McCain and Palin have proven themselves to be "Mavericks" in at least one regard: campaigning. Traditionally, candidates of both parties will "sharp contrasts" between themselves and their opponent while allowing various surrogates to handle the nasty personal attacks and character assassinations. This of course, allows the candidate to have his cake and eat it too. He can stay "above the fray" and look presidential while still reaping the benefits yielded by dirty politics.

We saw this demonstrated very clearly in the last election with Internet groups like MoveOn.org doing Kerry's dirty work, while on the opposite side, various 527's like Swiftboat Veterans for Truth carried Bush's dirty water. Of course both candidates publically denounced these attacks, and the groups making them. In reality, we all know they both were hoping would continue. As nasty as the 2004 election got, if you go back and look at the record, you will see that John Kerry and George Bush remained relatively respectful to one another. Bush stated numerous times that he respected the military service of John Kerry, believed him to have served honorably, and denounced the attacks being made on his service. Kerry did the same with the whole "Bush Lied, People Died" and "No War for Oil" nonsense coming out of the MoveOn nuthouse.

While the 2004 campaign did get very ugly, the vast majority of this ugliness was coming out of groups like MoveOn.org, Code Pink, Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, etc., and not directly from the two campaigns themselves, who again, drew extremely sharp contrasts and distinctions between one another, but remained relatively respectful while doing so. Bush/Cheney never called Kerry a traitor; or questioned his patriotism; or questioned the validity of his purple hearts or his Vietnam-era activities, etc.. And Kerry/Edwards never called Bush a liar; or accused him of taking us to war for oil; or brought up his status as a Recovering Alcoholic and Drug Addict, etc. Obviously this kind of ultra-red meat could have come in extremely helpful to either campaign at various times during the election whenever either candidate needed to get their base extra fired up, or needed to change the subject fast because of an unfavorable news cycle, or needed to distract voters from an issue damaging to their candidate, etc.

But for whatever reason, neither candidate choose to cross that invisible line and deploy the so-called "nuclear option" for lack of better words - even if it meant losing the presidency. The were neck-and-neck heading into election day, why either candidate didn't pull out a "There is good reason to believe Kerry was a Communist in the past" or a "Bush clearly lied about WMD's to take us to war for oil" that would have undoubtedly helped either candidate, at least with the respective bases, going into the home stretch. But they did not. Both candidates maintained the same relative mutual respect all the way through to the concession call from Kerry.

Why not? Well, I believe it is because Kerry and Bush, like every other presidential candidate before them, understood that for either of them to cross over and lend the legitimacy to that line of attack could be dangerously irresponsible. As a candidate, one of you is going to be president. After the election is over, to have legitimized the idea that "the other guy" who is now the new President of the United States is a Communist Traitor or a Lying Murder who started a war for oil is just a line that would be too irresponsible to cross, even if it means losing the election. The unintended consequences of inciting hatred towards your opponent and openly supporting the notion that this is a dangerous person with dangerous ulterior motives is pretty frightening to think about. 

McCain and Palin clearly have a different belief. And this is what is scary to me. Right now, as we speak, McCain and Palin are out there campaigning on the central narrative that the Barack Obama you see is not the "real" Barack Obama, and that the "real" Barack Obama is actually a Muslim Terrorist with longstanding Terrorist connections and financing who is trying to detroy America because he believes America is evil. This is actually the same narrative Republican operatives have been pushing from the very start of the campaign on the web and via mass email campaigns. Only recently have the Candidates themselves actually picked up this narrative and started legitimizing it.

This week, McCain and Palin have repeatedly laid out all 3 main components of the narrative: 1) Obama is Muslim 2) Obama is a Terrorist 3) Obama hates America and wants to destroy the country from the inside out. At campaign rallies all this week, there has been a coordinated intentional effort by the McCain campaign to reintroduce Obama's middle name "Hussein" into the political rhetoric and discussion. Multiple times at multiple events, we have heard speakers at McCain/Plain events repeatedly refer to Senator Obama as Barack "Hussein" Obama. The middle name usage has been paralleled with repeated claims by Palin that Barack Obama as someone who "doesn't think like we do", and someone who does not like America, and as someone who associates with and "pals around" with known terrorists - always ending by asking "Who is the real Barack Obama?" - a clear invitation for the audience to "connect the dots" that have been laid out so neatly by the McCain campaign. After connecting those dots we see the real Barack Obama is a dangerous terrorist sympathizer who hates America and has evil ulterior motives for becoming president.

