"Prominent Republicans...have been for the first time openly critical" of their candidate's "floundering campaign."
The "forces of inertia, arrogance and self-denial will probably conspire to keep the Republican establishment circling the wagons" around him, but his "yawning credibility gap" will result in "a spectacular defeat in November."
"Nearly half of those who plan to vote for him in November expect him to lose."
Someone being tough on John McCain?
Actually, I wrote all of the above about Bob Dole during his 1996 presidential campaign. But it fits John McCain like a glove, right down to his "shrunken vision for the greatest nation on earth" -- as I wrote about Dole on October 7, 1996.
An NBC/Wall Street Journal poll released last week asked the question, "Who do you think will win?" The answer: Barack Obama 54; John McCain 30. Obama is unlikely to win in such a landslide, which means that millions planning to vote for McCain expect him to lose -- as was the case with Dole.
An already desperate McCain tried to make news last week by comparing Barack Obama to Jimmy Carter, but McCain should be careful about forcing people to make comparisons to ill-fated campaigns of the past.
As was the case in '96, we have a Republican nominee who is a war hero wounded in sacrifice for his country, personable and engaging, with a long Senate career, who is so out of sync with the times that his campaign feels stillborn. It's Doleja vu all over again.
As happened with Dole, prominent Republicans are already being openly critical of McCain's campaign. After McCain's lifeless June 2nd speech in front of the much-panned lime-green backdrop, Bill Kristol said: "There are lots of Republicans I have talked to are concerned. They're not panicked. They're concerned."
And they are right to be. What the GOP is going to learn too late (or, possibly, never) is that it's not just, as Kristol calls it, a matter of "presentation." It's a matter of message.
Republicans didn't lose control of Congress in 2006 because, as many of them -- in deep denial -- continue to believe they just didn't get their message out there. The message got out there all right. And it got rejected in November 2006, just as it should in November 2008.
Of course, McCain could have taken a different route. After all, once upon a time, he was a politician who actually was defined by his willingness to depart from the GOP message. No more. McCain has now completely abandoned his core principles, cashed in his maverick chips, and gone all-in with the GOP's right wing.
A man who once summed up why torture should never be an option by saying, "It's not about who they are, it's about who we are," is now embracing Bush's "shrunken vision" of America wholesale. A man who saved his political career by making campaign finance reform his signature issue, has done a 180 turn and loaded his campaign up with lobbyists.
According to a just-released Pew poll, when voters were asked to describe McCain, "maverick" didn't make the list. Nor did "reformer" or "independent." The most frequent word was: "old."
But McCain's problem isn't that he's too old -- it's that his ideas are too old. In fact, they can be traced back to the very first days of the Bush administration. He's got a 2003 Iraq strategy, a 2001 view of the economy, and a take on gay marriage that is straight out of the Dark Ages.
The question facing voters this year is: do you want a president who will take us into the future or do you want a president who's mired in the past? As Tommy Schlamme who, among many other great shows, executive produced The West Wing, told me: "Watching McCain's and Obama's speeches back-to-back the other night was like going from black-and-white TV to high-def."
So we are left with the sorry spectacle of a low-def candidate, one who has abandoned that which made him a real leader in the first place, now reduced to dutifully repeating the talking points of an administration the public is turning away from more and more every day. When he called last week's Supreme Court decision affirming the right of Guantanamo prisoners to challenge their detention in U.S. courts "one of the worst decisions in the history of this country," he was tossing red meat to the right and parroting something he can't possibly believe. Upholding the Constitutional right to habeas corpus ranks up there with Dred Scott or Plessy v. Ferguson, Senator? Really?
It's going to be a long, hot summer for McCain surrogates. What are they going to say? I got a taste last week when I was on Larry King with GOP Rep. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee. She seemed to think the major issue Republicans could win running on was earmarks: "[McCain] has been with us, the House conservatives, on the issue of earmarks," she said. "Economic issues are the number one issues. And I do believe that those play to his strengths."
I'm sure the Obama campaign hopes the congresswoman and McCain truly believe that.
On the other hand, what else have they got? Iraq? Skyrocketing gas prices? Pink slips and foreclosures? When a campaign's game plan comes down to demonizing your opponent's wife, I'd say the big ideas needle is pointing to "Empty."
Kristol and other Republican pooh-bahs may want to chalk up their Party's woes to a glitch in "presentation" or to the media. But saying it won't make it true.
