John McCain’s go-along, get-along media strategy
Dante Chinni
Posted: 07.29.2008 / 8:34 AM PDT
In most Republican campaigns for president, there is a certain joy that comes with criticizing the media. It is, among other things, a way to show one’s conservative bona fides.
John McCain, however, is a different kind of Republican candidate with a unique set of issues when it comes to the press. Throughout his political career, the Arizona senator has burnished his maverick reputation by playing nice with the news media. The free positive publicity he’s gotten from the press is one of the things that has stood out about Senator McCain.
The access he’s given reporters on the “Straight Talk Express” is manna to many of them. And how many politicians, let alone Republican ones, are comfortable on the set of Comedy Central’s liberal “Daily Show”? McCain, with 13 appearances, has been the show’s most frequent guest, according to host Jon Stewart.
In 2008, does that go-along, get-along media attitude work with bedrock conservatives who simply don’t like or trust the mainstream press? Those are the kinds of conservatives McCain is having some trouble reaching, according to polls and Patchwork Nation’s reporting.
Last week, we asked our Patchwork correspondents in communities around the country what they thought about Barack Obama’s trip overseas. The overwhelming response was disinterest, but along with that were some hard words about the media, particularly from conservatives who smelled pro-Obama bias in the coverage.
“Some aspects of [the trip] have helped him if you view CNN; they already decided he will be the one since their coverage is so skewed,” wrote one correspondent, Susy Gibson, who owns an automotive business in Clermont, Fla., a reliable Republican “Emptying Nests” community.
Up in Sioux Center, Iowa, our rural agricultural community (“Tractor Country”) thought that Senator Obama’s trip was less of a story than the coverage of it.
“One of the reactions to the trip that I’ve heard is how vastly different this trip is being treated by the nation’s media in contrast to McCain’s last trip earlier this spring,” wrote Sioux Center News editor Steve Hoogland in an e-mail. “While McCain’s trip was barely a footnote, Obama’s trip is being followed step-by-step by the major news agency anchors and so forth.”
Sioux Center voted overwhelmingly for President Bush in 2004. It will almost certainly go for McCain by a wide margin this year. Since January, however, there have been grumblings in the town about McCain’s social-conservative credentials.
But anyone looking for McCain to pounce on what they perceived as the media’s liberal bias saw a mixed bag of responses from the campaign.
Early last week, the McCain team actively addressed the bias issue and posted a video on YouTube called “Obama Love“. It mocked the media’s attention to the Illinois senator by featuring video clips of reporters and anchors talking about Obama, often using hyperbole. The video was a hit – the hottest viral video on the Web for the week.
But by Friday, the McCain camp had taken the video down with no explanation – though versions of it can still be found floating around the Web. And McCain, talking about Obama’s media coverage in an interview with CBS News’s Katie Couric, didn’t dig into the topic.
“I’m a big boy and I’m enjoying every minute of the campaigning, and I’m certainly not complaining. In fact, I think it’s fun to watch,” he told Couric.
One can argue that the McCain camp’s approach is shrewd: They got the Obama video on the Web, made their displeasure known, and then backed off so as not to go too far and attack the reporters and media outlets that, on the whole, have been good to him.
In a way, this approach to the media-bias issue mirrors McCain’s larger campaign strategy of running to the middle while placating the conservative base.
McCain isn’t ready to completely embrace the right wing of the party: That’s not his image or his approach historically. But he knows he needs their support, so he tries to give them enough to keep them happy while not appearing to be one “of them.”
And so it is with the media. He knows he needs their help, but if he’s too friendly with the media establishment, he may not win social conservatives over.
That is a delicate line to walk – navigating between what is enough and what is too much.
For true conservatives, issues like media bias are not about strategy, they are about conviction. And as the campaign inevitably gets hotter, it may prove tougher for McCain to keep his balance.
July 29th, 2008 at 9:40 am PDT
Lazy journalism, do your research. The video was taken down for copy write infringement.
