Let me once again preface the following by saying that I have a profound respect for John McCain's service for our country in Vietnam, and his years of dutiful service in the Senate fighting corruption and standing up for his beliefs.
Didn't John McCain follow the Democratic primaries? Hillary Clinton should have taught him that calling Obama an elitist doesn't work. When you are the son and grandson of admirals and the husband of a wealthy beer heiress, you can't call someone who was raised by a single mother an elitist and expect it to work for too long. Jake Tapper of ABC recently posted an "elitist celebrity quiz" that hits back at McCain.
It is getting to the point where McCain has to use the tactic of bullying the press into "equal coverage" by saying that they have to cover his campaign just as much as Obama's, when Obama goes to Germany and McCain goes to German restaurants in Ohio. The press has to give just as much credibility to McCain's Iraq policy when Obama's has been all but endorsed by Iraq's PM and leading military officials. The press has to cover McCain's 200 person town hall meetings just as much as Obama's 200,000 rally in Berlin.
Obama's an elitist because he made money by writing books, but you know, forget that Cindy McCain is a wealthy beer heiress. Forget that Obama was raised by a single mother. Forget that he has risen to his current position out of the rough streets of Chicago politics. Of course "community organizing" doesn't mean working in soup kitchens but it does mean working to help poor people to get their voices heard and their needs met.
When Obama goes on a world tour, meets with leaders who he will possibly be working with as president, and draws huge crowds, he is arrogant and premature. But when John McCain makes trips overseas, it shows that he has foreign policy experience. Obama can't play the race card but McCain is allowed to bash his patriotism all day. Obama is a flip-flopper when he makes political decisions but when John McCain runs ads comparing Obama to Britney Spears and Paris Hilton? No that's just a questioning of Obama's substance, not a personal attack that McCain once swore to abstain from.
The John McCain of 2000 would have made a great president. If he hadn't been demolished by Bush, Rove, and Co., we would have had an election between two excellent candidates. Maybe the debate would have been about policy rather than about whether Al Gore really said he invented the internet.
What's happened to that John McCain?
His upcoming VP announcement will certainly shake things up but there's no one he can pick that will really turn his campaign around. The Olympics will be starting soon and right after that will be the Democratic National Convention. The Straight-Talk Express has run itself over a cliff. I have the profoundest respect for John McCain as a person, but he has put himself in a race that he simply cannot win, and it is markedly upsetting him.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment