US General Election: McCain vs. Obama

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If the McCain of 2000 were running this year, I would likely have been happy to vote for him. I would have even considered the McCain of 2004. But the McCain of 2008 sold out nearly every principle that used to make him unique and impressive in his attempt to convince the "base" that he's their guy, or at least an acceptable substitute. Hence, we get a McCain who snuggles up to John Hagee, surrounds himself with neo-cons, and says "you have to keep your sense of humor" when the same clowns who were behind 2004's "swiftboating" book about Kerry are at it again now with their "Obama is a secret muslim extremist" book (despite McCain's pledge to denounce such attacks, and his admirable defense of Kerry 4 years ago in the same situation). I'm sure his advisors are telling him it's his only realistic shot at winning, which is unfortunate. The McCain of 2000 would have stood up to these jackasses and, IMO, done quite well despite them. This is all speculation of course - it's possible I've been wrong about McCain all along.

Mac the Maverick seems to have fizzled and gone (or was always an illusion, who knows). Mac the Hack is boring full steam ahead. It's disappointing. I really liked the McCain with integrity. You can see how painful it is for him when he has to deliver a line like "Obama is willing to lose a war in order to win an election," followed by a slow, painful, forced sh*t-eating grin. You can see in his face that he knows he just said something disingenuous and beneath him, but he says it anyway. It's does make me a little sad, in the way it makes you sad when you see a once great actor you used to love doing an infomercial or guest-starring on a crappy TV show. It just makes you wonder what happened along the way.

 

Appartently, the weeks of anti-Obama ads are working. For the first time, recent polls show that McCain is leading Obama by a five-point margin, 46%-41%. With a 4% margin of error in the poll, that can be considered a significant difference.

 

He sold out. He should have been the choice for the Republicans in 2000. But he was a victim of the Rove/Republican Slime Machine and he was completely swift-boated out of the nomination. He saw it work against him, so he probably figured those guys can do the same for him against anyone the Democrats can come up with. Why should he bother with "integrity" when it doesn't get him anywhere? Virtue is its own reward but it gets you zip in American politics. Again, he has sold his soul to the devil. Mac wants to be prez so badly it's SCARY.

 

Chandos, if you expect to find integrity anywhere in American politics, or probably anywhere in politics at all, you may want to reconsider your view of politics. I doubt you could really say anyone in Congress today has integrity if you knew everything they did to get and stay there. This may not be the ancient Roman Senate, but politics is politics.

 

Sometimes insomnia pays off - I get to announce that Obama's running mate will be Joe Biden after all. They're confirming it now on all the cable news networks. Thoughts?

 

Thank you for restating my point. It's good to know we agree on "something."

 

I think Rags had a great point about the Republicans being better at marketing. For the life of me I can't understand why so many people would choose McCain unless they really like Bush and the direction he has been going in, but quite a few seem at least to be thinking about it.

I myself am more than a little... annoyed, I guess, at how after all the talk how he and his campaign wouldn't engage in personal attacks, he seems to be way too eager to do just that - and he may actually be better off for it with respect to his chances to get elected. For all the flak the HRC campaign got, I don't think they were nearly that personal.

 

I truly think one of the main things hurting obama is the fact that he doesn't know how to market his ideas like the rep's do

 

I received this as a e-mail:

An email from Ireland to all of their brethren in the States. A point to ponder despite your political affiliation:

We, in Ireland, can't figure out why you people are even bothering to hold an election in the United States ...

On one side, you had a pants wearing female lawyer, married to another lawyer who can 't seem to keep his pants on, who just lost a long and heated primary against a lawyer, who goes to the wrong church, who is married to yet another lawyer, who doesn't even like the country her husband wants to run!

Now ... on the other side, you have a nice old war hero whose name starts with the appropriate 'Mc', married to a good looking younger woman who owns a beer distributorship!

What in God's name are ya lads thinkin over in the colonies!

 

Now thats funny!

 

Colonies? Last time I checked the "colony" England had was Ireland. Maybe the "lad" needs to sober-up a bit....

Yeah, I'm sure it gets big laughs with the AM radio crowd.

 

I actually thought it was kinda funny. I can take a joke, especially one involving beer.

 

Those old Clinton jokes are as old and stale as McCain. Well, maybe not THAT old....

 

What are you talking about? Barack is Irish - They just forgot the apostrophe:

O'Bama and Biden '08

 

You already corrected my spelling on that before....

Chandos, you're just jealous that you couldn't come up with something better.

 

Gen. Petraeus gave an interesting interview for the BBC recently - it will be aired at 22:30 GMT tonight - in which he gives his opinion on Iraq and Afghanistan. I suppose we will have to wait for the full interview for more details, but it seems that the Obama campaign might benefit from it - he seems to support several of their points.

 

Anyone surprised?

Gee, I can't imagine.