July 29th, 2008 at 9:41 am PDT
Conservatives are not biased against the media, rather we are truly angered by the perceived discrimination against conservative viewpoints. It was just wrong for the supposed impartial media to give such incredble attention to Obama’s foreign political trip. This lack of impartiality is what has been called the media’s “liberal” bias. Indeed and bestseller by the name “Bias” was written about the media. You ought to read it. The major networks proved their bias via the lack of impartiality in last weeks reporting. Again Conservatives are not biased against the media and McCain does not risk our votes by rightfully portraying his rightful anger. We are and were angered by the media’s bias but just because the media is biased does not mean that we are biased against them. I suppose that’s difficult for the biased media to understand? McCain understands, and that is one thing that differentiates him from Bush, it’s also why McCain will probably be our next President. He’s
above this B.S.
July 29th, 2008 at 10:03 am PDT
DB, I appreciate you point, but check around the Web. The second video, which McCain also took down had no copyright issues. Furthermore, the campaign could have posted it with any kind of audio.
You can think what you want but with a video doing as well as that one, ultimately it wasn’t copyright that was the real issue.
July 29th, 2008 at 10:51 am PDT
You’re right that conservatives aren’t biased against the media, Hal. You’re biased against half the population of the United States. You’ve spent much of the last 25 years hating anyone who isn’t enough like you and who doesn’t treat this country like a football team, wildly screaming “We’re Number One” and enthusiastically waving little plastic fingers in the air. You’ll invent any “fact,” slander any “enemy,” defend anyone on your side (Did Cheney say of his refusal to serve during the Vietnam era “I had better things to do” while John Kerry was risking his life? No matter, Cheney was a hero and Kerry didn’t deserve his medals), and complain about anyone who doesn’t tell the conservative story the way you want it to be told. Your own media, from FOXNews to Rush and Hannity and Savage, doesn’t even pretend to objectivity and seldom promotes anything but the right’s latest propaganda and spin, but you cry yourselves to sleep thinking about the parts of the media that don’t tell it like you wish it was.
Nothing important differentiates McCain from Bush, especially as McCain tries to win over people like you. You people were just as enthusiastic about Bush, notwithstanding his failures, a few years ago as you about McCain’s latest efforts to toss red meat to the Bush base now. You supported a Jimmy Carter of your very own, a man who failed at everything he attempted, but he was your failure and you loved him. You empowered a man who ran up the national debt, screwed up two wars in Asia at once, repealed the Constitution (and your kind supported Nixon when he tried the same gambit), watched as New Orleans was destroyed, and presided over financial and economic failure, and now all you can dream of is that the American people will hand you the keys to the White House for four more years. But just like you didn’t care that half the country hated George Bush (you know, the productive half, the half that pays for the misguided foreign policy and tax cuts for the rich), we’re not likely to care that you hate Barack Obama. You can scream “He’s Black!” and “He’s Muslim!” all you like, but this isn’t your year, no matter what they’re telling you down at the tractor shop.
July 29th, 2008 at 12:02 pm PDT
I can say this because I am not running for public office. I think George W. Bush is the finest President I’ve seen in my 61 years. When he was first elected I did not vote for him and couldn’t stand him. In 2004 I unenthusiastically voted for John Kerry and then breathed a sigh of relief when GWB won re-election. I have since changed my party and will support McCain. I had campaigned for Mitt Romney and now would love to see either he or Gov SARAH PALIN as VP with a look to 2012. In any event I believe that Barack Obama is the most dangerous candidate for President that we have ever had. It would be nice to have a non-white male for a change but NOT B.O. He is too inexperienced, conceited and far too radical left by personal choice. He lacks a firm foundation for moral principles and is too eager to follow Europe instead of America in world leadership. Europe is quickly going down the tubes and he will lead America in quick persuit. Vote McCAIN/Palin
July 29th, 2008 at 12:17 pm PDT
I have to say that as an Hillary supporter I will never again think that the MSM is fair to Republicans. They were totally in the tank for Obama and remain so. I am going to vote for McCain and not Obama but I just wanted to say that Fox has been the most fair and balanced news channel for me and I doubt I will ever switch back to CNN and MSNBC. I now understand why Fox has a Republican twist to it Its the only way they can get heard.
