McCain Finds Americans No Longer Buying Into the Spec Market on Dread
As expected, John McCain is trying to turn the stretch run of the campaign away from the economy and back to national security. He knows Americans are afraid of losing their jobs, their homes, their 401Ks, and their life's savings -- but he wants them to put all of that on the backburner and focus on the fear of losing their lives.
Accordingly, his latest Hail Mary bomb comes equipped with a nuclear warhead.
McCain barreled through the door Joe Biden opened with his ill-advised comments about Obama being tested within the first six months of his presidency, flashing back to the Cuban Missile crisis and painting Obama as "untried, untested" and a national security liability.
In contrast, McCain insisted, "I've been tested." Of course, the kind of test given a 26 year-old Navy pilot assigned to Cuban targets, as McCain was during October 1962, is very different from the test a president would face in that kind of crisis. But who needs to worry about details like that when you are playing the mushroom cloud card?
With time running short, Team McCain wants to cover as many fear bases as possible. So along with the Missiles of October, the McCain campaign also rolled out a new round of robocalls designed to convince voters that Obama has "a disturbing history of coddling criminals" and would be soft on "sex offenders, drug dealers, and murderers."
Beware, America: if the nukes don't get you, the sociopaths, the junkies, and the perverts will.
Unfortunately for McCain, playing the Be Afraid game has gotten a lot more complicated than it was back in the good old days when all you had to say was "Cipro" and "duct tape" and the electorate would reach for its GOP security blanket. Between 2001 and 2004, every time the government issued a terror alert, Bush's approval rating would go up. It was positively Pavlovian.
A new study pdf conducted by UC Berkeley sociologists Robb Willer and Nick Adams, and published this month in the journal Current Research in Social Psychology, suggests voter reactions to those kinds of threats may be changing -- and that terror warnings or the evocation of looming attacks may, in fact, have the opposite impact on McCain than they had on Bush (you see, McCain's right: they aren't the same!). Especially when it comes to swing voters. We may have finally reached the point when voters are thinking: "Fool us with the fear card once, shame on you. Fool us with the fear card 279 times, shame on us... We won't be fooled again."
John Kerry still believes Halloween 2004's bin Laden video was one of the main reasons he lost. But the confused -- and panicked -- reaction of the McCain camp to yesterday's pro-McCain posting on an al-Qaeda affiliated website, shows how the rules of the terror game have changed.
McCain's surrogates went to great lengths to pooh-pooh the notion that al-Qaeda would prefer McCain's hawkishness to Obama's more reasoned approach to foreign policy. Yet, in the same breath, senior McCain foreign-policy advisor Randy Scheunemann announced, "John McCain will spend what it takes to win" in Iraq. An approach that fits perfectly with bin Laden's "bleed to bankruptcy" strategy.
For his part, Obama is refusing to buy into McCain's divide-the-economy-from-national security-and-conquer strategy. "We often hear about two debates, one on national security and one on the economy," he said yesterday after meeting with his national security team, including Gary Hart, Madeleine Albright, and Richard Holbrooke. "But that's a false distinction. We can't afford another president who ignores the fundamentals of our economy while running up record deficits to fight a war without end in Iraq. We must be strong at home to be strong abroad. That's one of the lessons of our history."
Throughout his speech, he repeatedly hammered home the "foreign security implications of our economic crisis" and the impact of the Iraq war on our military readiness, our ability to deal with the "grave" situation in Afghanistan, and America's bottom line, saying: "For the sake of our economy, our military, and the long-term stability of Iraq," we need to bring "a responsible end to the war."
And he even challenged McCain's over-inflated national security credentials, pointing out the very different approach he would bring to taking on bin Laden, the growing threat from al-Qaeda along the Pakistan border, and making Afghanistan, not Iraq, the central front in the war on terror. "As president, [McCain] would continue the policies that have put our economy into crisis and, I believe, [are a] danger to our national security."
Obama's steady hand during the economic meltdown and his unflappable bearing during all three debates has clearly had an impact. Coming out of the conventions, McCain had a 14-point lead on who would be better able to handle international affairs; that has shrunk to a within-the-margin-of-error 3-point gap.
Given the wide lead Obama holds on dealing with the economy, "helping the middle class," and health care, and his advantage on handling taxes (sorry, Joe the Plumber), it's to be expected that McCain will keep trotting out the mushroom clouds, the murderers, and the sex offenders. Fear is all he has left to sell. It would be the best news to come out of the campaign so far if the American voter is no longer willing to buy into the spec market on dread.
For those of you in Minnesota, I will be speaking at St. Olaf College Monday, October 27th. The speech will begin at 7:00 PM in Boe Memorial Chapel.
