[quote]BostonBarrister wrote:
He is something of a hot head, but we have enough checks and balances to prevent any short term temper bursts from being problematic. Given a chance to calm down, he has the right instincts - and he can obviously compromise when necessary (see your Falwell point above).[/quote]
Yeah, but isn’t that associating with a bigot (falwell)? Not to mention his contacts with Hagee the anti-Catholic bigot.
[quote]Varqanir wrote:
thunderbolt23 wrote:
Varqanir wrote:
Is anyone here actually old enough to remember that during the Iran Hostage Crisis they regularly played “Bomb Iran” (sung to the tune of “Barbara Ann”) on the radio?
The quote attributed to McCain - “bomb bomb bomb bomb Iran” - is based on that diddy.
I figured it could be no other.
That explains people’s reactions, I guess. No cultural/historical frame of reference. I don’t seem to recall anyone back in 1980 who took offense at that song playing on the radio. When did we get so fucking sensitive?[/quote]
I’m more worried about current context. There has been a lot of talk about keeping the military option on the table. In fact, I’m sure McCain has said as much. I’ll have to take a look.
[quote]Varqanir wrote:
I figured it could be no other.
That explains people’s reactions, I guess. No cultural/historical frame of reference. I don’t seem to recall anyone back in 1980 who took offense at that song playing on the radio. When did we get so fucking sensitive?[/quote]
[quote]
BostonBarrister wrote:
He is something of a hot head, but we have enough checks and balances to prevent any short term temper bursts from being problematic. Given a chance to calm down, he has the right instincts - and he can obviously compromise when necessary (see your Falwell point above).
Sloth wrote:
Yeah, but isn’t that associating with a bigot (falwell)? Not to mention his contacts with Hagee the anti-Catholic bigot. [/quote]
That doesn’t seem to relate to the point.
McCain is pulling a Nixon - run to the right in the primary, then tack to the center in the general election.
Or do you really think that McCain has converted his stubborn, hot-headed opinion on Falwell and similar people? BTW, on Hagee, see: Opinionated Catholic: McCain Embraces Anti -Catholic Hagee Horrors!!!!
Well, pandering to bigots was enough to earn outrage on this here forum for another Republican candidate.
I’m not enough of a political historian to answer this question for myself, but has there ever been a politician who has won an election without somewhere along the line pandering to bigots and extremists?
[quote]Varqanir wrote:
I’m not enough of a political historian to answer this question for myself, but has there ever been a politician who has won an election without somewhere along the line pandering to bigots and extremists?[/quote]
My high school SR. class president did.
[quote]Varqanir wrote:
I’m not enough of a political historian to answer this question for myself, but has there ever been a politician who has won an election without somewhere along the line pandering to bigots and extremists?[/quote]
Probably not. But I guess I’m a little irritable about the Ron Paul situation. Yet, McCain and Huckabee’s flirtation with some pretty extreme evangelical leaders is sort of poo-poohed. It’s not so much the pandering, but the different standard being applied here.
While I recognize there’s an argument about degrees of association and pandering (Paul lending his name to a newsletter, as oppossed to kissing up to Hagee and Falwell), it seems to me that the more “Mainstream” Republicans are getting a bit of a pass on this.
[quote]Varqanir wrote:
Is anyone here actually old enough to remember that during the Iran Hostage Crisis they regularly played “Bomb Iran” (sung to the tune of “Barbara Ann”) on the radio?[/quote]
Yes. That is what makes criticism of McCain for singing the song ludicrous.
[quote]
Varqanir wrote:
I’m not enough of a political historian to answer this question for myself, but has there ever been a politician who has won an election without somewhere along the line pandering to bigots and extremists?
Sloth wrote:
Probably not. But I guess I’m a little irritable about the Ron Paul situation. Yet, McCain and Huckabee’s flirtation with some pretty extreme evangelical leaders is sort of poo-poohed. It’s not so much the pandering, but the different standard being applied here.
While I recognize there’s an argument about degrees of association and pandering (Paul lending his name to a newsletter, as oppossed to kissing up to Hagee and Falwell), it seems to me that the more “Mainstream” Republicans are getting a bit of a pass on this.[/quote]
You answered your own issue. One is a ten-year association - or longer - of working together and allowing those objectionable views to be published in your name (best-case scenario); the other is being seen in the company of some objectionable people. While I’m not going to be voting for Clinton anyway, I’m not too bothered by the fact she meets with Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton; if she were publishing Farrakan speeches in a newsletter, that would be another matter…
The important stuff:
[i]GOP Presidential Prospects Dim, Poll Finds
By JACKIE CALMES
January 24, 2008 8:39 p.m.