July 29th, 2008 at 1:56 pm PDT
Wow “mcmath61” you need to step away from the Kool-aid you should check your facts. Let’s take John Kerry first of the 17 (Does not include Kerry) vets that were on Kerry’s boat 3 back up Kerry’s story. The Swift Boat Vets have not been proven wrong on Kerry’s tour in Vietnam. John Kerry’s testimony April 1971 before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee accusing Veterans and Soldiers of war crimes were proven false (Lies if you will). You should “Google” UCLA study on media bias; Of the 20 major media outlets studied, 18 scored left of center, with CBS’ “Evening News,” The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times ranking second, third and fourth most liberal behind the news pages of The Wall Street Journal. The fourth most centrist outlet was “Special Report With Brit Hume” on Fox News, which often is cited by liberals as an egregious example of a right-wing outlet. And Air America isn’t leaning toward the left how about Randi Rhodes, Ed Schultz or Thom Hartmann they aren’t liberal?
Get over Bush he is not running for President and you are spouting nothing but talking points by saying Bush was a total failure. As far as New Orleans the Governor and Mayor were responsible for the evacuation and their signatures were on the evacuation plans not Bush’s. Yes the National debt has gone up but the Congress holds the purse strings and I believe Democrats hold the majority. Show us where everyone in this country was polled and half the country said they hate President George Bush. Now let’s take Obama it is not his race or religion it is his liberal (Socialist) policies period.
July 29th, 2008 at 2:16 pm PDT
Woah. Fox the most fair and balanced news channel? what universe do you come from? Fox has a reputation for presenting the news through neo-con glasses, and its a reputation they’ve earned over the years.
Europe quickly going down the tubes? you must be from another dimension as well: over the last fiscal year the U.S. dollar has consistently lost value against the euro. If europe is going down the tubes, maybe we should figure out which tubes and follow them.
July 29th, 2008 at 2:29 pm PDT
Which aspect of the Bush presidency made him the finest, Mary? Was it the trillion dollars he spent occupying Iraq, a country that now wants the U.S. to depart? Was it the trillions in new debt? Was it the collapse of the U.S. dollar? Was it the collapse of the housing market and the credit meltdown? Was it the great job Brownie did in rescuing New Orleans? Was it torturing and raping people in Iraq, most of whom turned out to be innocent? Was it spying on the American people? Was it turning airline flight into an unmitigated nightmare, complete with strip-searches of grandmothers? Or was it running up the price of oil, which had the effect of enriching the oil companies that contributed so heavily to his campaigns?
Please feel free to support McCain, Hillarysmygirl08, but don’t blame anyone but yourself when John Paul Stevens dies and is replaced by a Scalia clone and the Supreme Court throws out Roe v. Wade, and maybe Griswold v. Connecticut, and women can’t get an abortion or even most forms of birth control. If you want the “keep ‘em barefoot and pregnant” types to be charge in your country, you deserve what you get.
McCain has spent the last few months trying to agree with everything Bush ever did, but you approve of that, don’t you, Jim? Bush did a great job, didn’t he? Someone else was responsible for the U.S. government spending so little money on infrastructure the last few years, someone else was responsible for the huge deficits (even though Congress was in Republican hands from 2001 to 2007, remember?), someone else was responsible for all the things that went wrong. You didn’t think there were any problems at the time — you were probably busy fighting the Cold War against “socialists” while Bush was causing the damage that will take the next few years to repair, if it can be fixed even then — because people like you were cheering too loudly to notice how badly your heroes were screwing up the economy, overextending the military, and making a mockery of American treaty obligations.
I find it amusing that people like you still cheer draft dodgers like Cheney even as you jeer actual heroes like Kerry. It’s the “slander anyone who doesn’t think like me” streak in the American right. Oh, there’s a Commandment in the Big Ten about not bearing false witness against your neighbors? But Jesus wants you to lie about your Enemies, and he wants War above all else, right? Jesus would approve of torture; he probably tells you so at Church. As for Socialism, you wouldn’t know what the word meant if you had a dictionary open to the right page, and maybe not even then. What you really mean by “Socialist” is anyone who supports abortion rights or thinks homosexuals don’t actually have horns. While you screech about “Socialists,” Democratic socialists in Europe watch their Euro go up, up, and up, and pretend Capitalists who want the U.S. government to bail them out as soon as times get ugly as a consequence of their own greed watch the U.S. dollar go down, down, down.
But you’re right, it’s not half the country that’s sick of Bush, it’s actually 70% to 75% depending on which polls you look at. The Commies are coming, the Commies are coming! Better send out your latest e-mail about the Manchurian Candidate immediately! Patriotism is in jeopardy! Everyone in urban America, everyone in the Northeast and on the West Coast hates America! Say something, say anything, don’t worry about whether or not it’s actually true. FOXNews will report your latest fantasies as fact, so they must be true.
