instead,” Salter told Newsweek’s Howard Fineman.

McCain could dismiss W. as a lightweight, but he knows Obama’s smart. Obama wrote his own books, while McCain’s were written by Salter. McCain knows he’s the affirmative action scion of admirals who might not have gotten through Annapolis without being a legacy. Obama didn’t even tell Harvard Law School that he was black on his application.

McCain upbraids Obama for being a poppet, while he’s becoming a puppet. His mouth is moving but the words coming out belong to his new hard-boiled strategist, Steve Schmidt, a Rove protégé, nicknamed “The Bullet” for his bald pate.

Schmidt has turned Mr. Straight Talk into Mr. Desperate Straits. It’s not a good trade.



http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/06/op...hp&oref=slogin

It's been effective. He's now tied with Obama on most polls. That is, if you consider polls trustworthy. Reality usually swings a little further to the right than polls would indicate, as a brief comparison of polls to election results would show. Most conservatives have been shown to hang up the phone or not want to talk to pollsters. When I took statistics, we even studied that conservatives tend not to answer polling questions, or are not at home during times when a lot of polls are conducted. Most of them are not foaming at the mouth, waiting to express an opinion like I am.

[strandinthewind]

Originally Posted by ajmccarrell

It's been effective . . . .

I do not think anyone is arguiong that. I certainly am not. I am saying that McCain has sunk to a low to achieve that effectiveness. Sadly, McCain could not do it on the issues or with statesman like poise, which he had maintained up until now. Now, he is no better than Rove, and that is saying alot and it makes McCain onbe step closer to W than he already is.

Do you actually advocate the use of these untrue associations in an attempt to smear someone with no regard to their actual stance on issues? If you do, that, to me, is very sad.

And, I would call out Obama or anyone else if he did this kind of cowardly behaviour.

I truly have lost the respect I had for McCain and I had a bunch.

To see one selling their soul to the devil for, in the end, vanity, is never pretty

[ajmccarrell]

Originally Posted by strandinthewind

I do not think anyone is arguiong that. I certainly am not. I am saying that McCain has sunk to a low to achieve that effectiveness. Sadly, McCain could not do it on the issues or with statesman like poise, which he had maintained up until now. Now, he is no better than Rove, and that is saying alot and it makes McCain onbe step closer to W than he already is.

Do you actually advocate the use of these untrue associations in an attempt to smear someone with no regard to their actual stance on issues? If you do, that, to me, is very sad.

And, I would call out Obama or anyone else if he did this kind of cowardly behaviour.

I truly have lost the respect I had for McCain and I had a bunch.

To see one selling their soul to the devil for, in the end, vainity, is never pretty

I don't see anything untrue there at all. What has McCain said in his ads that isn't true? Obama isn't experienced, he is tied to Hollywood, he does have a Messiah complex. I mean, Obama does like to be fawned over. He accused a reporter that challenged his position of being a schill for McCain. He loses his temper when media figures don't gaze into his eyes lovingly and bow at his feet. The guy really is the height of arrogance. He's also spending the day of the Republican convention in Europe with Clooney and other celebrities. He is tied into Hollywood and sadly Paris Hilton has a more comprehensive energy plan than he does. It's actually the same as McCain's.

I don't blame McCain for doing what he did at all because he needs the coverage. We all know what color Obama's bowel movements were every day and McCain states a position and gets no coverage. So.... You just want him to lay over and let Obama's official campaign headquarters at NBC steamroll him?

It's also not know if McCain could beat him on the issues or not because Obama refused to debate them, time and time again, but only after agreeing to debate.

I agree though. Obama is a new kind of candidate. Most candidates and wafflers pick one side at a time. Obama manages to be on both sides of an issue at the same time.

Oh yeah, and I like Karl Rove.

[strandinthewind]

Originally Posted by ajmccarrell

I don't see anything untrue there at all. What has McCain said in his ads that isn't true? . . . .

Please see the aove posts regarding the immediate effets of oil lies.

Also, the ad was, once again, a clear insult to Obama, comparing him to two white girls who are widely regarded as idiots, one with mental and legal problems and one with a criminal record. That implication was clear. In other words, the same point could have been made by using non-criminal and/or mentally challenged stars like George Clooney, Will Smith, etc. Yet, McCain chose the Rove method od putting the black guy against the blond hotties. That to me is pathetic and it ought to be to you too.

But, I really do not feel like arguing it anymore. So, I will refer to this post and the 100 or so before it for future reference.

That you like Rove is not a compliment to you. The man used lies and innuendo to destroy honorable people.

[ajmccarrell]

Originally Posted by strandinthewind

Please see the aove posts regarding the immediate effets of oil lies.

Also, the ad was, once again, a clear insult to Obama, comparing him to two white girls who are widely regarded as idiots, one with mental and legal problems and one with a criminal record. That implication was clear. In other words, the same point could have been made by using non-criminal and/or mentally challenged stars like George Clooney, Will Smith, etc. Yet, McCain chose the Rove method od putting the black guy against the blond hotties. That to me is pathetic and it ought to be to you too.

But, I really do not feel like arguing it anymore. So, I will refer to this post and the 100 or so before it for future reference.

That you like Rove is not a compliment to you. The man used lies and innuendo to destroy honorable people.

I think it was more of comparing Obama to two women that the press obsess over was more the point. We know more about Paris Hilton and Britney Spears than we would like to.

However, Obama isn't exactly squeaky. The comparison to someone who went to jail isn't exactly unfair either. There are those from his college days that accuse him of selling drugs to finance his own habits of "coke & blow". From reading his book, I'm not really concerned about that at this point, as it was so long ago. He was a different person back then and I think that what people do as kids or very young adults shouldn't be held against them, when they have obviously compensated for it. My opinion is "who cares, look at what he's done now". Still...... looking even currently, he's morphed into something a little more insidious than a college pot pusher. Criminal activity creeps up in Obama's own more recent campaigns in Illinois and for President. We all know about Obama's connection to Bill Ayers and Tony Rezco, right? Rezco gave Obama a sweet deal on his house and put it in his own name as a favor to Obama. Ayers admits being involved in domestic terrorist plots. Obama made his plans to announce his candidacy in Ayers house. Rezco is in prison and Ayers certainly belongs there, and both have traded favors with Obama. No one has accused Obama of anything outright illegal (yet), but it certainly is on the par with what Ted Stevens is accused of, or for that matter, Tom Delay, both of which are also inexcusable human beings who abused their positions. It demonstrates EXTREMELY poor judgement in either case.