McCain Campaign to Cease its Unilateral Disarmament?
May 14th, 2008 at 09:15am Mark Noonan
In a laudable effort to keep the debate to a high tone, Senator McCain and this staff have eschewed any attempts at negative campaigning against his presumptive opponent, Barack Obama. In fact, McCain has gone out of his way to condemn efforts by some in the GOP/conservative coalition to attack Obama. In return for this high minded good citizenship, McCain has received the customary treatment from the Democratic party and the larger political left - he’s been the brunt of a series of attack ads and slanderous whispering campaigns. It seems that McCain and Co might finally have had enough of this - as McCain advisor Mark Salter responds to a thinly disguised hit piece in Newsweek:
A useful way to read the piece would be to try to imagine you were a Republican reading it. The characterization of Republican presidential campaigns as nothing more than attack machines that use 527s and other means to smear opponents strikes us as pretty offensive. Is that how Ronald Reagan won two terms? Do they really think other Republican presidential candidates were elected because they ran dirtier campaigns than their opponents? Or could it be that they were better candidates or ran better campaigns or maybe more voters agreed with their position on important issues?
From the beginning of their article, Evan Thomas and Richard Wolffe offered a biased implication that Republicans have won elections and will try to win this one simply by tearing down through disreputable means their opponents. You can see why many Republicans and voters and our campaign might take issue with that.
Suggesting that that we can expect a whispering campaign from the McCain campaign or the Republican Party about Senator Obama’s race and the false charge that he is a Muslim is scurrilous. Has John McCain ever campaigned that way? On the contrary, he has on numerous occasions denounced tactics offensive tactics from campaigns, 527s and others, both Democratic and Republican. By the way, which party had more 527 and other independent expenditure ads made on its behalf in 2004? It wasn’t us.
By accepting the Obama campaign construct as if it were objective, Evan and Richard framed this race exactly as Senator Obama wants it to be framed – every issue that raises doubts about his policy views and judgment is part of a smear campaign intended to distract voters from the real issues at stake in the election, and, thus, illegitimate…
…Democratic Party allied third parties have announced negative ad campaigns, which distort McCain’s statements and positions, in the hundreds of millions of dollars. They are already running them. Senator Obama himself and Democrats generally have taken out of context and distorted Senator McCain’s statements on a post war military presence in Iraq and his views on the economy. Our townhalls are now routinely salted with Obama supporters who are there to raise embarrassing questions for the Senator (we don’t screen people at our events). An Obama supporter asked him in Iowa if he called his wife a very vulgar name.
When the North Carolina party prepared to run an ad raising the Reverend Wright issue, Senator McCain again denounced it in the strongest possible terms, and was sharply criticized by conservative radio and pundits for doing so. And when the North Carolina party refused to withdraw it, the Obama campaign, Howard Dean and others charged that he was either being disingenuous or ineffective. I understand why they might employ that tactic, but isn’t it the job of reporters to ponder its implications to see if it is fair?
Senator McCain is not going to referee ads run by groups outside our control. The other side has no intention of reciprocating and has shown every inclination to tolerate and even encourage such attacks against us. Of course, he will denounce any use of race or calumnies against his opponent by anyone. But he won’t play traffic cop anymore…
…The McCain campaign will keep to the high standards of political debate Senator McCain demands of us. The Senator will not tolerate unfair attacks by anyone on our campaign. We won’t, however, abide by rules imposed on us by our opponents, and which pertain only to our campaign and not theirs, even if they manage to get reporters to call the deal fair.
That is showing a bit of the brass McCain is going to need against both his political and his MSM opponents going into the fall campaign. Between Obama, the DNC, the left and the MSM, we can expect one of the most savagely dishonest smear campaigns ever launched in American politics - and John McCain is the bull’s eye. I had been worrying that McCain - a true gentleman - simply wasn’t willing to mix it up with the cretinous behaviour all too common on the left, but now it appears that McCain - old fighter pilot that he is - has some teeth and is willing to bare them at need.
We will have to fight and fight and fight to win this year, fellow GOPers - the week-kneed sisters in the GOP and the “I don’ wanna play” conservatives had just better get out of the way, real conservative Republicans are going to have to take charge and get the job done. America is what is important, and we’re battling for her - and for those sons and daughters of America who have and are giving their all on the front lines of liberty. No Obamaesque slickness, no MSM bias, no billionaire leftists will deter those who fight for what is right - and in John McCain, we seem to have found a man willing to lead us into the battle.