July 29th, 2008 at 3:13 pm PDT
“I can say this because I am not running for public office. I think George W. Bush is the finest President I’ve seen in my 61 years. When he was first elected I did not vote for him and couldn’t stand him. In 2004 I unenthusiastically voted for John Kerry and then breathed a sigh of relief when GWB won re-election. I have since changed my party and will support McCain.”
Need I say more? You are one of the 20% of Americans who liked Bush. And now you like McCain. Do you see where I am going with this?
Bush will be in the history books as the worst president ever, you support him, and you support McCain.
Do you read? Do you know how to use a computer? Do you ever do any kind of research about the candidates or do you just look at them and determine who looks smarter?
July 29th, 2008 at 3:20 pm PDT
mcmath, you’re on fire… you go, man, right on. tell it like it is.
July 29th, 2008 at 4:59 pm PDT
I think there are real differences between McCain and Bush. I think McCain is smarter, more his own man, more savvy and won’t be as easily manipulated by the Roves and Cheneys. I am sorry that he has to spout pro-Bush sentiments to appease the neo cons. I think he would do a much better job than Bush. That being said, I think the neo-con takeover of the Republican party must be thoroughly crushed. McCain is not a neo-con but he still has to appease them. Too bad for him.
July 29th, 2008 at 11:15 pm PDT
Maggie, he also can’t seem to stay on point/message, and tends to lying on his opponent - Obama is responsible for the $4 gas? Really? This is what McCain has to offer to promote off-shore drilling (which he opposed 8 years ago)? Indefinite occupationn in Iraq, no matter what the cost, in money borrowed from China or human life lost, even with their PM Nouri al-Maliki calling for a time horizon, and continuing Bush’ tax cuts (which he also opposed in 2000)? I know you said he’s smarter and would do better (and probably would for energy and illegal immigration); but, the two biggest issues facing Americans - the Middle East (where’s Osama bin Laden? not in Iraq any more than those WMDs) and the economy - I don’t see much difference. The housing market and banking (both fought for to be deregulated by the very same Phil Gramm in his camp), privatizing SS, continuing market run healthcare, opposing abortion and women’s healthcare, equal pay, etc., favoring torture and wiretapping now, etc., etc., etc. What’s so different? McCain from 2000 is what’s so different from McCain now, 2008, more so than McCain now being so different from Bush any time. And why is it that when he’s asks a policy question, especially on foreign policy or energy, every answer ends with a “Sen. Obama” in it? Obama can seem to give his platform without negative attacks on McCain, so what gives in camp McCain? And what’s with the “Straight Talk Express” having advisors who call for our country to be attacked again, as good for McCain’s campaign (foreign policy strength hilighted against Obama’s alleged weakness), and call us a nation of whiners, regarding the recessive economy? That doesn’t attack Obama. That attacks Americans. The tactical withdrawal that most Americans want that McCain calls reckless, dangerous, etc., then he’s calling that same majority of Americans reckless, etc. The majority of Americans who want assurances regarding job and healthcare loss, foreclosure or banks going under, want these assurances from their GOVERNMENT. The y also don’t want their Consitutional rights violated with wiretapping and want us to do as we say do to other nations, including captives, by not torturing. mccain’s stances on these issues don’t mesh with the majority of Americans, as he blurs the lines on Obama’s credentials, religion/values, and culture and confuses many with patriotism. And that’s “straight talk?”
July 30th, 2008 at 7:36 am PDT
Hey “mcmath61” you continue to spout off in large generalities and have no numbers or facts to back your arguments up. Your hatred of George Bush has your thought process so clouded you can’t see passed your nose. You blame George Bush with everything you spout out “the worst President” and then you say and look, look McCain will just continue the Bush Presidency. Wow that is a good strategy did you come up with that yourself or did you get that from “Media Matters” or “Daily Kos”? What is ruining this country is people like you that want the government to take care of them from womb to tomb. They want the government to take care of healthcare, housing, food, transportation and retirement and then say wire taping is against my Constitutional rights. You can’t have the government intruding into every aspect of your life and say I have rights, no you gave up your rights. You think some bureaucrat in Washington can run your life better than you can.