Just when it seemed Americans couldn’t get any gloomier about the country’s direction, they have. That finding, from the latest Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, could leave Republicans the gloomiest of all, as prospects for their party darken further in a presidential election year.
Amid a weakened economy and market turmoil, President Bush’s stock has fallen again as he prepares to deliver his final State of the Union address next week, underscoring the burden he could pose for his party’s presidential nominee in the race to November’s election.
As for his would-be successors, the remaining Republicans candidates have dropped further behind in hypothetical match-ups against potential Democratic standard-bearers Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. The exception is Arizona Sen. John McCain, who has revived his still-fragile candidacy and takes the lead in Republicans’ contest for the first time in the poll.He runs even with both Democrats in hypothetical contests – 46% to 44% against Mrs. Clinton, and a 42% draw against Mr. Obama. Both results are essentially the same given the poll’s margin of error.
In a Republican field that is down to five candidates from originally twice that, Mr. McCain is the top choice of Republicans, with 29% support versus 23% for former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee. Mr. Romney, who tied former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani for the top spot in last month’s poll with 20% support each, remains at that number.
But Mr. Giuliani, the Republicans’ national poll leader for all of 2007, drops to fourth place with 15%, continuing a long slide that is reflected, more ominously, in state polls in Florida. He has staked his candidacy on winning the Sunshine State’s Republican primary on Tuesday, but now trails Messrs. McCain and Huckabee, who are splitting the votes of, respectively, Florida’s moderate Republicans and Christian conservatives.
On the Democrats’ side, New York Sen. Hillary Clinton leads Illinois Sen. Barack Obama 47% to 32%. For her, that’s roughly the same as in December, but Mr. Obama is up nine points. Third-place John Edwards, the former North Carolina senator, gets 12%, about what he had last month.
Most Democrats – 51% – say Mrs. Clinton would have the best chance to beat a Republican; 29% say Mr. Obama, up from 18% last month. Among Americans overall, 47% have positive views of Mrs. Clinton, 41% negative – her best reading since 2004.
The Democrats’ eventual nominee will start with a leg up: 48% of Americans want a Democrat to be elected president, and 30% a Republican.
The WSJ/NBC poll was conducted Sunday through Tuesday, as both global and U.S. stock market swoons raised fears of a financial crash, and the Federal Reserve intervened with an emergency cut in its short-term interest rate target. As for the political backdrop, the 1,008 adults were interviewed after news of last Saturday’s Nevada party caucuses, which Mrs. Clinton and Republican Mitt Romney won, and South Carolina’s Republican primary where Mr. McCain led (and Mr. Romney came in fourth). The poll has a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points.
“For Democrats it’s a favorable political climate, but in the end it will be about the candidates and not the climate,” says Democratic pollster Peter Hart, who, with Republican Bill McInturff, conducts the WSJ/NBC polls. Mr. McInturff adds that not since 1948 has a party ever won or held the White House with the economy – and voters’ view of it – been so weak.[/i]
Bolding added by me.
[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
Varqanir wrote:
Is anyone here actually old enough to remember that during the Iran Hostage Crisis they regularly played “Bomb Iran” (sung to the tune of “Barbara Ann”) on the radio?
Yes. That is what makes criticism of McCain for singing the song ludicrous.
[/quote]
Anyone remember when Clinton said a sentence with a southern accent and it was blown the fuck up?
Yeah, same thing. Idiots will take whatever they can to mock an opponent they fear.
[quote]Beowolf wrote:
Anyone remember when Clinton said a sentence with a southern accent and it was blown the fuck up?[/quote]
“Ah don’ feeeel no-ways taaahrd.”
Obama did something similar. The way he talked, you could almost believe he was a black man.
This is at least as ridiculous as Mitt Romney shuckin’ an’ jivin’ during the MLK parade, or, for that matter, Bill Clinton donning a yarmulke in a synagogue, as if to say “Ikh bin an yisroyli.”
See politician pander. Pander, politician, pander.
