The flop sweat has been showing for some time, but lately it's been ankle-deep. John McCain is losing, and losing big. We know it, he knows it, everyone knows it. By every quantifiable measure, he's screwed. And we win.
But we're told that Johnny the Drama Queen is gonna go out in grand melodramatic style, throwing the kitchen sink, the bathroom sink, the toilet bowl, and every bit of sewage he can grab at Barack Obama.
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McCain's running mate, the shameless, phony-baloney actress Sarah Palin (a.k.a. Rich Lowry's Pretend Girlfriend) signaled the new direction today with her claim that Obama is a pal of terrorists.
This is not to say that McCain and Palin haven't been mostly ugly and negative to date. But apparently they're gonna ramp up the nasty in the last few weeks, in yet another McCain "Hail Mary Pass" (roughly, his 7396th in his campaign).
And McCain's camp has leaked that they're going to trot out some golden oldies from primary season, and try to give them some new life. Yep, it's time once again for the law firm of Ayers, Wright, and Rezko:
With one month to go until the November 4th election for presidency, the John McCain campaign will be sharpening their strategy to focus more on his Democratic rival's honesty, judgment and associations. This could prove to be a double edged sword.
November 4 2008, the day of the U.S. presidential election is exactly one month away and it is being reported by the Washington Post, the McCain campaign will start bringing out the big guns or as Jake Tapper from ABC's Political Punch phrases it, opening "up a can of whoop-ass on Obama,", pointing to Barack Obama's judgment with the use of his associations and ties with people like Tony Rezko, William Ayers, Jeremiah Wright and the latest headline news of a former Obama poker pal, Executive Larry Walsh from Will County , and questions leveled by a political opponent about Walsh's connections to a county contractor, which has resulted in questions by the FBI.
This line of attack by the McCain campaign is not without danger, because although many believe a persons associations, ties and business dealings shows quite a bit about a man's character and judgment, both, some would say, could be very important to determining whether or not to vote for a specific politician, on the other hand some consider asking such questions as "negative campaigning".
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I think it's doomed to failure.
McCain the Drama Queen can't resist going out ugly, of course -- he's a nasty, petty old bastard who has always thought the world owed him an ass-kissing, and mostly the Beltway media dopes fell right into line. And John McCain can't BELIEVE that most people in this country didn't really give a crap about him before this election, and now that they've gotten to know him, they don't like what they see. So he's gonna try to burn down the building before he's thrown out.
Like I said, it won't work. It won't kill Obama's very good chances, no matter how many times they keep screaming "Ayers, Wright, Rezko." But here's the thing -- it might throw enough sand into the voters' eyes that Obama's margin of victory could be effected. And that might cut his coattails a little, and effect downticket races. Might, I say.
I don't want to take that chance. I know Obama and his team are trying to run on issues, and trying to hit back without getting as ugly as McCain-Palin. But there's an opportunity they haven't taken yet, and it's time:
DESTROY McCain with his Keating Five Scandal. Finish him off, once and for all.
It could not be more perfect for this moment, after weeks of Republican-induced financial Armageddon.
During the Keating Five scandal, Senator John McCain helped a guy who had bribed him and his wife. He helped Charles Keating, a man who was later convincted of a felony, rob U.S. taxpayers of billions of dollars.
And McCain was OLDER than Obama is now when he did it -- so no bullshit about youthful mistakes here. McCain himself should have been in jail for it, and he was lucky to have the connections he did. Plus -- it was only after that when McCain started kissing up to the press and pretending to be interested in "reform." The re-branding strategy worked on a guillible press, but the facts still speak for themselves:
John McCain let himself be bribed to help an eventual felon loot billions of dollars from U.S. taxpayers.
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I understand the desire of the Obama camp to take the relative high road. They will probably have to govern the country soon, during a very difficult, complex four years.
But the endurance of people like John McCain and his rightwing zombie allies is a real threat to that governance. I'd rather see this Republican party we know today CRUSHED as badly as possible. Then maybe they maybe they can rebuild with fewer sociopaths and traitors, but that's their problem, not ours. Ours is to destroy that party, and get more / better Democrats in office. ("Better" being just as important, of course.)
Here's a possible compromise for Obama and company:
- Contact the McCain camp. High-level to high-level.
- Guarantee them that if they blitz the airwaves with ugly, nasty ads full of lies, they will be very sorry, because...
- One day later the airwaves will be full of Keating Five scandal, 24/7. Mutliple ads, all about McCain's crookedness, and his history of costing the taxpayer BILLIONS with his poor judgment and questionable personal associations.
- Guarantee that these ads will be relentless, and they will play in every single market in the U.S.A... where McCain's negative ads are playing, and elsewhere too. Obama has more money to spend, and a lot of it will be spent on this.
- John McCain will spend the last few weeks of his pathetic campaign pathetically explaining the Keating Five scandal to America, and then he will be crushed electorally... still explaining, sputtering, parsing, and going into regular temper tantrums that make more people loathe him. A horrible way to go down.
GUARANTEE that, and see if Johnny the Drama Queen and his gang of lying louts still want to act like tough guys.
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UPDATE: From comments I see that some think this is going into the "mud," and / or not related to the issues.
I strongly disagree on both counts.
McCain was a U.S. Senator whose philosophy of government, whose corruption and whose (at the VERY least) poor judgment cost the taxpayers billions. It's thematically related to what we're going through this very week with the economy.
AND it's related to his poor character, yes, but that's the anvil that sinks him further, hopefully demoralizing the GOP base and giving Obama big coattails. We want Obama to have a fighting chance, and he'll need Democratic numbers in Congress.
Keep focusing on issues? Absolutely. Keep the pressure on about McCain's plan to tax health benefits, as Geekesque says. Hell yes. But I think we can walk and chew gum at the same time.