July 30th, 2008 at 8:02 am PDT
Jim M,
You fail to address any of the points mcmath presented, and it is you who is speaking in large generalities. Mcmath’s responses are far more logical, you just rely on ad hominem attacks, which just reveals your stupidity. Please leave the conversation up to the adults from now on.
July 30th, 2008 at 8:31 am PDT
As a GENERAL view, I find that Republicans in general and avid Bush supporters in particular are less informed and less aware about what is going on both in our country and in the world as a whole. Because they are less informed, they are much more easily swayed by the opinions of others, by the “talking heads” on TV and the radio. The basis of a successful democracy is an informed electorate. If a citizen wants to be “patriotic”, they should become informed rather than sport an american flag bumper sticker.
July 30th, 2008 at 8:46 am PDT
James,
You are the first to start using stupid and insinuating that I am not an adult who is being infantile by calling names? Don’t vote you are not smart enough
July 30th, 2008 at 9:20 am PDT
Jim M -
Your posts prove that you are not smart, or at least that you are not well educated. First of all, your sentence “you are the first……calling names?” is a declarative sentence, not a question. Therefore, it should not end with a question mark. Secondly, the phrase “start using stupid” makes no sense. You have proved my point about the general intelligence level of avid Bush supporters. It is pretty low.
July 30th, 2008 at 9:34 am PDT
“What is ruining this country is people like you that want the government to take care of them from womb to tomb.”
Bush and his cheering section have been running this country since 2001, not me, Jim, and he hasn’t given a hoot what people like me think about anything. That’s what you like about him, remember? For the first six years, he also had the Congress in his pocket as well. The “blame someone else” game would be funnier if you didn’t seem to believe your own persecution fantasies. You (and politicians you support unequivocally) have been at the steering wheel, you drove the car into a ditch, and now you want to blame your wife for the accident because she annoyed you at dinner and got you into an ornery mood. The only people who are buying it are your buddies in the right-wing echo chamber, where no one dares to tell you how you sound.
Are people who want the government to take care of them from womb to tomb responsible for all the Republican Congressmen and Senators who have been arrested for corruption over the last seven years? Are womb-to-tombers responsible for the fact that Clinton’s last three budgets ran a surplus but that every Bush budget has run an enormous deficit? Are womb-to-tombers responsible for charging into a trillion-dollar war with Iraq before we actually won the war in Afghanistan based on lies about Iraqi intentions and supposed connections with al-Qaeda? Are womb-to-tombers responsible for the torture scandals that have guaranteed that most Arabs, and most Iraqis, now hate us? (Did you figure that you were going to win Iraqi “hearts and minds” by waterboarding and sexually assaulting them and then trying to cover it up, or was it just too much fun taking revenge on Evil Muslims to expect you to restrain yourselves?) Are womb-to-tombers responsible for ignoring the intelligence about the coming al-Qaeda attack in 2001 until after it happened, or for reading children’s stories in Florida while the President should have been ordering interceptors into the air to prevent those hijacked planes from crashing into skyscrapers? Are womb-to-tombers responsible for deregulating the financial and housing industries and setting the stage for the collapses that are now threatening our country’s economic future? (Hint: Does the name Phil Gramm, McCain’s chief economic adviser, ring a bill?)
“They want the government to take care of healthcare, housing, food, transportation and retirement and then say wire taping is against my Constitutional rights.”
Americans pay almost twice as much for health care as the citizens of any other advanced country, yet 46,000,000 Americans have no health care insurance at all, with the result that a single serious illness can drive a family into bankruptcy. That’s the “private” system people like you insisted on, a system that almost no one in Canada or Europe would want to go back to. (92% of Canadians think their health care system works better than ours.) Millions of houses are being foreclosed; that’s a function of an unregulated financial system that people like you insisted on. The price of gasoline is skyrocketing; that’s a function of a “feed the pig” system of plumping up international oil company profits through endless Middle East wars that people like you cheered for. As for Social Security, how many million people would you like to cut off? How many elderly Americans would you like to see eating dog food after spending 40 or 50 years working to build this country? Do your own parents deserve that kind of treatment?