America has received the GOP's message loud and clear. And if John McCain continues to embrace it, he's going to meet the same fate as Bob Dole. On the bright side, I'm sure those Viagra commercials paid pretty well.
Follow Arianna Huffington on Twitter: www.twitter.com/ariannahuff
Dole joined the Army during WW II to combat a legitimate military threat to the USA and the rest of the world. He fought on the ground and was wounded during combat.
McCain is a transplanted war dog who was made a member of an elite flying unit thanks to his Admiral father's influence, who was shot down while bombing the civilian population of a country that represented no threat to the USA or anyone else and was injured by the people he was bombing after being shot down.
McCain didn't question the wisdom of attacking Viet Nam and ignores the history Dennis Kucinich outlines in his Congressional Resolution to Impeach President Bush (kucinich.us), a history that demonstrates the true motivation for invading Iraq has nothing to do with freedom nor terrorism but rather, rape of Iraq's oil by a another cowboy that used the US government to satisfy his own personal agenda.
McCain does as he's told.
Rick Davis a former lobbyist for amoung others:
Ukrainian billionaire Rinat Akhmetov, who has several business links to Iran.
In 1999, while he was McCain's campaign manager, his firm represented SBC Communications Inc. and Comsat Corp. At that time, both communications companies had controversial mergers pending at the Federal Communications Commission. The Senate Commerce Committee has legislative authority over the FCC, and McCain was chairman of that committee. Both mergers were eventually approved..
a person's age.
Progressive Candidate John McCain comes through for America with his 3R economic plan.
In the aura of Theodore Roosevelt,
1. RETHINK: America must rethink the global views on what America is capable of in our current state of technology, engineering and the demands that face the world.
“RETHINK” in terms of re-action means to set forth this plan.
Most Americans know where the USA falls short in the ways of manufacturing and valuable jobs.
It’s time to meet the change of global demands with Made in USA quality and a new American workforce. Oddly enough, the framework is ready and waiting for this plan and active participation.
2. REFORM: America must rise to these demands and compete aggressively in a global economy. We must demand higher quality products and less restricted trade routes for Made in USA components.
”RE-FORM” is simple to comprehend as through John McCain’s Progressive attitudes, the USA will reform our manufacturing and hit it full steam ahead!
3. REINVENT: America and Americans must reinvent themselves to reach and maintain these standards and by sheer American ingenuity, control the world’s marketplace in the competitive manner, as we have always been proud to rule. Can you hear Theodore Roosevelt shouting this?
”RE-INVENT” is the exciting part of McCain’s 3R plan.
NUTS AND BOLTS of the matter are simple.
No taxes means no government-funded programs. Here’s the 3R solution!
These policies will further weaken the dollar--which does admittedly open trade routes--but it also weakens our ability to buy goods from overseas.
Your comment on government programs is silly. Right now our government programs consist of two wars, much higher federal employment than at any time in our history (no, not more military, more contractors and grant recipients), and borrowing from China to pay for the 'programs.'
You probably don't object to government programs for the police, for air traffic control, for the Coast Guard. But maybe you do object to those programs that aren't working well, like the FDA, which apparently allows the pharmaceutical companies to oversee themselves and fund FDA research. Maybe you would like to see private funding for more highways.
McCain rethought and reinvented--he reinvented himself as more of the same, Bush's third term.
How about a government program to redo our infrastructure? How about a program to secure high tech employment? How about a government program that benefits the U.S. instead of Iraq?
McCain's current ideas are older than he is, and he is no longer the maverick he once claimed to be.
McSame a "maverick"? Some believed that rhetoric as easily as they bought the transparent nonese that McSame is a "hero," simply because he was one of the very rare Republican'ts to actually have worn a military uniform.
What did McSame do, otherwise, to be called a "hero"? This:
US involvement in Vietnam was illegal -- it violated Geneva. McSame didn't care about that; so he illegally flew an airplane over North Vietnam, bombed civilian infrastructure -- a violation of Geneva, was shot down, landed in a lake, was RESCUED from drowning by the N. Vietnamese, and imprisoned as a POW -- thus he FAILED in his mission. That makes him a "hero"!?
Or is it because he "successfully resisted" the torture to which he was ALLEGEDLY subjected, even though some of his fellow US POWs say he spilled the beans (regardless wehterh he was tortured)?
