This article from the Examiner says all we need to know about the regard, or lack thereof, in which Sarah Palin is held by those in D.C. when it comes to foreign policy matters.
Three of the four presidential and vice-presidential candidates were notified this week of the progress in the negotiations on the Status of Forces Agreement between our government and the Iraqis. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates called John McCain, and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice phoned Barack Obama and Joe Biden.
Do you notice a name missing there? You betcha, that would be vice-presidential nominee, Gov. Sarah Palin.
According to State Department spokesman Sean McCormack:
“Senator Obama is the Democratic presidential nominee and, obviously, is an important political figure in the United States. (Either) one of Senator McCain or Senator Obama are going to be president come January. And so just in terms of the courtesy and protocol aspects of this and the practical aspects of this, we thought it was appropriate to make those calls.”
I take that to mean that Gov. Palin is not an “important political figure” as far as the State Department is concerned. I think that’s what critics of Sen. McCain’s choice for a running mate have been saying all along.
Yet another video of the angry mob waiting in line outside a McCain/Palin rally, this time in Johnstown, PA. Before you go down the road of guilt by association, McCain supporters, take a close look at the people with whom you are associated.
Something that has gained little attention lately, as much of the media has been focused on all the “Plumber” hoopla, is that Barack Obama has been aggressively going after Fox News. He made reference to Fox’s bias in the debate on Wednesday night, saying this:
In his remarks at the Al Smith dinner last night, he again mentioned Fox and Rupert Murdoch. In an article in the New York Times, Obama made this observation:
“I am convinced that if there were no Fox News, I might be two or three points higher in the polls,” Obama told me. “If I were watching Fox News, I wouldn’t vote for me, right? Because the way I’m portrayed 24/7 is as a freak! I am the latte-sipping, New York Times-reading, Volvo-driving, no-gun-owning, effete, politically correct, arrogant liberal. Who wants somebody like that?
“I guess the point I’m making,” he went on, “is that there is an entire industry now, an entire apparatus, designed to perpetuate this cultural schism, and it’s powerful. People want to know that you’re fighting for them, that you get them. And I actually think I do. But you know, if people are just seeing me in sound bites, they’re not going to discover that. That’s why I say that some of that may have to happen after the election, when they get to know you.”
Obama’s campaign manager David Ploufe has also recently referred to Fox News as the “24-hour ACORN channel.” With apologies to Mr. Ploufe, and in my own effort to be “fair and balanced”, that’s not entirely true. Better said, Fox has become the 24-hour ACORN and Ayers channel.
Don’t believe it? Take a look at the number of times the words Ayers and ACORN have been mentioned on Fox and their competitors at MSNBC and CNN since Sunday, versus the number of times the economy has been mentioned.
Fox MSNBC CNN
Ayers 525 340 279
ACORN 706 67 112
Economy 826 1032 954
For the mathematically challenged, that comes to 1,231 times the words Ayers and ACORN have been said on Fox, as compared to 826 times the word economy has been mentioned. That is nearly 50% more.
MSNBC and CNN combined have used the words Ayers and ACORN 798 times, as compared with 1,231 by Fox News alone. In contrast, MSNBC and CNN have each used the word economy more times than Fox.
Somebody remind me, which issue was it that 60% of the people said was the most important in the campaign. Was it the economy or was it Ayers and ACORN? I don’t seem to recall.
I hate to say I told you so, Republicans (not really) but I told you so. Your attacks on Barack Obama’s associations aren’t working. In fact, the opposite is true. McCain and Palin’s unfavorable ratings are rising and Obama’s favorables are at an all-time high since the attacks began. Thanks, GOP.
Before we go any further, these numbers are taken from a poll done by the New York Times and CBS, so I know some will dismiss it immediately as “liberal media bias.” You are free to leave at this point.
Now back to the polling data. About McCain’s attempts to tie Obama to William Ayers, the Times found this:
“After several weeks in which the McCain campaign sought to tie Mr. Obama to William Ayers, 64 percent of voters said that they had either read or heard something about the subject. But a majority said they were not bothered by Mr. Obama’s background or past associations. Several people said in follow-up interviews that they felt that Mr. McCain’s attacks on Mr. Obama were too rooted in the past, or too unconnected to the nation’s major problems.”
On the issue of favorability:
“Mr. McCain was viewed unfavorably by 41 percent of voters, and favorably by 36 percent. Ms. Palin’s favorability rating is now 32 percent, down 8 points from last month, and her unfavorable rating climbed nine percentage points to 41 percent. Mr. Obama’s favorability rating, by contrast, is now at 50 percent, the highest recorded for him thus far by The Times and CBS News.”
To show how poorly this attack strategy has worked, Palin’s favorable rating is now only 8 points ahead of President Bush, who is at an all-time low of 24%. Nice job Republicans, keep it up.
To show you how out of touch Republicans are at this point, take a look at this chart showing voter’s responses when asked which candidate has spent more time explaining his positions or attacking his opponent:
Almost half of the Republicans surveyed actually think that McCain has spent more time explaining his positions, talk about living in an alternate reality.
But then again, these are the same Mensa members that we see in line at McCain/Palin rallies, never mind.
Well so much for the charade that the McCain campaign was going to stop the constant personal attacks on Barack Obama and focus on the economy. Quite the contrary, the McCain people and the Republican Party are taking the guilt by association smear to the next level–equating Barack Obama with Osama bin Laden.