Now that Rambo is endorsing him it will be a straight shot to the WhiteHouse.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080124/ap_on_el_pr/political_play_of_the_day
The Keating 5:
In 1989, the Lincoln Savings and Loan Association of Irvine, Calif., collapsed. Lincoln’s chairman, Charles H. Keating Jr., was faulted for the thrift’s failure. Keating, however, told the House Banking Committee that the FHLBB and its former chief Edwin J. Gray were pursuing a vendetta against him. Gray testified that several U.S. senators had approached him and requested that he ease off on the Lincoln investigation. It came out that these senators had been beneficiaries of $1.3 million (collective total) in campaign contributions from Keating.
This allegation set off a series of investigations by the California government, the United States Department of Justice, and the Senate Ethics Committee. The ethics committee’s investigation focused on five senators: Alan Cranston (D-CA); Dennis DeConcini (D-AZ); John Glenn (D-OH); John McCain (R-AZ); and Donald W. Riegle, Jr. (D-MI), who became known as the Keating Five.
I wonder if Hillary and Bill are secretly supporting him and have cut a deal with this criminal. They’ll expose him if he’s the Republican nominee for all his criminal works and waltz into the White House. Wonder what his payola is??
HH, you skipped the conclusion of your wikipedia article:
[i]After months of testimony revealed that all five senators acted improperly to differing degrees, the senators continually said they were following the status quo of campaign funding practices. In August 1991, the committee concluded that Cranston, DeConcini, and Riegle’s conduct constituted substantial interference with the FHLBB’s enforcement efforts and that they had done so at the behest of Charles Keating. The committee recommended censure for Cranston and criticized the other four for “questionable conduct.”
As it happened, Cranston, who was nearly 80 years of age, had already decided not to run for re-election in 1992. DeConcini and Riegle continued to serve in the Senate until their terms expired, but they did not seek re-election in 1994.
Glenn did choose to run for re-election in 1992 and it was anticipated that he would have some difficulty winning a fourth term in the Senate. However, Glenn handily defeated Lieutenant Governor R. Michael DeWine for one more term in the Senate before retiring in 1999.
McCain also remained in the Senate and he made campaign finance reform a key legislative interest. The scandal was followed by a number of attempts to adopt campaign finance reform – spearheaded by U.S. Sen. David Boren (D-OK) – but most attempts died in committee. A weakened reform was passed in 1993. Substantial campaign finance reform was not passed until the adoption of the McCain-Feingold Act in 2002.[/i]
http://www.vietnamveteransagainstjohnmccain.com/
What McCain did to POW/MIA’s and their families is disgusting.
[quote]Rocky101 wrote:
http://www.vietnamveteransagainstjohnmccain.com/
What McCain did to POW/MIA’s and their families is disgusting.[/quote]
The video is blocked and that site is hard to read.
Are they mad because he broke under torture?
[quote]Rocky101 wrote:
http://www.vietnamveteransagainstjohnmccain.com/
What McCain did to POW/MIA’s and their families is disgusting.[/quote]
Are you f’in kidding me? Assuming this is true, which according to the links I give below it is not, it’s documented McCain was tortured for years - if he in fact broke under torture I for one wouldn’t cast stones at him.
I also didn’t see if anyone checked to see whether any of the intelligence MCain supposedly was usable intelligence or false facts. I guess that would be too useful in thinking about this for this source to provide…
FYI, McCain destroys all the other candidates in his support among veterans.
See this link:
http://www.sptimes.com/2008/01/18/news_pf/Worldandnation/Flier_smears_McCain_s.shtml
http://papastraighttalk.blogspot.com/2008/01/mccain-swift-boated-in-south-carolina.html
or even this one (not exactly one of my favorite sources):
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/1/16/114214/454/572/437773
McCain was the only Senate Republican to vote against President Bush’s tax cuts.
He has co-sponsored bills with Ted Kennedy. I can’t even imagine being in the same room with Kennedy, the drunken old lecher.
McCain wanted amnesty for illegals, and to let them collect Social Security benefits, from a system already in deep trouble.
McCain is NOT a conservative and is another ‘stealth-lib’ like Bush. Haven’t we had enough of phony conservatives?
He’s such a weak conservative, I’d bet Hiallry and Bill are sponsoring him somehow. Maybe McCain will be the VP under Hillary, like was proposed before with Kerry.