How do we know this? Take a look at McCain's face from the campaign rally in Florida earlier this week when, after being whipped into a frenzy of xenophobic hatred by Sarah Palin, John McCain comes out and asks the crowd "So who is the REAL Barack Obama?" and the angry mob shouts back "A TERRORIST!!!" and "KILL HIM!!! KILL HIM!!!" Take a lot at McCain's face after he hears the crowd's reaction. The utter look of complete shock washes completely over him. It looks like somebody physically punches him in the face when the crowd starts chanting "Kill Him! Kill Him!"

Why this is such a surprise to McCain I am not sure. Maybe he wasn't listening to the speech Sarah Palin was giving about Obama being a terrorist who hates America. I mean we are all fairly reasonable people on this forum, but I don't think a single one of us would stop at anything to prevent someone from becoming the President of the United States if we truly believed that person to be secret Traitor or a secret member of a Terrorist sleeper cell or a Terrorist sympathizer or someone who hates America with evil ulterior motives to harm the country.  If you believed for a fact the President of the United States to be a secret Muslim terrorist with a hidden agenda to destroy America from the inside out, and you had the opportunity to stop him by whatever means necessary - wouldn't you have to do that? Wouldn't that be your responsibility?

It's unfortunate McCain is so ignorantly clueless and out-of-touch, but he better find a way to start reigning in the rhetoric of his little airhead Barbie Doll sidekick because not everybody in America realizes these are just political tactics being used to change the debate away from the economy. When you say Barack Obama hates America and associates with terrorists, there are a lot of people who actually believe every single thing you just told them, and if you actually believe that stuff it's pretty darn easy to justify killing him.

What idiots. That's all I can say. I get on my knees and thank God every night these two morons now have no chance in hell of winning this election.   

Ryan, I feel virtually the same when I see protesters hanging Bush in effigy. Those of us on the right have been dealing with this kind of rhetoric for 8 years.

I've never heard McCain say Obama is a terrorist, although he's likely said that Obama has associates who ARE know terrorists. If I ever heard him call Obama either Muslim or a terrorist, or both, I'd be the first to repudiate it.

Of course! Of course! Of course! Please go back and read my post again. You are missing the entire point. Of course there are fringe groups on both sides. This is where these radical attacks on both sides originate. For every nut claiming Obama is a muslim terrorist there's another nut claiming George Bush orchestrated the 9/11 attacks. For every "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth" group there is a "MoveOn.org". This will always be the case.

The HUGE difference here is that, traditionally, the nominated candidates of each party have served as the respective firewall for each group of nuts. People weren't hanging Bush in effigy at Kerry's campaign rallies and George Bush wasn't appearing at the end of Swift Boat Veteran's for Truth attack ads saying "I'm George Bush and I approve this message".

That was, and is, the entire point of my post. Kerry refused to legitmize the accusations that Bush was a liar who took us to war for oil. And George Bush refused to legitmize the accusations that John Kerry was a Communist sympathizer and a traitor during the Vietnam era. In fact, both men denounced such attacks. To repeat them would be to give a tremendous amount of credibility to these patently false attacks. So while that may be politically beneficial, it would be highly irresponsible. So long as these kinds of radical attacks stay within the fringe elements of both sides and are denounced by both major party leaders, they can never gain much credibility.

That is NOT what John McCain and Sarah Palin are doing. Now I don't believe for a second that John McCain actually believes that Barack Obama "pals around" with terrorists. But that is exactly what he is allowing Sarah Palin to repeat at every campaign stop in Flordia. And it's incredibly fucking stupid, irresponsible, and dangerous. Name me one other presidential election in American history - just one - where a candidate is giving a campaign speech to his supporters and the crowd is calling for the MURDER of the other candidate???

You don't think this kind of rhetoric about Obama "paling around" with terrorists is dangerous? If not, you need to get a fucking clue because it's not cute or it's not folksy or something that should be taken in jest. This is serious shit. You're calling a United States Senator a terrorist sympathizer and claiming he doesn't like this country very much. Those are deadly accusations buddy. Not everybody in this country is a political Einstein you know. There's some really fucking stupid people that live in this country, particularly in the deep red states, with an abnormal level of American patriotism, a whole lot of guns, and NOT a whole lot to lose. I don't like this shit of dismissing deadly serious accusations as nothing. It's not nothing.