And what do violations of Constitutional rights have to do with any of this? If people don’t buy into your pretense of rugged individualism then you think we deserve to be treated like Italians under Mussolini or Spaniards under Franco? If we don’t agree with you voluntarily, then you feel comfortable with compelling us to do as you see fit? But if someone forces YOU to do anything, it’s “Socialism” or “Communism”? If someone wants to take your guns away, they can pry them from your cold dead body? What you really mean is that you believe in your own rights, but you don’t believe in rights for anyone else. And your beloved President has made that principle as clear as you have.
I don’t need Daily Kos to do my thinking for me. I spent ten years practicing law before becoming a petroleum landman. I’m one of those “elitists” who has been experiencing no economic troubles the last few years. It’s people like you who have been emotionally manipulated by the Rush Limbaughs and the Michael Savages into abandoning your own economic interests. Like the chump who lost his job and then blamed Liberals for his economic troubles, even after the Clinton era gave us the best economy of our lifetimes, you are too deluded to realize that you have been sold a bill of goods by the hard right. Blame your schoolteachers who could never get you interested in history or economics. Blame your minister who told you that “morality” only relates to what’s between your legs. Blame people who have an education for thinking they’re so smart. Blame Democrats for being Communists. But whatever you do, don’t take any of that “personal responsibility” you’re always talking about. Don’t blame yourself, and don’t blame the people you put in charge of this country.
July 30th, 2008 at 10:14 am PDT
mcmath 61 again proves my point. Democrats can write grammatically correct sentences - even whole paragraphs! I wonder if the avid “right-wingers” on this blog are even capable of reading it!
July 30th, 2008 at 11:20 am PDT
Bob,
Is it difficult going through life having to look through your navel?
July 30th, 2008 at 12:19 pm PDT
So, have I been specific enough for you in my criticisms yet, Jim?
There were two major political reactions against merchant class rule near the end of the last Gilded Age, in the late 19th century. The Know Nothing movement appealed to people who thought that society should be run by its religious and military authorities, and the Progressive movement appealed to people who thought government should level the playing field between society’s merchant class masters and its industrial workers and farmers. Both of these reactions are being seen again as the Second Gilded Age appears to be drawing to a close. Just like last time, the merchant class today prefers the Progressive response, since it inherently assumes that softening merchant class predation on the working classes (typically through increased economic regulation) will solve the basic problems without the need for any social revolution. Last time, the Republicans came up with Teddy Roosevelt, who brought about Progressive-style reform in a relatively cautious way, and Roosevelt Republicanism essentially stayed in the saddle until it was replaced by (Franklin) Roosevelt Democrats in the 1930s. That’s why we hear John McCain trying to compare himself to Teddy Roosevelt, even as Bush liked to compare himself to Roosevelt’s predecessor in the White House, McKinley.
But today the Republicans have been taken over by the new Know Nothings rather than by Progressives. The GOP can’t win a national election without its “evangelical base” — a group that loudly proclaims that America is a “Christian nation,” conceives of prudery and natalism as the sole bases of public morality, and wants its ministers to have a direct hand in how the nation is governed — or without those (usually called “neo-conservatives”) who want to fight a world war against Muslims no matter what it costs in lives and treasure. As a result, the Republican Party has frightened the merchant class into supporting Democrats instead. The big money and the big media (with a few notable exceptions), which were perfectly happy to buy elections for Republicans in 2000 and 2004, have largely abandoned a Republican Party that they fear isn’t really under their control any more. That’s why Bush is lucky these days when he has approval ratings as high as 30%.
The Know Nothing contingent in the Republican Party feels betrayed by the merchant class. They got so used to the oligopoly-controlled media in the U.S. slanting the news their way in 2000, 2002, and 2004 that when it started leaning toward the Democrats it was startling to them. They honestly don’t know what they did to push the merchant class away, but they’re really angry about it, and more than ready to get down in the gutter and claw and scratch for another national victory. But without the merchant class at its side, the Know Nothings have little chance of victory. They can accuse their enemies of being Socialists, but the financial elites and big CEOs know better. The financial community personally knows the people who will be “regulating” their industry, restoring public confidence in their activities, when the Progressive Democrats take the helm. The CEOs know that when the government establishes a universal health care system, they won’t be paying for it in the workplace any more. The merchant class knows that they will be the chief beneficiaries of the flood of new government money flowing into energy investment and building new infrastructure. These people are some of the best-educated people in American society, and they know exactly what they’re going to get from an Obama-led government.
