Holy shit! Now that McCain's slackwits have taken his slanders against Obama to heart and started issuing death threats, McCain is forced to walk back his volcanic rhetoric and call Obama "a decent man." He was forced to state that Obama is not a Muslim, not a threat, etc. He actually got booed by his rabid, het-up supporters. That Karl-Rove playbook not working out so well this time, eh, Johnny?
Yet another McCain supporter who's had enough. http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bal-op.mccain10oct10,0,7557571.story McCain's attacks fuel dangerous hatred By Frank Schaeffer October 10, 2008 John McCain: If your campaign does not stop equating Sen. Barack Obama with terrorism, questioning his patriotism and portraying Mr. Obama as "not one of us," I accuse you of deliberately feeding the most unhinged elements of our society the red meat of hate, and therefore of potentially instigating violence. At a Sarah Palin rally, someone called out, "Kill him!" At one of your rallies, someone called out, "Terrorist!" Neither was answered or denounced by you or your running mate, as the crowd laughed and cheered. At your campaign event Wednesday in Bethlehem, Pa., the crowd was seething with hatred for the Democratic nominee - an attitude encouraged in speeches there by you, your running mate, your wife and the local Republican chairman. Shame! John McCain: In 2000, as a lifelong Republican, I worked to get you elected instead of George W. Bush. In return, you wrote an endorsement of one of my books about military service. You seemed to be a man who put principle ahead of mere political gain. You have changed. You have a choice: Go down in history as a decent senator and an honorable military man with many successes, or go down in history as the latest abettor of right-wing extremist hate. John McCain, you are no fool, and you understand the depths of hatred that surround the issue of race in this country. You also know that, post-9/11, to call someone a friend of a terrorist is a very serious matter. You also know we are a bitterly divided country on many other issues. You know that, sadly, in America, violence is always just a moment away. You know that there are plenty of crazy people out there. Stop! Think! Your rallies are beginning to look, sound, feel and smell like lynch mobs. John McCain, you're walking a perilous line. If you do not stand up for all that is good in America and declare that Senator Obama is a patriot, fit for office, and denounce your hate-filled supporters when they scream out "Terrorist" or "Kill him," history will hold you responsible for all that follows. John McCain and Sarah Palin, you are playing with fire, and you know it. You are unleashing the monster of American hatred and prejudice, to the peril of all of us. You are doing this in wartime. You are doing this as our economy collapses. You are doing this in a country with a history of assassinations. Change the atmosphere of your campaign. Talk about the issues at hand. Make your case. But stop stirring up the lunatic fringe of haters, or risk suffering the judgment of history and the loathing of the American people - forever. We will hold you responsible.
Mccain is doing the right thing.He has loss this race.The only person Mccain should be angered with is George Bush Mccain needs to go out a like champ and restore his name.Finish the last 3 weeks explaining his polices and let the people decide if they want his polices or Obamas polices The majority of people like myself were not voting against mccain,most are voting to end the Iraq war and to get as far away from Bush polices as possible. Going into this race myself and many others had the utmost respect for John Mccain,he would have had my vote if he had promised to end the Iraq war,and win or lose i always would have had the utmost respect for him until he started his general election campaign Picking Palin to be VP as a gimmick when there are Hundreds of Republicans far more qualified,his disgraceful attack filled convention,and this last week of attacks has destroyed the name of this once great man.Its not to late though,I hope does the right thing and it seems like he is
Back to Story - Help McCain booed after trying to calm anti-Obama crowd By PHILIP ELLIOTT and BETH FOUHY, Associated Press Writers 1 hour, 6 minutes ago The anger is getting raw at Republican rallies and John McCain is acting to tamp it down. McCain was booed by his own supporters Friday when, in an abrupt switch from raising questions about Barack Obama's character, he described the Democrat as a "decent person and a person that you do not have to be scared of as president of the United States." A sense of grievance spilling into rage has gripped some GOP events this week as McCain supporters see his presidential campaign lag against Obama. Some in the audience are making it personal, against the Democrat. Shouts of "traitor," "terrorist," "treason," "liar," and even "off with his head" have rung from the crowd at McCain and Sarah Palin rallies, and gone unchallenged by them. McCain changed his tone Friday when supporters at a town hall pressed him to be rougher on Obama. A voter said, "The people here in Minnesota want to see a real fight." Another said Obama would lead the U.S. into socialism. Another said he