DON'T PLAY POKER WITH JOHN MCCAIN!
Newsweek's "all access" piece is dribbling out, as it always does.
For the very young or previous residents of another planet, Newsweek mag has made a deal with both candidates in the last seven elections. They tail the candidates and promise not to write about anything they see or hear until the election is in the can (they cheated a little in '00).
Anyhow, the big ballyhoo is the carping between Palin Staff and McCain's people. The "shopping spree" is a big deal. (Does anybody think we would be having this discussion if the candidate had been Time Pawlenty and he'd gone out and bought custom made suits, shoes and the trimmings? What a bunch of sexist horseflop.)
What I find fascinating is how long McCain had the information that it was a virtual certainty he was toast. As early as Oct. 22 he saw the polling data that there were not enough uncommitteds to pull him through and the early voting in Colo and maybe even NC had sealed his fate. Confronted with the same information many years earlier, George McGovern mailed it in. It is said that McGovern invented the Hangar-Op just so he could give his nine minute speech and blow town. Much as I admire many things about Fritz Mondale, he wasn't much better when he knew he was down the road. (To be fair to Mondale, he just wasn't a very demonstative guy.)
McCain might have swerved around a little in those last three weeks and some of his attacks might have been a little screwy, but the guy never gave an inch. Kenny Hulshoff can't say he lost because the top of his ticket let the air out of the ball. Norm Coleman probably loses if McCain hadn't sewed so many positive seeds in those last days. He was a warrior to the end. When he fought, he fought all the way with everything he had. He only conceded when it was the correct and patriotic thing to do and then he did it magnificently.
Presidential politics has dealt McCain many bad hands. When he finally had his real shot, it was no shot at all. All of Shrubbie's chickens (If you'll pardon my Wright-ism) came home to roost right on top of McCain's head.
His campaign will be criticized from the outside. His former staffers will pick one another apart from the inside. None of that probably matters. What political historians will record is the fullness of his effort and the fact that he didn't let his party or the two-party system down. He did his best to give the people a choice and that's a pretty cool thing.
posted by UMRBlog @ 12:37
11 comments
11 Comments:
You are so right.
A colleague of mine said she voted for Obama because John McCain had no intention of ever ending the war in Iraq. What she did not understand was that when you set timetables you have no leverage for negotiations. McCain was not going to let that happen. McCain wants the war to end with a victory, an clear accomplishment. He had lived through the defeat in Vietnam and knew that we couldn't let our country and our soldiers do that again. He didn't mean that he really wanted to keep fighting for one hundred years but that the strength of commitment was that deep. McCain is a hero and kept fighting until the end knowing that this was his last chance at being President of the country he loves.
For President Bush's part, he is graciously turning over the Presidency to Obama and I'm sure that the incoming staffers for Obama will not find keys missing on the computer, cartoons on the wall, and offices in disarray. This is what was left to him.
After the 2000 election, many Gore supporters said, "I will never accept Bush as President." And I can say this about them, they were true to their words. The hatred and ridicule heaped on Bush from day one by these people, along with 9/11 clouded and doomed his whole time in the White House. Even though I supported McCain/Palin, I am trying very hard to not be hateful and spiteful as many Gore supporters were for 8 years. That's a long time to keep a grudge. I have better things to do than spew forth ridicule for that long. So I am willing to keep a hopeful outlook and go on with the country's decision.
Mendon Grandma
All Mendonites (also Mennonites) are welcome here.
TYFCB
Oh, Grandma, BTW,
The OMB and OIG investigations both found that there was no rampant disorderly conduct in the outgoing WJC staff. In just a few cases, The "W" key was removed from keyboards and in each case the key was left in plain site.
The alleged "looting" and "trashing" of AF1, just never happened.
But your point about civility, tolerance and hope is well taken nonetheless.
TYFCB
So, in your opinion, who is the best guy who ran on election day and didn't get the top prize?
With all due respect to Vincent, who is a fine guy, Leonard.
Don't believe everything you read, especially Newsweek.
0802,
So your position is that McCain DIDN'T know he was tostitos at least two weeks before the election and Newsweek is lying about that to make him look more courageous and more of a team player than he actually is?
Or are you just a Newsweek hater with no particularly useful point to make?
Whatever, TYFCB
Here's my point chowderhead. Newsweek is a publication which seems to have no standards left at all. Apparently, anything that makes Sarah Palin look stupid goes right into print, even if the facts don't check out, as a minute's worth of googling would show.
Newsweek reports:
The day of the third debate, Palin refused to go onstage with New Hampshire GOP Sen. John Sununu and Jeb Bradley, a New Hampshire congressman running for the Senate, because they were pro-choice and because Bradley opposed drilling in Alaska.
The McCain campaign ordered her onstage at the next campaign stop, but she refused to acknowledge the two Republican candidates standing behind her.
So according to the hatchet man/woman who talked to Newsweek, Palin is such an ideologue about drilling in ANWR that she won't stand next to Bradley, even though John McCain has the exact same position?
And Palin is such an ideologue that she won't appear with pro-choice politicians, even though she attended events with pro-choice Clinton donor Lady Lynn Forester de Rothschild?
And we're really supposed to believe that Palin is so dumb she doesn't know Africa is a continent, but she knew about the voting records of John Sununu and Jeb Bradley in the first place?
And I was supposed to pick up your obsessive little point from what preceded it in this thread?
Look, wasn't endorsing Newsweek--in fact it hasn't been more than a month that I blasted them here. Sole point was that the factual basis of the history of McCain camapaigns internal poll reviews makes the guy look like a complete gamer and that's admirable.
You don't dispute that but take off on some psycho-abortion-Palin-ANWR-inside baseball-babble so utterly beyond my topic that I needed a map to find it (By the way, I happen to have written rather kindly about Palin in here).
If you want to call me names for not picking up on your first post as predicate for your psycho-abortion-Palin-ANWR-inside baseball-babble, knock yourself out.
Newsweek's standards have lowered considerably in the past year. I fully agree. Palin was thrown under the bus by journalists and by the McCainiacs. Little of it would have happened, had she been a man. Agreed. That's all peachy and has nothing to do with the thread.
I love Republicans. If I rip on McCain, it's because I'm a partisan. If I compliment him, I'm using a tainted source.
TFYCB
I just gave you an example of how Newsweek IS a tainted source. You seem to realize that, but don't let it get in the way.
You can cherry pick what's true and what is not true from their articles based on your ideology, but logic would tell you to throw it in the trash.
I suspect you won't cancel your prescription.
0449,
You are suffciently thick and obsessive that your just never gonna get what I carefully explained to you. You're kind of making up disagreements where none exist.
But you are also incorrect. I called my pharmacist and cancelled my "Prescription".
TYFCB
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