The Know Nothings had quite a run, but they proved to the people that count that they didn’t know how to govern, didn’t have a sensible strategy for a post-unipolar world, didn’t understand how a modern economy works, didn’t know how to open foreign markets to American goods and investment, and didn’t have the capacity to unite the nation going forward. So now they will be allowed to join their 19th century comrades in the trash bin of history. A new, more “libertarian,” Republican Party will emerge to attempt to woo the merchant class back to the fold, and those advocating religious and military values instead of economic values will be pushed to the side. You can vote Republican for the rest of your life, Jim, but you’ve seen the last Know Nothing Republican as President. It didn’t matter whether I thought he was a failure, all that really mattered is that the people who run the U.S. economy came to think of him as a failure.
July 30th, 2008 at 12:26 pm PDT
Mcmath61,
And you think that Obama or any Politician gives a hoot about what you or I think? You keep accusing me of being a Bush supporter “FYI” I don’t agree with a lot of what Bush has done. You are right he did have a Republican congress and spending went up and because of that the Democrats now hold the majority and the spending (Pork barrel) continues to increase. The only thing I can take from your “blame someone else” is that Bush and the Republicans are to blame for all the bad things and the Democrats are totally innocent.
It doesn’t take much research to see to see that the Clinton surplus is a complete myth nothing but political smoke and mirrors. Verifying this is as simple as accessing the U.S. Treasury website where the national debt is updated daily and a history of the debt since January 1993 can be obtained. I am not even going there that Bush knew about 9/11 and did nothing about it doesn’t disserve a response.
Most of those uninsured are illegal aliens and when did it become a right to have health care? Have you ever heard of Claude Castonguay? Until a few weeks ago he was a hero of those favoring a single-payer health care system (otherwise known as single-payer socialism). He was known as the father of the Canadian health care system. Eventually, socialist ideas collide with reality and the failure of these ideas becomes obvious to anyone with an open mind. After heading a committee reviewing Quebec health care this year, he has concluded that the system is in “crisis.”
All I can say is that socialism does not work just look at history.
July 30th, 2008 at 12:32 pm PDT
Progressive is just another name for Communism or Socialism and once again history shows neither one works sounds good but doesn’t work.
July 30th, 2008 at 1:23 pm PDT
Everything is just another name for Communism in your book, Jim. The Progressive movement presided over the U.S. becoming the greatest economic power in world history, and it was supported by both major political parties. “Doesn’t work”? Yeah, right.
“Most of those [46,000,000] uninsured are illegal aliens”? That’s a howler. Best estimates of how many illegal migrants there are in America is 12,000,000, but many economists think even that number is high. And the 46,000,000 figure doesn’t count non-citizens at all. Google these things before you say stuff that makes you look like you’re making it up as you go along. Is Quebec’s health care system “in crisis”? Actually, Quebec is the one province that is most committed to dropping out of the Canadian health care system — mostly because they want to secede from Canada entirely. Meanwhile, in the latest polls, a (slim) majority of Americans would rather have a Canadian-style system that the current U.S. system, while 92% of Canadians wouldn’t want to abandon their current system.
No matter how you twist the figures for Clinton-era budgets, there can be no question that Clinton was some $3 trillion more conservative in his spending than Bush was. Is spending money like a drunken sailor one of the things you didn’t agree with Bush about? Did you say anything while it was happening, or just now because a national election looms? The McCain tax cut plan will cost something like $4.5 trillion dollars in lost revenues over the next 10 years, while the Obama tax cut plan will only cost about $3.2 trillion, and provide more tax relief to 95% of the American population. Just how desperately do you want to give another trillion bucks to people who are already wealthy beyond the dreams of Croesus? Even the rich aren’t so sure it’s such a great idea. There are no honest fiscal conservatives in either major political party in this country, so telling yourself that Democrats are Socialists while Republicans are fighting to restrain spending is wish-fulfillment fantasy. Our choice is between Democrats and Republicans, not between the people you wish Republicans were and the Communists.