Follow Arianna Huffington on Twitter: www.twitter.com/ariannahuff
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McCain just doesn't get it. Americans are hurting right now. We are in pain. Most don't trust the Government. We are in two endless wars. We are threatening other countries. Banks are in trouble. The stock market is crashing. People are losing their homes. The value of the dollar has gone down. Groceries and other necessities are going up. Health Insurance and other insurance are going up. All they can offer is negative campaigning with no solutions or help for the poor and middle class.
That's because the rich don't suffer in times of financial crisis. McCain doesn't feel it, he has no patience, no empathy and no authenticity when he stands in front of the middle class and says "my friends" because we all know that if he were not running for office, McCain wouldn't be friends with any of us, unless we were cleaning his house, mixing him a drink or caddying for him.
Perhaps we should ask Obama to donate some of his campaign money to help all of us suffering Americans. Does he really need to buy adds in video games, buy airtime before the World Series, and literally flood the media with his adds? Of course he doesn't need negative campaigning-he has bought this presidency and the mainstream media and sites like this do all the negative attacking for him. I feel sorry for John McCain because he backed campaign financing reform, and his opponent promised to stick to it. But no-Mr. Obama broke that promise and as we all know money can buy influence. Essentially Mr. McCain shot himself in the foot. I'm glad he hasn't renigged on his word and brought up Rev. Wright. He'd surely win if he did, but because he is not a lousy guy he won't. Oh and give me a break about Sarah buyin that wardrobe herself- the RNC did and it can be donated and auctioned off. And all you loser's that are ragging on Joe The plumber-should really rethink it. He asked a question and got an answer that he didn't agree with. All of the sudden the entire world knows his lifestory and actually is trying to paint him as a villain.
Wow! You have bloated yourself on the repub kool-aid. Too many lies there to respond to.
McCain keeps saying he knows how to win wars and he knows how to get Bin Laden. If he does why won't he share the information? Country first. Is he saying if we don't elect him he won't share the information?
Yeah! I "betcha" Bush would like to know. That'd surely help him to save face as his days in the Big House come to a close.
Too bad Bush and Cheney aren't trading one "big house for another kind of "big house.
Remember, Remember the 4th of November.
Close enough if you ask me.
I was recently called a radical by a relative when I explained why I was goingto vote for Barrack Obama. After much thought, I decided to take that as a compliment. I started to read the wrirings of a few other radicals- Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, and Benjamin Franklin to name a few. Watching the campaign that the Neo-Cons are running I can't help but think of the spin machines of totalitarian governments that rule through fear and terror. Then my mind wanders to Orwell's 1984 and, as luck would have it, V for Vendetta.
The difference is clear - we can elect a new leader. We have the ability to affect a peaceful regime change.
God bless America.
OY - I CAN'T WAIT FOR ALL THIS TO BE OVER ON 11/5. GO OBAMA
Democrats play the fear card - Fear of global warming, fear that social security will be taken away
You are dellusional! Republicans live for the unreasonable fear card--fear of foreigners, fear of anybody not lilly white, fear of gay people, fear of being invaded, fear of women's rights, fear of equal pay, fear of terrorists, fear of immigrants, fear of other religions, fear of individual freedoms, fear of human rights, fear of peace.
I'll take the "fear" of global warming and fear of loosing social security--both of which have proven to be TRUE, expecially under the Bush administration.
However, the Deomcratic platform has been more about hope, progress and individual freedoms than any "fear" you might make up.
If Bush had been successful in privatizing Social Security by putting it in the stock market, my Social Security would be where my retirement money went - into the ether.
Fear card ? Gee global warming and social security are nothing compared to terrorist attacks, our troops dieing if we do not vote for the GOP. Plus Sarah the pit bull saying we will be a communist nation, .etc...
Repubs are really getting desperate
Go Obama
Are you one of those anti-science folks? Nearly every reputable scientist agrees that global warming is occurring. Look at ice cores, sediment cores, and carbon dioxide levels over a significant period of time. Maybe you have a faith-based approach to facts. There is much that science can explain. The earth is closer to 4.57 billion years old than to 6,000. The planets and stars do not reside in crystal spheres that surround the earth. Our planet is spherical, not flat. We never walked with dinosaurs. Gravity is a curvature of space-time; it is not God holdin' us close.
georgiaR, you seem fairly intelligent for a Republican since you can read and write. Keep up the informative posts.
Your friend,
John Mc
You are so right! What makes McCain think that he want be tested, as he proclaims. Past presidents were tested. Just what has he done that will deter testing? Does being a prisoner of war (sadly as many, many others have been) or being in the senate 26 years preclude testing?
Yes, indeed, Thank You, Arianna, and Thank You, Huffington Post!
I don't know WHY people are harping on Biden's comment (and just part of it at that). Especially when Lieberman said something along the same lines and McCain had no problem with it.
It's practically a fact that a new president in office is highly likely to have a test of sorts within the first year. This is unavoidable. It would be as true of McCain as it would of Obama.