did not want his unborn child raised in a country led by Obama. "If you want a fight, we will fight," McCain said. "But we will be respectful. I admire Sen. Obama and his accomplishments." When people booed, he cut them off. "I don't mean that has to reduce your ferocity," he said. "I just mean to say you have to be respectful." Presidential candidates are accustomed to raucous rallies this close to Election Day and welcome the enthusiasm. But they are also traditionally monitors of sorts from the stage. Part of their job is to leaven proceedings if tempers run ragged and to rein in an out-of-bounds comment from the crowd. Not so much this week, at GOP rallies in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Florida and other states. When a visibly angry McCain supporter in Waukesha, Wis., on Thursday told the candidate "I'm really mad" because of "socialists taking over the country," McCain stoked the sentiment. "I think I got the message," he said. "The gentleman is right." He went on to talk about Democrats in control of Congress. On Friday, McCain rejected the bait. "I don't trust Obama," a woman said. "I have read about him. He's an Arab." McCain shook his head in disagreement, and said: "No, ma'am. He's a decent, family man, a citizen that I just happen to have disagreements with (him) on fundamental issues and that's what this campaign is all about." He had drawn boos with his comment: "I have to tell you, he is a decent person and a person that you do not have to be scared of as president of the United States." The anti-Obama taunts and jeers are noticeably louder when McCain appears with Palin, a big draw for GOP social conservatives. She accused Obama this week of "palling around with terrorists" because of his past, loose association with a 1960s radical. If less directly, McCain, too, has sought to exploit Obama's Chicago neighborhood ties to William Ayers, while trying simultaneously to steer voters' attention to his plans for the financial crisis. The Alaska governor did not campaign with McCain on Friday, and his rally in La Crosse, Wis., earlier Friday was much more subdued than those when the two campaigned together. Still, one woman shouted "traitor" when McCain told voters Obama would raise their taxes. Volunteers worked up chants from the crowd of "U.S.A." and "John McCain, John McCain," in an apparent attempt to drown out boos and other displays of negative energy. The Secret Service confirmed Friday that it had investigated an episode reported in The Washington Post in which someone in Palin's crowd in Clearwater, Fla., shouted "kill him," on Monday, meaning Obama. There was "no indication that there was anything directed at Obama," Secret Service spokesman Eric Zahren told AP. "We looked into it because we always operate in an atmosphere of an abundance of caution." Palin, at a fundraiser in Ohio on Friday, told supporters "it's not negative and it's not mean-spirited" to scrutinize Obama's iffy associations. But Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania an author of 15 books on politics, says the vitriol has been encouraged by inflammatory words from the stage. "Red-meat rhetoric elicits emotional responses in those already disposed by ads using words such as 'dangerous' 'dishonorable' and 'risky' to believe that the country would be endangered by election of the opposing candidate," she said. ___ Beth Fouhy reported from New York. Associated Press writer Joe Milicia contributed to this story from Cleveland. Copyright © 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. 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The Republican party really does some dumb things - as far as looking out for their own best interests. Why in the world did they let George HW Bush run for re-election after breaking his "read my lips" promise? Next they send Dole. Clinton didn't even have to get out of the bed in the morning to beat him. And they won by luck when W beat Gore, W didn't even win the popular vote, and he only won re-election because Republican voters were in a war frenzy. So now they send McCain who is Republican in name only. And McCain gets on stage and tells the crowd that the opponent would be a good president, almost as if he is campaigning for him. The Republican party survived the attack from the Reform party in 92, but can it survive itself now?
This post is very interesting. Observing McCain with Obama, no one would ever say that McCain has any respect for Obama. A guy who has been in Washington 30 years knows that pols have to do the talky-talk and Obama's personal references to McCain throughout this campaign are SOP in the biggest game on the planet, the contest for POTUS. Any other pol would at least have a smile and look the guy in the eye on the debating stage, something McCain couldn't do. So why is he now backing off? Why is he trying to make nice? Is it solely because his brain trust has told him that it's the optimal stratgey in this game? If so, what does that say about him? Certainly it means he has no more integrity than Obama, who has been accused of being a talker first and foremost. I don't think a candidate saying about his opponent that he is 'a decent man' and that there is 'nothing to be afraid of in him' is necessarily 'campaiging for' the opponent.