The chairman of the Virginia Republican Party is instructing volunteers going door-to-door to tell people that Obama and Osama bin Laden “both have friends that bombed the Pentagon.”
With so much at stake, and time running short, [Virginia Republican Party Chairman Jeff] Frederick did not feel he had the luxury of subtlety. He climbed atop a folding chair to give 30 campaign volunteers who were about to go canvassing door to door their talking points — for instance, the connection between Barack Obama and Osama bin Laden: “Both have friends that bombed the Pentagon,” he said. “That is scary.” It is also not exactly true — though that distorted reference to Obama’s controversial association with William Ayers, a former 60s radical, was enough to get the volunteers stoked. “And he won’t salute the flag,” one woman added, repeating another myth about Obama. She was quickly topped by a man who called out, “We don’t even know where Senator Obama was really born.” Actually, we do; it’s Hawaii.
Senator McCain’s response when questioned about this? You have to see it to believe it.
“I’d have to look at the context of the remarks?” Really? Tell me Senator, in what context would it be appropriate for a member of your campaign to say that there are similarities between a candidate for president of the United States and a terrorist responsible for the deaths of thousands of people?
Let me answer that question. That would be in the context of a desperate man who sees him life-long ambition to be president going down in flames, and will not hesitate to sink to any level to try and achieve that goal, even if it means watching any shred of decency and integrity he may have once had go down with it.
Never before seen: Here’s an inside look as the McCain/Palin team devises a plan to attack Barack Obama, and lists the type of people they will need to carry it out, followed by video of the line outside a rally.
At a campaign rally in Minnesota yesterday, John McCain came face to face with the monster that he and his power-abusing running mate have created. Watch it:
Should Senator McCain be surprised at this? He and Gov. Palin have spent the last week prying the manhole covers off of sewers all across the country and this is what has crawled out and followed him home.
Has he not heard the screams of “terrorist”, “treason”, and “kill him” at other campaign rallies where the crowd has adopted a lynch mob, yes I said lynch mob, mentality? What did he think would happen when Palin accused Obama of “pallin’ around with terrorists?” Terrorist, Senator. In a post 9/11 world, that is the equivalent of Joe McCarthy accusing someone of being a communist in the 1950’s.
Senator McCain has sown the wind and he is reaping the whirlwind.
But I must admit, as I watch the video I am conflicted. Is this the decent John McCain trying to get out? The man who existed prior to being taken over by the Lee Atwater/Karl Rove acolytes who convinced him to sell his soul and sacrifice his dignity and self-respect in exchange for achieving the presidency?
Or is this shift in rhetoric a response to polling numbers that show him falling further and further behind Barack Obama? Does he now realize that in these troubled economic times nobody but the ignorant few who yell out at his rallies care about some alleged association from the past.
But then I read statements like these by people associated with the McCain campaign.
“How many times has the Obama campaign met with groups tied to or connected with terrorist organizations?”
Then the McCain campaign sent out this statement in defense of their supporters and their remarks:
“Barack Obama’s attacks on Americans who support John McCain reveal far more about him than they do about John McCain. It is clear that Barack Obama just doesn’t understand regular people and the issues they care about.”
On a McCain campaign conference call yesterday, Michelle Obama was attacked for her convoluted association with the wife of William Ayers. From Talking Points Memo:
“Bernardine Dohrn, Ayers’ wife and fellow former Weatherman, went to work in 1984 for the major Chicago-based national law firm of Sidley & Austin, and three years later, Michelle joined the mega-firm as well.”
So wives are no longer off limits, Senator McCain? What’s next, do Barack Obama’s daughters have ties to terrorists as well? How low will you go?
Until I see evidence of a change in rhetoric from everyone in the McCain campaign, yes even Gov. Pitbull, I have to conclude that this new tone he has adopted is not a sudden attack of conscience, but a result of poll-watching.
Can McCain put the genie back in the bottle, or more appropriately, the rats back in the sewer? Does he even want to? Time will tell.
In another display of their brilliant strategy and perfect sense of timing (sarcasm) the McCain campaign has decided to go down the guilt by association road. They started by telegraphing their intent to bring up Obama’s already de-bunked relationships with Tony Rezko and William Ayres, giving the Obama team time to prepare a pre-emptive strike with this ad:
In doing this McCain strategists opened another door and hit themselves squarely in the face. That would be John McCain’s connection to Charles Keating and the savings and loan scandal which Senator McCain was in up to his neck.
Today the Obama campaign is launching a web site, KeatingEconomics.com, and releasing a 13 minute video documenting McCain’s close relationship to Keating and the similarities between the savings and loan scandal of the 80’s and the meltdown of the financial markets we are facing today.
Obama is also bringing up the McCain mud-slinging in his campaign speeches.
“Sen. McCain and his operatives are gambling that they can distract you with smears rather than talk to you about substance. They’d rather try to tear our campaign down than lift this country up,” Obama said at an event in Asheville, North Carolina.
“That’s what you do when you’re out of touch, out of ideas, and running out of time,” he said.
All these elements taken together could make tomorrow night’s debate very interesting. That volcano known as the infamous John McCain temper could erupt in full force if and when these topics are raised. What was grinding of teeth and refusing to look at his opponent in the last debate could become one of the profanity-laced tirades for which Senator McCain is well-known.
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