Well no shit. Come on, quit playing stupid. You've never heard Barack Obama call John McCain old or Sarah Plain stupid either. Read my response to bringbackwigs, this is about narratives and right now, this is the narrative they're pushing. Or let me put it to you this way, please answer this question for me........If not to paint Barack Obama as a terrorist, terrorist sympathizer, or someone who otherwise tolerates or condones terrorism than what is the point of trying to link a realtionship between him and Bill Ayers? What is the point of repeatedly referring to him as Barack "Hussein" Obama??? If his middle name was "Robert" would they be repeatedly referring to him by all 3 names??? Of course not and you fucking know it. So again, quit playing stupid. Anybody with half a brain knows they wouldn't be calling him Barack Hussien and trying to link him to Bill Ayers were it not to scare voters into thinking this guy has something to do with terrorism.

By the way, you need to get some of your information correct. Bill Ayers is not a "known terrorist" nor is he a "associate" of Barack Obama. Bill Ayers is a former member of the Weathermen Group - one of dozens of 1960's era radical leftist groups. The Weathermen, which Republicans call a "terrorist" group, did not conduct acts of terrorism (i.e. the intentional and/or indiscriminate murder, torture, or terrorization of innocent civilians in order to intimidate a group or government) . They conducted protest acts of violent civil disobedience against targeting buildings and property - not people. Wikipedia provides the following explaination.... 


The only deaths resulting from the Weathermen's activities were unintentional and accidential. This is not to condone them or anything they done, just to point out not any and all group is a terrorist group simply because they blow up stuff and you don't agree with them. The Weathermen targeted buildings and property for protest. Terrorists, by definition, target people. The Weathermen did not target people. Here, let me put it to you this way, if Bill Ayers was a "known terrorist" would he be teaching English Literature at a Chicago University right now? Why wouldn't he be in prision?

Secondly, Ayers is not an "associate" of Obama nor has he ever been an "associate" of Obama's. Ayers held a fundraiser for Obama once, and Ayers served with many people on an educational committee once - one of those many people being Barack Obama. Both of these chance meetings took place about 30 years or so AFTER the whole Weatherman activities.

   

Some of you may be too young to remember, but in the 1990s there was a virulent reaction among right-wing fanatics against the Democratic Party's success. They convinced themselves that the tragedy at Waco was an intentional murder of innocent right-wingers. Rush Limbaugh was in full spout, and G. Gordon Liddy had a right-wing rant show urging that his listeners to "aim for their heads because they're wearing body armor" when shooting at federal law enforcement agents.

Then a right wing nut, Timothy McVay, who took this shit seriously, blew up the federal building in Oklahoma City, murdering hundreds, including children in the on-site day care. That took a little steam out of the right wing ranters. G. Gordon Liddy slunk away back into his gutter.

But it was too late for some.

Look at this (disclaimer: I realize not all Republicans may share this view):

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/10/mccain.crowd/index.html


lol. People that think like this haven't seen a socialist in their entire life. A 'socialist' or a traitor to any of them is anyone not Republican and worthy of killing.

Why don't these nobs just say what they're too afraid to say? Republicans should take over by any means necessary and to hell with these "big government" election-thingys.

I think these people hate America and should get off the contenient. Seems like all that's left to come to these rallies are the rabble-rousers.

McCain ad:
Yep. Lie-diddy-lie-lie.






Yeah but nueue you forget that you're reasonable. I remeber that crying baby that was supposed to represent the democrat party. Not so funny to many now. I can still phathom reasons why someone might vote for McCain and I like McCain a hell of a lot more than Bush...but then I like nixion more than bush...but that's not these people. These people are the kind where one outta every 100 is probably a pshyco who would be willing to carry out the threat.




Ahk

Correction. It's all over the news except Fox "news." You know, the fair and balanced one.

Maybe Neue has missed the fact that it go so bad the McCain himself finally had to ratchet down the rhetoric and admonish his own supporters. I found it amazing--and telling--that when he did, they booed him.

I wonder if right-wing kookland is going to pull another 1990s?

Those of us who lived through it will never forget the sheer insanity of the attacks on the Clintons — they were drug smugglers, they murdered Vince Foster (and lots of other people), they were in league with foreign powers.
And this stuff didn’t just show up in fringe publications — it was discussed in Congress, given props by the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal, and so on.

 If the looney-bin right decides to treat President Obama as not just an opposition leader, but as a virtual enemy of the state, as they did with Bill Clinton, it's going to be a very, very long eight years. Whatever grownups are left in conservative-land really need to step up to the plate soon before their movement goes even further off the rails than it already is.

(addapted from Krugman's and Kevin Drum's blogs).