Entry Filed under: Campaign 2008, Democrats, Media, Republicans
22 Comments
1. John McCain » McCai&hellip | May 14th, 2008 at 9:23 am
[...] David Fryer wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptSuggesting that that we can expect a whispering campaign from the McCain campaign or the Republican Party about Senator Obama’s race and the false charge that he is a Muslim is scurrilous. Has John McCain ever campaigned that way? … [...]
2. Danish Artist | May 14th, 2008 at 9:27 am
If Barack Obama gets his way, the Oxford English Dictionary will have updated its definition of “distraction” by the end of the campaign: “Diversion of the mind, attention, etc., from any object or course that tends to advance the political interests of Barack Obama.”
After his blowout win in North Carolina last week, Obama turned to framing the rules of the general election ahead, warning in his victory speech of “efforts to distract us.” The chief distracter happens to be the man standing between Obama and the White House, John McCain, who will “use the very same playbook that his side has used time after time in election after election.”
Ah, yes, the famous distractions with which Republicans fool unwitting Americans. Ronald Reagan distracted them with the Iranian hostage crisis, high inflation and unemployment, gas lines and the loss of American prestige abroad. Then, the first George Bush distracted them with the notion of a third Reagan term, as well as the issues of taxes, crime and volunteerism. After a brief interlude of national focus during two Clinton terms, another Bush arrived wielding the dark art of distraction.
Forget “bitter”; Obama must believe that most Americans suffer from an attention-deficit disorder so crippling that they can’t concentrate on their own interests or values.
Obama has an acute self-interest in so diagnosing the American electorate. His campaign knows he’s vulnerable to the charge of being an elitist liberal. Unable to argue the facts, it wants to argue the law — defining his weaknesses as off-limits.
The campaign can succeed in imposing these rules on the race only if the news media cooperate. Newsweek signed up for the effort in a cover story that reads like a 3,400-word elaboration of the “distraction” passage of Obama’s victory speech. “The Republican Party has been successfully scaring voters since 1968,” it says, through “innuendo and code.” McCain “may not be able to resist casting doubt on Obama’s patriotism,” and there’s a question whether he can or wants to “rein in the merchants of slime and sellers of hate.”
Here are the Obama rules in detail: He can’t be called a “liberal” (”the same names and labels they pin on everyone,” as Obama puts it); his toughness on the war on terror can’t be questioned (”attempts to play on our fears”); his extreme positions on social issues can’t be exposed (”the same efforts to distract us from the issues that affect our lives” and “turn us against each other”); and his Chicago background too is off-limits (”pouncing on every gaffe and association and fake controversy”). Besides that, it should be a freewheeling and spirited campaign.
Democrats always want cultural issues not to matter because they are on the least-popular side of many of them, and want patriotic symbols like the Pledge of Allegiance and flag pins to be irrelevant when they can’t manage to nominate presidential candidates who wholeheartedly embrace them (which shouldn’t be that difficult). As for “fear” and “division,” they are vaporous pejoratives that can be applied to any warning of negative consequences of a given policy or any political position that doesn’t command 100 percent assent. In his North Carolina speech, Obama said the Iraq War “has not made us safer,” and that McCain’s ideas are “out of touch” with “American values.” How fearfully divisive.
We could take Obama’s rules in good faith if he never calls John McCain a “conservative” or labels him in any other way. If he never criticizes him for his association with George Bush. If he doesn’t jump on his gaffes (like McCain’s 100-years-in-Iraq comment that Obama distorted and harped on for weeks). And if he never says anything that would tend to make Americans fearful about the future or divide them (i.e., say things that some people agree with and others don’t).
This is, of course, an impossible standard. Obama doesn’t expect anyone to live up to it except John McCain.
3. McCain Campaign to Cease &hellip | May 14th, 2008 at 9:34 am
[...] Continue Reading [...]
4. majoriot | May 14th, 2008 at 9:43 am
Deleted - repeats slander; any attempt to bring up subject again will result in banning.
5. My new WordPress MU Site &hellip | May 14th, 2008 at 10:20 am
[...] Greg Sargent wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptBy accepting the Obama campaign construct as if it were objective, Evan and Richard framed this race exactly as Senator Obama wants it to be framed – every issue that raises doubts about his policy views and judgment is part of a smear … [...]
6. William Teach | May 14th, 2008 at 10:37 am
Yeah, because no one has every said a nasty word to anyone else, and all we have to confirm that C word incident are McCain haters and liberal hysterics, who prefer to attack the man personally, rather then debate the relative merits of his policies.