 

AMaster,
of course the attacks in Pakistan have no bearing whatsoever on the coming election. Whoever thinks that is unfair to the Bush administration. It is solely aimed on getting the mastermind behind 9/11. After all, seven is a symbolic number. He rested on the seventh day. It would only be fitting to put Bin Laden to rest seven years, seven days after 9/11 - perhaps there is, under a suitably esoteric reading of the text, even a biblical prophecy to be found supporting that approach.

My inner cynic makes the following argument: If you do such things (that are likely to make people upset or very, very angry), do it covertly to avoid everyone from knowing (and getting upset or very, very angry) about it (which is the very point of covertness). However, apparently Bush wanted it to be known (else the Whitehouse and their proxies would be the yelling at everyone about irresponsibly leaking secret, secret, information to the public. We don't see that). The choice to go into Pakistan territory has a few implications:

Spoiler

• It violates the sovereignty of a formal ally, which is unlikely to make said ally any more cooperative, after all it puts the civilian government in the impossible position to be allied with a nation that unilaterally claims the right to kill Pakistani citizens if they fit US target profiles. If the Pakistani government is on board with this, they will have a hard time selling that to their population. Pakistani conservatives cannot possibly like that, and their inevitable avenue of attack is utterly predictable:
  Spoiler

  How can you claim to serve the country when you allow foreigners to kill our people? How can you claim to take serious Pakistani sovereignty when you allow that foreigners with impunity? You are just a US puppet and a traitor to our country!

  Spoiler

  Guess what.
• The guys in the tribal lands are the Pashtuns. The majority in the army and intelligence services is Pashtun. They are angry about the US attacking their territories and killing their people. They don't care whatever justification the US speak out. It is unrealistic to expect them to stand idly by and stay to their government tolerating the US is blowing up their kin (which is to be understood large. I am invited to a Turkish wedding sometime soon; they expect roughly 2000 guests), or to respect any peace deals with the government if US strikes continue.
• Pashtuns appear to have a short-fuse 'doer' mentality and they especially don't take killings, intrusions and insults lightly. Revenge is a question of honour. If they are angry at somebody chances are they just go and try to kill him.
• The US supply chain to Afghanistan iirc largely runs from Karachi all the way through Pakistan. Angry Pakistanis won't have to travel to Iraq or Afghanistan to find opportunity for activities to vent their anger if things go really down hill.
• The Pentagon is acutely aware of that problem. The Joint Chiefs are unlikely to be happy about the current development.
• Sidenote: Pissing off Russia, and in doing so making them actively unhelpful, also isn't the smartest of moves with regard to Afghanistan. But then, this is the wrecking crew at work...
• There is a genuine risk of a further dissolution of the Pakistani Army and intelligence services. The US steps exacerbate the already existing fissures in Pakistani society. If you think that a 30 million Afghanistan as a failed state is bad, think of 160 million Pakistan as a failed state with Al Qaeda and Pakistani nukes in the mix for fun and consider what's nicer.
• If things go down hill the winner will be Al Qaeda, who reliably can count on Bush not getting that their benefit lies in his (over-)reaction.
• US intelligence services and the National Security Council have said all that. Bush isn't interested in such defeatist talk.

That Bush wanted it be known, despite all the aforementioned implications, suggests either recklessness and/or desperation. Desperation as far as US chances to succeed in Afghanistan are concerned (in that view I find the news of the strike alarming), and recklessness as far as a domestic focus is concerned. The only really appreciative audience probably sits in front of US TV sets. My inner cynic's verdict is that the US current activities in Pakistan are (a) rash, (b) an attempt to salvage something that can be called a legacy, (c) intended to help McCain in his electoral campaign (escalating = staying on the offensive = being strong on national security) and (d) an attempt to bind any succeeding administration. It means Bush is gambling again.

But this is all pointless gloominess, after all in Bhutto's hubby taking the throne of Pakistan, honesty, accountability and democracy have prevailed as it is inevitable on the march of history. The odious tyrant Musharraf is gone, and things will go swell now no matter what US actions do to the social fabric of the country (and anyway, their fault for being sooo yesterday and for refusing to embrace the products Libertry™ and Freedom™ as delivered). That doomsday scenario of Pakistan collapsing and Al Qaeda folks getting their fingers on Pakistan's nuclear arsenal, that's old think. Things will be swell because they will be swell. End of story. And now I'm getting myself a piece of cake. Literally

 

I vote we have a referendum --

Be it resolved that Ragusa is not longer allowed to use the "Spoiler" function on SP. We'll vote on it next week.

OK, on to something I found here. It's about the Canadian election but since this discussion is more active and the idea applies equally as well here, I thought I would put it here. The idea has been expressed in the past, but I thought this author (who I should add I usually despise) said it really well. Here's the part I'm referring to:

 

Well, as your source mentions somewhat off-handedly, the media has to shoulder a fair bit of the blame for this dumbing down of the public. In fact, it may be that people are noticeably less dumb than the news they watch.