McCain/Some chick from Canada 08: Folding Under Pressure

[nacho]

Huh?

[fajwat]

I've been on a "no objective truth exists" kick for a few days.

I have now had to add the sobering contradiction that "objective falsehoods do exist, and McCain just uttered one of them."

but we might be able to defend him with intentionalism, and claim that his statement which named a non-existent country is true for him, and that it's more important what he intended than what he actually said.  Dunno.  This line of thinking is new to me.

The supreme court uses intentionalism to enforce the original framer's wording in the constitution.

But if someone miscommunicates on a paper, regardless of how obviously they understand, they get points off.

[nacho]

This really is the most comical campaign in history...

McCain tries to define Obama as out of touch
By Jim Rutenberg
Thursday, July 31, 2008

WASHINGTON: After spending much of the summer searching for an effective line of attack against Senator Barack Obama, Senator John McCain is beginning a newly aggressive campaign to define Obama as arrogant, out of touch and unprepared for the presidency.

On Wednesday alone, the McCain campaign released a new advertisement suggesting — and not in a good way — that Obama was a celebrity along the lines of Britney Spears and Paris Hilton. Republicans tried to portray Obama as a candidate who believed the race was all about him, relying on what Democrats said was a completely inaccurate quotation. The Republican National Committee began an anti-Obama Web site called "Audacity Watch," a play on the title of Obama's book "The Audacity of Hope." And, in a concerted volley of television interviews, news releases and e-mail, campaign representatives attacked him on a wide range of issues, including tax policies and energy proposals.

The moves represented the McCain campaign's most full-throttled effort to define Obama negatively, on its own terms, by creating a narrative intended to turn the public off to an opponent. Although Obama has been under an intense public spotlight for the last year, he is still relatively new on the national scene, and polls indicate that for all the enthusiasm he has generated among his supporters, many voters still have questions about him, providing Republicans an opening to shape his image in critical groups like white working-class voters between now and Election Day.

McCain's campaign is now under the leadership of members of President George W. Bush's re-election campaign, including Steve Schmidt, the czar of the Bush war room that relentlessly painted his opponent, Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, as effete, elite, and equivocal through a daily blitz of sound bites and Web videos that were carefully coordinated with Bush's television advertisements.

The run of attacks against Obama over the last couple of weeks have been strikingly reminiscent of that drive, including the Bush team's tactics of seeking to make campaigns referendums on its opponents — not a choice between two candidates — and attacking the opponent's perceived strengths head-on. Central to the latest McCain drive is an attempt to use against Obama the huge crowds and excitement he has drawn, including on his foreign trip last week, by promoting a view of him as more interested in attention and adulation than in solving the problems facing American families.

"I would say that it is beyond dispute that he has become the biggest celebrity in the world," Schmidt said in a conference call with reporters on Wednesday. "The question that we are posing to the American people is this: 'Is he ready to lead yet?' And the answer to the question that we will offer to the American people is: 'No he is not.' "

McCain's more focused assault comes after one of his worst weeks of the general election campaign, when he seemed to fumble for a consistent, overarching critique of Obama, who winged around the Middle East and Europe. McCain's advisers continue to look for ways to bring more discipline to his message, and are being urged by some supporters to cut back the frequency of his question-and-answer sessions with reporters, a staple of his campaign but one that occasionally yields unscripted moments, misstatements and off-the-cuff pronouncements that divert attention from the themes he is trying to promote.

The intensity of the recent drive — which has included some assertions from the McCain campaign that have been widely dismissed as misleading — has surprised even some allies of McCain, who has frequently spoken about the need for civility in politics. The sentiment seeped onto television on Wednesday with Andrea Tantaros, a Republican strategist, saying on MSNBC that the use of Hilton in McCain's commercial was "absurd and juvenile," and that he should spend more time promoting his own agenda.

Obama's campaign seized on those concerns, trying to turn the tables by portraying McCain as cranky and negative. The Democratic National Committee called McCain "McNasty." Late Wednesday Obama released a counter advertisement citing editorials critical of McCain's latest volley of attacks and featuring an announcer who says, "John McCain, Same old politics, same failed policies."

Asked by reporters about McCain's new advertisement, Obama said, "I do notice that he doesn't seem to have anything to say very positive about himself."

Obama's chief strategist, David Axelrod, said the McCain's strategy to define Obama negatively in voters' minds, while similar to one that successfully worked against Kerry, would not work this year.