Perhaps you could reconcile McCain’s classy and adult behavior with the constant attacks that the left are performing so far. You have all the “just wondering” ones from the NY Times, such as when they were “just wondering” if he had an affair, if his cancer could return, and if he is too old, among others.
It’s not the right who wishes death on other Americans. It’s not the right who was thrilled that Cheney went in to the hospital and was attacked in Pakistan, then was dismayed that he didn’t die. It isn’t the right who posted disgusting comments when Laura Bush had a lesion removed from her leg and when Jerry Falwell passed on. It’s not the right who calls our military and military leaders disgusting names, including a full blown newspaper ad.
The left are the merchants of smear. You have sugar daddy Soros backing you, a guy who made his money by betting that countries currencies would tank, then working to make that happen.
And it is not the right who wants to change America into a totally different country from the one it is. Why don’t you lefties just admit you hate the USA?
7. bagni | May 14th, 2008 at 10:43 am
markarmament
the planetary politicos predict
mccain will do just fine against any attacks
he used to it after bush and company
went after him in 2000
8. test » Blog Archive&hellip | May 14th, 2008 at 11:02 am
[...] Campaign to Cease its Unilateral Disarmament? Against Obama wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptBy accepting the Obama campaign [...]
9. David West | May 14th, 2008 at 11:42 am
Why are there no conservative money types willing to match Soros dollar for dollar?
Things would be much different if one man didn’t skew the board so much, in order to make money by ruining our economy.
I also wish a 527 would have the guts to go up against the liars at MoveOn.
Until those things happen, we’re playing against a stacked deck.
10. TomD | May 14th, 2008 at 11:43 am
Reading conservative blogs nowadays is so depressing. We just got our a.. handed over in Mississippi for the 3rd time, McCain got 1% of the vote in WV and all the darn things one reads is this obsession with Obama, Obama, Obama. Almost every darn thing is Obama this, Obama that. No wonder we are going to get destroyed in November. If we think we are going to win this thing in November by praising Hillary, painting Obama as the Devil and who knows what else… we deserve what is coming. Our leadership has failed us miserably.
11. OhioOrrin | May 14th, 2008 at 1:17 pm
johnny mac won’t dish the dirt.
that’s the swifties mission (accomplished)!
oh yea, & the state parties who can throw it into the fan so it covers the whole state.
12. steveGA | May 14th, 2008 at 1:23 pm
Deleted - off topic.
13. majoriot | May 14th, 2008 at 1:53 pm
Deleted - repeats slander.
14. SEW | May 14th, 2008 at 1:56 pm
“Get used to it, you suckers, you are going to get spanked this year.”
With a racist Hussein? 49% of Billary Dems will just say NO. Thanks Operation Chaos.
15. yekepyt | May 14th, 2008 at 2:02 pm
McCain? A “true gentleman” !?
16. Freedom1 | May 14th, 2008 at 5:41 pm
OT-
Fox News: John Edwards to endorse Barack Obama for Democratic nomination.
17. FmrMarine | May 14th, 2008 at 6:24 pm
>>>Fox News: John Edwards to endorse Barack Obama for Democratic nomination.<<<
YAWN……..HMMMM HMMMM HMMMM.
HO HUM
edward WHO?
18. neocon | May 14th, 2008 at 6:45 pm
>>>Ah, yes, the famous distractions with which Republicans fool unwitting Americans. Ronald Reagan distracted them with the Iranian hostage crisis, high inflation and unemployment, gas lines and the loss of American prestige abroad. - Danish<<<<
Those failures were all a result of the Carter Presidency which Reagan turned around.
This is the most delusional liberal post I have read in a long time. Apparently, Democrats failures, misteps, and associations are the problems of the GOP. Especially when we bring them to light. Evidently, Danish would prefer to comfortably ignorant on such matters. Who knew?
19. phnx | May 14th, 2008 at 7:49 pm
Neo…that was sarcasm on the part of Danish.
20. neocon | May 14th, 2008 at 9:35 pm
I didn’t think Danish was that far off the reservation…..thanks
21. William Teach | May 14th, 2008 at 10:30 pm
One of my points, majoriot, is that it is a bunch of McCain haters and liberals, who are looking to sell a book, incidentally, have made the claim. Hearsay. No actual proof.
22. The Real Sporer | May 14th, 2008 at 10:38 pm
Ask President George HW Bush (41) how rhetorical forebearance worked in his second term.
Has anyone caught the Kos’ take on Jenna’s wedding? Tells you all you need to know.
They can never be beaten sufficiently, never.