Town Hall debate

[Art Vandelay]

With Palin coming out over and over with her "pals around with terrorists" line, I don't think you can absolve the McCain campaign from race-baiting at all. It's a not-so-thinly veiled statement specifically pointing out race. Further, during those several rallies where Palin and McCain were rousing up the rabble, when they heard those shouts of "kill him" they should have stopped their canned speech immediately and denounced those statements. They didn't, tacitly providing approval of them. That's unconscionable.

Great post.

I think this is proof that John McCain is "out of touch" and is a "Beltway insider" to the nth degree. He and his advisers, for the most part, all well-educated members of polite society, thought this "palling around with terrorists" and "we don't know Barack" stuff was merely campaign tactics (strategy?) or, you know, "negative campaigning." They didn't realize that they were yelling fire in the crowded theatre that is white racism on the eve of the election of the first black president. I don't think McCain is a racist or anything. He was just pissed for real at losing and, somewhat legitimately, thinks he's given nearly everything that could be demanded of a person to this country and is owed, to some degree, the compensation of the presidency. But I don't think he knew the sort of stuff he's stirring up. Now McCain is beginning to know better: outside the beltway, people aren't hearing "terrorist" as some kind of slight hyperbole, they're taking that to heart. And that seems to scare McCain just like it scares me.

It's funny, too, that even now when he's trying to stiffle some of it, it still comes off as racist, just to a segment of the population that it's apparently okay to be racist against. I thinking specifically of the "he's an Arab" woman that McCain cut off at a rally over the weekend. His response was, he's not an arab, he a "decent family man. A citizen," as if the two are mutually exclusive. Like you can't be a decent family man and an arab. Even from the beginning, all of the "he's a muslim" stuff bothered me because it's presented as if that alone makes him bad and unworthy of the office.

I don't know...it feels like McCain's going to be packing it in a little soon and he's already working on repairing his reputation. Look for him to swing back to the left a little, perhaps with some kind of semi-public mea culpa. I'm hearing that the RNC is now going to be pulling the plug on a lot of ad spending for the McCain campaign to use it one Senate candidates, it's not looking good at all at this point for McCain.

[Neato Torpedo]

^^About the "Arab" comment, I don't think McCain was really displaying racism. The woman's remark utilized "Arab" as a pejorative towards Obama, and McCain's main goal here was to clear up Obama's name. I don't think this context is valid to read that far into it.

when the primaries were in their mid-stages i thought this would be one of the most interesting election s of the +/- 25yrs. wow was i mistaken. nobody has any balls or ideas. pathetic.

Remember your post on voting theory? Balls and ideas don't win elections, pandering to the middle and your base does.

Given the supposed 50/50 nature of the electorate and the early talk about "change" (whatever that means), I really did hold out hope for something interesting, but all i see is a fail to deliver.

Wait until the actual administration takes hold. Pandering and appeals to the masses rule election season, and once the election is over, it's a much lower priority to do either one. Approval rating isn't consequential at all until the next election season.

Personally, I'm a bit excited to see Obama's "most liberal track record in Congress" take effect.