"When people are struggling, when they're trying to pay their bills, when they're concerned about their fundamental security, I don't think they have much tolerance for Britney Spears and Paris Hilton," Axelrod said. "I think they understand times are more serious than that, and they thought John McCain was, too."

Schmidt, whom McCain placed in charge of day-to-day operations this month, specialized during the 2004 campaign in seizing on opportunities — think windsurfing; seemingly contradictory votes on Iraq policy — to paint Kerry negatively.

Seeking similar openings, the campaign seized on Obama's decision to skip a visit with wounded United States troops in Germany. (The McCain campaign said Obama canceled because he could not take the news media with him to the hospital, an assertion denied by the Obama campaign and undercut by the accounts of reporters.)

The new focus has been welcomed by some Republicans. "They're now in a position of driving news as opposed to reacting to it," said Brian Jones, a former aide to McCain.

But some fear a backlash. And McCain does not like to follow a script. People who know him said that it may be a challenge to apply the Bush model — strict adherence to the message of the day by the candidate combined with a relentless drive to define the opponent negatively — to a campaign not known so far for discipline or consistency.

"It could be the Coca-Cola strategy of marketing that they're trying to apply to Pepper," said John Weaver, a former chief strategist for McCain.

[RottingCorpse]

The joke will be if McCain wins.

[nacho]

Dude, he's polling poorly with his own family.

[RottingCorpse]

It's the middle of summer. Nobody cares.

Wait until debates kick up. I really have a feeling that'll be where things heat up. I hope I'm disappointed, but I have a feeling the McCain/Obama denates are going to be very entertaining.

[Matt]

The RNC is doing all they can to torpedo themselves, though. The debates will have an impact, but can the RNC make more Barackbooks and Obama-as-rockstar ads that'll destroy him? I dunno. They've got some work ahead of them, if they really want to take out McCain.

[nacho]

I'm shocked to see Obama leading in all the hardcore red states.  It's a done deal.

Hillary's the keynote speaker at the Convention.  That'll be her rally to get all the idiot Hillary hardcore people on Team Obama.

[Cassander]

sadly, it's still not a lock.  and, sadly, obama is not who we all want him to be.  even if he wins, we'll have a new president in 2012.

[nacho]

I do believe it's a lock.  And I agree with the rest... Obama is a one termer, and he will let us down hard in the next four years, and that means we'll return to old white men in 2012.

[RottingCorpse]

Jimmy Carter?

[nacho]

He won't be that bad.  But he is inheriting the same kind of world.

[nacho]

Wait, is this some sort of weird bargain?  Please!  Please vote for me!  I promise I'll be a one termer!

The last time we had a one term pledge, it was when Hayes stole the White House in order to end Reconstruction early so the robber barons could make more money off of the southerners (who, today, remain crippled by the abbreviated Reconstruction plan).

http://news.aol.com/political-machine/2008/08/12/mccain-camp-hints-at-one-term-pledge/

This week on Fox News Sunday, McCain Campaign manager Rick Davis coyly re-opened speculation that if John McCain is elected President he might only serve one term.

Host Chris Wallace asked Davis, "Is there any possibility that he would consider issuing a pledge, say, at the Republican convention, 'I will serve one term as president?'" Davis responded, "Chris, you're going to have to come to the Republican convention to find out what's going to happen there. And I think everybody should tune in, because it's going to be an excellent event and very interesting to all viewers."

In January McCain was asked if he might serve only one term. At the time he said, "If I said I was running for eight years, I'm not sure that would be a vote getter." Shortly after that, McCain pulled back on the idea, saying, "I think then you're the lame duck, you're quacking on Inauguration Day."

Blogger The Anonymous Liberal recommends a three-pronged response by the Obama campaign should McCain make the pledge. The New Republic's Isaac Chotiner thinks the pledge could hurt McCain. He writes, "Making this pledge will just lead to a whole slew of stories about his age, which may cause people to think twice about giving him even a single term."

[RottingCorpse]

The age thing makes it a bad call.

That said, the idea of a candidate saying they're running for one term is appealing to me.

It should go like this: "Look, I'm only running once. If you let me have the job, I'm going to work my ass off for four years. None of that time be spent campaigning for reelection. If my record is such that you want to vote me in for another four years, I promise I'll work my ass off for that term too."

[nacho]

If my record is such that you want to vote me in for another four years, I promise I'll work my ass off for that term too."

A little bit of Carter there.  Of course, the media (and his own party) crucified him for running a Rose Garden campaign.  There's no way the president can not campaign for the second term and leave it up to the people.