What McCain is intending to imply is that the last part is NOT true, and that it's only something to be expected should Obama take office. I'm not buying.
The discussion shouldn't be whether or not there will be a huge task for the new president to tackle (regardless of whether or not there are any future attacks, the economic woes will probably not be gone come January), but how the new president would deal with it.
The best way to judge would be by regarding how they've handled their campaigns: Obama has come out of this smelling like roses, and McCain looks like someone who's come through a field of landmines, hitting as many on the way out as possible. If McCain can't survive an election without mauling and maiming himself, it's doubtful he'd survive the presidency.
Obama/Biden is the clear choice by far.
Once again, McCain is forgetting these sort of things. For example, Bush Jr was tested by 9/11.
Arianna,
You have thanked us for your increased web traffic. We thank you for Huffpo. There is nothing else like it anywhere. You have given Progressives a voice that is heard world-wide.
Ditto. It heartens me when I see a story you break picked up my the NYT or other major paper. Although I'm still very disappointed that Palin is getting away with this "Pro-America parts ot he country" crap given her and her husband's association with the AIP. If desiring and encouraging secession aren't anti-American, I don't know is. Yet very few people I talk to who are voting for McCain are aware of this fact, or the fact that the New Yorker reported that a member of the board that Obama and Ayers sits on donated $1500 to the McCain campaign!
You're absolutely right, Arianna. McCain/Palin have nothing to sell but fear and smear. "Raise our taxes?" Who is "our?" Why, those making over $250k a year - and under President Obama, they will only pay taxes as they did eight years ago - before Bush's tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans took effect. If you're making $250k, this will amount to around $12 more per year than you pay now. However, if you are lucky enough to be one of the 5% of all Americans who have 95% of the wealth, like Cindy McCain, for example, then yes, your taxes will be substantially more than they are now. Poor you. Except that you can afford to hire the best tax attorneys to find loopholes and shelter your wealth. Oh, but wait. President Obama wants to get rid of some of those loopholes. "Spread the wealth around?" Well, yes, the middle class, those of us who make less than $250k annually, like teachers, police, fire fighters, most in the military, and most small business owners - we 95% of all Americans who have the remaining 5% of the wealth - will get some additional tax breaks under President Obama. And McCain/Palin would have us believe that's a bad thing? I say "SPREAD BABY, SPREAD!"
These are my thoughts too. Why are McCain and Palin trying to win by saying the middle class shouldn't get a tax break but the rich should? Even with the tax break none of us will be wealthy. Once the rich and wealthy get done deducting they won't be paying that much.
The only cards the GOP has left to play is the claim that Dems raise taxes, that Dems are pro-choice and the fear cards. Oh and McSame's War Hero card too. I almost forgot about that over toted one.
Americans are ahead of McCain and want to move past 9/11.
The scariest thing of all is watching John McCain run around like a chicken with his head cut off, while Sarah Palin looms eerily in the background. Alfred Hitchcock, if he could witness this, might be saying something: "gee, why didn't I think of that." Sorry, if I didn't get the accent right.
Hitch did have a thing for the vixens....
I also think that a lot of Americans remember that the war preceded the surge and that we have spent lives and fortune in a quixotic enterprise that was never well planned or well thought out, that we never should have started in the first place and that has done us incredible harm. McCain suffers from Tom Ridge's manipulation of the threat levels and the eventual sense that we were being jerked around and made to feel fear when there was nothing to fear. It stopped working. We're no longer afraid of "the black guy."
As an African American, I sincerely thank you for those comments. I never been afraid of the KKK, so it's nice to know that most White American are no longer afraid of the "huge Black guy" who resurfaces every election to scare White men and women.
The issue is the economy.
Read what the media is NOT saying about the financial crisis:
http://www
You are spot on...
And, just today I saw a video in a Tax Attorney's office, while morally supporting a friend, WTTW, on PBS, allowed Lowell Bergmann to do this investigation on the Secret History and birth of the Credit Card scandal(s).
While OCC at every turn of various State Attorney General's who saw the shenanigans, requested their OCC's assistance in keeping the banks disciplined or shall I say from being "rouges". The OCC in turn made every attempt at silencing the AG's across the globe.
Bill Janiklow, once Governor of South Dakota, was the originator and sought to get every bank and lobbyist on board to gut consumers any way they could. NYT writes it this way, see it here
http://www
During the Grate Depression there were Hoovervilles. What will we call them now/ this time around? Bushvilles?
Tent city highlights US homes crisis; http://new
Just wanted to thank Arianna for the HuffPost. It's kept me sane through this election. Thanks!
I think that everytime the mccain/palin ticket says "the American people deserve a government that works for them," they lose a percentage point, and reinforce Obama's message.
Yes we do -- and yes we can.
I'm so sick of negative ads. I think there should be a law re: political ads. You can't talk about opponent..
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