John McCain - American dumbass (sorry, couldn't resist)

[cacophony]

Originally Posted by jOHN rODRIGUEZ

I think you spelled it wrong. Smartass.

lol?

[bas_I_am]

Originally Posted by Sean

The wife and I were out for dinner last night with a few people, one of whom is a Republican that supports McCain. She says she'll be voting for him because she thinks Democrats will be bad for the economy and won't keep us as safe as Republicans will. I'm not sure how she concludes these things based on our current situation, especially considering that she's a very intelligent person.

And even more surprising to me, she defends Palin by saying she's been unfairly targetted by the media. She says nothing about Palin being unable to answer extremely basic questions in interviews though. Go figure.

I have a couple of friends who are of a similar bent. Everytime I ask them to justify, I get superficial arguments. The only thing I can determine is their leanings are somehow instinctual and emotional. There is no fact that will ever sway them.

[Deckard]

Originally Posted by bas_I_am

The only thing I can determine is their leanings are somehow instinctual and emotional. There is no fact that will ever sway them.

I think it's pretty self-evident to anyone who's followed (never mind studied) politics for a while that the Republicans - compared to the Dems -are much more adept and experienced at resorting to smears and aggression and one-liners and simplistic appeals to fear and ignorance and ensuring their candidates are people "you'd like to have a beer with" and corny emotive warmth... folksy shucks darn tootin' you betcha. As tactics, they work; their target audience are more receptive to it. It's why, to many Republican supporters, the terms effete and intellectual and elite have become virtually interchangeable as insults. It's why many progressives were so utterly disgusted with Hillary when she chose to adopt similar tactics for her leadership campaign.

(We could open this out to other embarrassing (in a PC/taboo sort of way) yet undeniable overall correlations involving level of education or propensity to religion, but it'll go way off-topic)

Certainly I would never be as crass as to suggest all Republicans or Republican voters are wired up that way. But we'd be fooling ourselves if we didn't recognize the correlation of the conservative mindset to the emotional/instinctual way of "thinking". It's exactly the same here in Britain, with those reactionary dog-whistle issues that get conservatives responding from some lower part of their brain. There are a handful of conservative politicians and commentators who, to me at least, appear to buck that trend, but it would be silly to pretend they're not in the minority.

There was something in the news only a few weeks ago that detailed how a propensity to a certain political outlook (conservative/liberal) could be more hard-wired into our brains than we realise. Similar to what was posited a couple of years back, but was criticized at the time for its generalizations.

I'll see if I can find a link to it.

[Deckard]

Back to McCain... this, highlighted on Mike Tomasky's blog, says it all...

John McCain on public television, February 21:

"Uh, I, I just have to rely on the good judgment of the voters not to buy into these negative attack ads. Sooner or later, people are going to figure out if all you run is negative attack ads you don't have much of a vision for the future or you're not ready to articulate it."

The record shows, of course, that right now, as Greg Sargent wrote at TPM last week:

The McCain campaign has now shifted virtually 100 percent of his national ad spending into negative ads attacking Obama, a detailed breakdown of his ad buys reveals.

By contrast, the Obama campaign is devoting less than half of its overall ad spending to ads attacking McCain. More than half of its spending is going to a spot that doesn't once mention his foe.

And this quote from Mike...

Here's a prediction for you. If McCain loses, sometime next year -- he'll let some time pass; say, late next summer, during a slow news week -- he'll choose a sympathetic interviewer and come forward, hat in hand, offer an apology for the kind of campaign he ran, swearing that it was all out of character not reflective of his true self, and deeply, deeply regrets the kinds of things modern-day politics "forces" candidates to do. Another prediction: Some suckers in the media will eat it up, too.

[jOHN rODRIGUEZ]

[QUOTE=Deckard;103313]...and one-liners and simplistic appeals to fear and ignorance and ensuring their candidates are


Frak You Deckard. And not in a good way.

[Deckard]

[jOHN rODRIGUEZ]

Originally Posted by Deckard

Just kidding. The voices in my head tell me I'm a great one-liner kinda guy.

[Sean]

Wow. McCain was not kidding about going after Obama's character. So far we've seen Palin bring up Ayers, Wright, and claim that Obama is unpatriotic and "pals around with terrorists", and now McCain has really started laying into him too.

I can't imagine this will play well with voters who are watching the financial state of the country continuing to deteriorate. It's just so blatantly obvious that McCain's trying to direct attention elsewhere. But as always, I've been surprised by how people respond to this kind of crap before...

[Deckard]

I'm hoping it's too late for any of this stuff to work now. Obama's already come through the Clinton attacks, the Reverend Wright stuff. If anyone was going to switch allegiance based on those things, they'd have done it ages ago.

At least that's what I hope.

Originally Posted by jOHN rODRIGUEZ

Just kidding. The voices in my head tell me I'm a great one-liner kinda guy.

Ah I see.

It's the way you tell 'em, jOHN!

[BeautifulBurnout]

Originally Posted by Deckard

I'm hoping it's too late for any of this stuff to work now. Obama's already come through the Clinton attacks, the Reverend Wright stuff. If anyone was going to switch allegiance based on those things, they'd have done it ages ago.

At least that's what I hope.

Well, none of this seems to be having a detrimental effect on the poll. Real Clear Politics are showing Obama with a 6.4% lead at the moment, including a lead in all the battleground states. I am hoping none of this shit will stick.