this article goes to show just how depraved the GOP base is. talk about making lemonade when one is given a lemonDeclare it “John McCain came to life” week. Argue that he’s old. That he’s a maverick and may not be all that conservative. That he’ll be steamrolled under the Obama surge. That all the pizazz is with the challenger.
Argue all that. And yet after last week there is reason to be excited at his prospects.
This is clearly a race John McCain can win.
For months, I’ve thought Barack Obama has a problem he’s incapable of overcoming. He doesn’t know when to quit talking. He’s really not disciplined, especially when he’s before a like-minded crowd. And he is arrogant. As we saw through the Democratic primaries, he does not wear well. It’s infatuation at first eye-lock. But then, when the potential partners start sizing him up for long-term commitment, the flash fades.
Ummmn, no, don’t think so.
McCain nailed him last week, picking up immediately something the American people clearly sensed from his Berlin rock-star tour: Obama is a celebrity of the Britney Spears/Paris Hilton variety who just says things. Sometimes they sound insightful. Sometimes they hint at profoundity. Always, when prepared in advance, they are a beautifully written script. Connecting Obama to politically dilettantish Hollywood and by inference the Hollywood left is an indication that the McCain organization can get it together and mount a smart, aggressive campaign over the next three months. “He’s the biggest celebrity in the world,” the McCain ad asserts, “but is he ready to lead?”
Obama’s assertion that we won’t need to drill for oil if we just put more air in our tires is a Hollywood-starlet alternative to a national energy policy.
McCain affirmed his intention to play hardball, too, in his response to Obama’s casual use of the race card. After referring to President Bush and to McCain, Obama had said: “What they’re going to try to do is make you scared of me. You know, ‘He’s not patriotic enough, he’s got a funny name, you know, he doesn’t look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills.’”
McCain responded immediately, expressing his disappointment that Obama had chosen to play the race card — the only possible inference to be drawn from his observation that he “doesn’t look like all those other presidents.”
Obama’s a tough guy to run against for any Republican. The hit squads of the left are positioned on the periphery of the campaign battlefield to pounce at the first use of a word or phrase that can be interpreted as calling attention to Obama’s race. Republicans are stereotyped. Even straightforward efforts to curtail voter fraud like, for example, requiring legitimate proof at the polls of a potential voter’s identity has created a cottage industry among Democratic partisans determined to establish it as evidence of racism.
Be prepared: Any clumsy or stupid utterance by anybody who ever voted Republican that can be interpreted as racism between now and election day will be represented as an extension of the McCain campaign. It’s standard drive-the-vote business.
McCain, in any event, demonstrated that he’ll not allow this advantage to be one-sided. Calling Obama’s hand early on the use of the race card is a signal that he won’t be intimidated on the issue.
McCain recovered well, too, on the issue of higher taxes. For a Republican to indicate an openness to higher taxes with a Democratic Congress is suicide. McCain appeared to do precisely that in speaking with reporters on the campaign bus and later in an ABC interview.
When asked whether he would support higher payroll taxes to fix Social Security, he responded that nothing is off the table. “Nothing” includes, of course, higher taxes.
McCain thus appeared to have given away the franchise. Any Republican who agrees to a dollar of new taxes with this spendthrift Congress will get a thousand.
McCain quickly recovered.
http://www.ajc.com/opinion/content/shared-blogs/ajc/thinkingright/entries/2008/08/01/mccain_revives_campaign_with_s.html
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