Face it, and stop lying: McSame is a "hero" only because it is so rare for a Republican't to actually be in the military -- and he was simply conforming to the career-path already laid out -- and open -- for him by his father, instead of being a chickenhawk expert on war and the military like Dick "Five Deferments" Cheney, and Wolfowitz and Perle, and Kristol.
We see McSame's "leadership" "heroism": eating out of the hand of the Bushit criminal enterprise, a starving puppy who'll do and
Wake up. It's not 1908.
Is the oil crisis another McCain, Bush, Chaney and the Halliburton manufactured crisis?
Similar to the search for weapons of mass destruction?
I think the justice department should investigate who is behind the sudden raise in oil prices.
Who do the traders represent?
Texas oil barons?
Halliburton?
Bush-McCain supporters?
Is this Bush, McCain, Chaney payback?
With six months to go in the Bush, Chaney, Halliburton administration we suddenly have an oil crisis!
And what is the answer?
The opening of off shore drilling all over the nation?
Now who would benefit from this?
Not that I do not agree that America should supply her own oil.
But the timing of this crisis concerns me.
I keep wondering if this is another Bush self-serving manufactured crisis.
Please contact your elected officials and demand that they investigate this issue.
1. RETHINK: America must rethink the global views on what America is capable of in our current state of technology, engineering and the demands that face the world.
“RETHINK” in terms of re-action means to set forth this plan.
Most Americans know where the USA falls short in the ways of manufacturing and valuable jobs.
It’s time to meet the change of global demands with Made in USA quality and a new American workforce.
2. REFORM: America must rise to these demands and compete aggressively in a global economy. We must demand higher quality products and less restricted trade routes for Made in USA components.
”RE-FORM” is simple to comprehend as through John McCain’s Progressive attitudes, the USA will reform our manufacturing and hit it full steam ahead!
Made in USA has always meant highest quality products at moderate prices. The difference today is, we save loose change with Imported Chinese junk products, but few high paying jobs exist to do anything except buy the cheaper foreign-made products.
3. REINVENT: America and Americans must reinvent themselves to reach and maintain these standards and by sheer American ingenuity, control the world’s marketplace in the competitive manner, as we have always been proud to rule. Can you hear Theodore Roosevelt shouting this?
”RE-INVENT” is the exciting part of McCain’s 3R plan.
My husband earned a Purple Heart. during WWII. Gee. Maybe he should have run for political office based on that fact..
Today I am.
What changed my mind?
He changed his mind... regards drilling.
Finally.
At last.
A person of influence “gets it” and boldly goes against the propagandized fads promoted by the lawsuits of science void eco-fascists.
It’s not easy being a bunch quitter. That’s why most aren’t.
People by nature, are so in want of “belonging,” they dare not venture out with original ideas and positions.
They opt instead, to blindly shuffle along with the herd.
Barack’s ideas are nothing more than embellished regurgitations of former congresswoman Pat Schroeder’s sing songs. His ideas are neither fresh or sound, and are too rooted in socialism.
Finally! At last! McCain listened to solid science, proven technology and sound economics, grew a backbone then changed his course accordingly.
He’s became a true bunch quitter: “A hard-working, honest, kind individual who is visionary in his or her pursuit to build, take risks, and LEAD; an independent thinker and doer who doesn’t run with the crowd/herd,” and I really, really, really...like that!
If Barack follows suit, then my decision will shift accordingly. BUT - he’d have to drop that creepy socialism nonsense! I don’t think his financiers would allow that.
This morning’s grocery store polls now show - that this “drilling” action by McCain, popped him ahead of Obama.
In spite of the doomsayer and future slayer rants, this will bode equally as well for them... as those they hate.
Is the oil crisis another McCain, Bush, Chaney and the Halliburton manufactured crisis?
Similar to the search for weapons of mass destruction?
I think the justice department should investigate who is behind the sudden raise in oil prices.
Who do the traders represent?
Texas oil barons?
Halliburton?
Bush-McCain supporters?
Is this Bush, McCain, Chaney payback?
With six months to go in the Bush, Chaney, Halliburton administration we suddenly have an oil crisis!
And what is the answer?
The opening of off shore drilling all over the nation?
Now who would benefit from this?
Not that I do not agree that America should supply her own oil.
But the timing of this crisis concerns me.
I keep wondering if this is another Bush self-serving manufactured crisis.
Please contact your elected officials and demand that they investigate this issue.
Progressive Candidate John McCain comes through for America with his 3R economic plan.
In the persona of Theodore Roosevelt, McCain’s plan just makes sense.