Jonathan Alter takes a closer look at the unhinging McCain campaign and strategy in this week’s Newsweek. It’s a pretty good little article. Main point being:
Victory for McCain would hardly prove redemptive. “You can’t govern winning this way,” Weaver says. “We’ve seen that after the last two elections.” And defeat would leave John McCain feeling more than the usual depression, wondering why he mortgaged his precious personal honor just to trade up to the White House.
About a month or 2 ago something switched in the McCain Campaign and in McCain himself. I noticed a growing pattern of negative attacks, unforced errors and just-plain-false claims. Selfishly I though, oh man, I should be making a list for the blog — but who has time for that?
The more unglued McCain comes, the more fascinating, if sad, the whole thing is to watch. McCain’s public missteps a growing in number faster than Britney, Paris and Lindsey’s combined. Sure some are honest mistakes that anyone would be caught making were they on camera 20 hours a day – but several more are, to me anyway, indicative of inherent flaws in the candidate. Off the top of my head, I can remember:
- Bashful and Embarrassed: Is it really ok for the OLDEST potential leader of the America to squirm like a 13 year old boy at the mention of Birth Control?
- Painfully Unfunny: Killing Iranians is Fun! So is bombing them!
- Geographically Confused: Maybe he should spend a week in a 7th grade Geography class. At recess he and the other boys can giggle about birth control.
- Just Plain Wrong on the Sunni Awakening and Surge timeline: I don’t even have anything funny to say here, this is just simple facts on his self-proclaimed strength. Maybe its age or exhaustion or maybe he really didn’t know. But none of those reasons should be acceptable – for as the president he would be older and busier — and going into that with a basic misunderstanding of the facts is just scary (not to mention Bushian).
I could go on and on with these. And the list is even longer with the gripes I have about some his campaign staff, surrogates, television commercials, advance work and strategy. As an Obama supporter, I should be happy with all of these mistakes and gaffes (and part of me is) – but as an American, who thought the idea of a McCain/Obama general would mean a lot of interesting debate and discussions – I am shocked and a bit disappointed by the derailment of the Straight Talk Express…
Back in the Saddle
Thank you Eric Cantor for the throw back title for this post.
Though, this has nothing to do with him. It has too long since I have paid attention to this blog and, well, I miss it. I am pretty busy these days, but I am going to make an effort to be better about posting.
So…here goes!!
Hmm, what to discuss…
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