Obviously politicians only care about what you or I think in the months just prior to elections, and at those times they mostly tell us what we want to hear. What is instructive is to divine what the people who ante the money to elect these people expect to get, since they are seldom fooled. Why is the big money going with Obama these days? Why are most of the hedge funds supporting him? The same people and groups supported Bush in 2004, so it isn’t a commitment to Socialism that motivates them. What do you figure is going on?
I’m not alleging a 9/11 “conspiracy,” I’m alleging 9/11 incompetence. Should planes have been scrambled to bring down the hijacked airliners before they destroyed the World Trade Center buildings and part of the Pentagon? Bush didn’t even think about it; he was busy reading to children in a Florida classroom. Should the hijackers have been allowed to reboard the planes in Boston after they were initially removed? Bush wasn’t even asked. As for my statements that Bush was warned repeatedly that an al-Qaeda plot to hijack airplanes was afoot in the months before 9/11, don’t take my work for it, refer to the book by his national security adviser.
Back in 1980, lots of liberals distanced themselves from Jimmy Carter, because they knew he was a failure in foreign policy and a failure in economic policy. But they still wanted another four years to push the same policies. Now it’s people like you in that seat, distancing yourself from Bush but wanting another four years to push the same failed policies. Right up until Election Day 1980, liberals imagined that the American people might reelect Carter, and now people like you will imagine right up until Election Day that McCain will somehow get elected, stay in Iraq indefinitely and maybe invade Iran to boot. I don’t think so. The people who determine the outcome of elections in America aren’t the ideologues on the right or left, they’re the people who just want things to work. In the private sector, people who fail get fired; so it is in the public sector as well.
July 31st, 2008 at 2:00 am PDT
OCB (ol’ Cranky *******) should concentrate on his MAC lessons, History and Geography. His GAFFES are as big as lies that he tells. He is obviously suffering from CRS (Can’t Remember Sh**) aka Alzheimer?s He should go lay down somewhere.
July 31st, 2008 at 7:36 am PDT
[…] John McCain’s Go-Along, Get-Along Media Strategy (by Dante Chinni at Christian Science Monitor) […]
July 31st, 2008 at 9:02 am PDT
Jim M -
Once again you demonstrate how uninformed you are. You assert that the Clinton surpluses were not real by referring to the national debt! A budget surplus applies to a single year - revenues minus outlays. If revenues exceed outlays, there is a surplus for that year. There were surpluses for many years of the Clinton administration. The national debt, on the other hand, is an ongoing measure of the debt of this country, and it changes depending on whether or not there are budget deficits or surpluses, along with other factors.
An analogy is a family situation. In a given year, the family may earn more than in spends (budget surplus). However, it may still have a mortgage (national debt).
If you want your opinions to be taken seriously, you need to get your facts correct!
July 31st, 2008 at 11:32 am PDT
Bob,
Once again you have shown how the facts elude you liberals as there is no logical thought process take a course in economics.
August 1st, 2008 at 8:49 am PDT
Jim M:
Look at this chart of budget deficcits and surpluses. You will see the surpluses during Clinton presidency. Of course, avid right-wingers like you never seem to allow the truth to get in the way of what they believe!!
http://www.eriposte.com/economy/indicators/bush_deficit_graphic.gif
August 1st, 2008 at 12:10 pm PDT
Hillarysmygirl wrote: “I have to say that as an Hillary supporter I will never again think that the MSM is fair to Republicans. They were totally in the tank for Obama and remain so. I am going to vote for McCain and not Obama but I just wanted to say that Fox has been the most fair and balanced news channel for me”
I have to say, I have absolutely no idea why any Clinton supporter would vote for McCain over Obama except for childish, bitter, vindictive reasons, since their platforms are so similar - especially since Clinton herself has urged support of Obama. Unless all they care about is having a woman in the white house, in which case, I think it’s totally pathetic that there are women who would play such petty, self and party-defeating politics with our nation’s (and the world’s) future. So your candidate lost - get over the Geraldine Ferraro syndrome, put your bitterness aside, and do what’s right for our party and our country. These are the women who make me ashamed of the word “feminist.” If McCain wins this election because of spiteful, idiotic former Clinton supporters, it will be a complete tragedy - many of them seem to prefer voting for a Republican to swallowing their pride over losing the nomination!
I would have gotten over it and supported Clinton if she had won, but if McCain is really closer to Clinton politically such that her disgruntled supporters would rather vote for him than Obama, then thank god she lost!
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