What's Up With The G.O.P.?

Lately, everyone's been saying, what's up with the Republicans?  How will they respond to the losses of the election?  Well, one pundit is saying that the Republicans had already changed, during the election.  Jeffery Feldman, in an article in The Huffington Post , stated that the Republicans have become a party of hard-right nationalism.  And you know what?  He's damn right.  Think about the last two months, in particular.  What was the McCain-Palin message?  FEAR OBAMA!!!!  Fear Obama, because he's a socialist, and has associated with terrorists, and wants to take away our guns, and is secretly a Muslim and HE HATES AMERICA!!!!

Even before McCain-Palin, the Republican Party has tried to use hard-right nationalism to fire up the base and win elections.  The 1992 and 1996 presidential bids of Pat Buchanan come to mind.  But the difference was, according to Feldman, that Buchanan tried to claim that America was under a social and cultural threat, while McCain-Palin claimed that Obama threatened every American's property and life.  For some as-yet-unwritten-about reason, McCain-Palin's message resonated within their base much more strongly than Buchanans'.

So, what does that mean now?  McCain-Palin have fired up their base so much that they are feeling physically threatened.  In order for Obama to have a safe and effective presidency, those Americans need to be calmed down, reassured that Obama has their interests very much at heart.  According to Feldman, their are two areas in particular that would calm them down, and maybe even get them to support Obama, however grudgingly it may be.  

1. The automotive industry.  Right now, the "Big Three" are in serious economic trouble.  If Obama gave them a rescue package that forced them to re-tool their factories for better fuel efficiency, then they could finally begin producing cars competitive to the asian brands.  This would help decrease unemployment problems, and halt the collapse of American manufacturing.

2. Health Care.  Their are millions of uninsured Americans, to whom an illness or injury is devastating.  If Obama can create a new, effective, widespread health care system, he can get support from an enormous section of the U.S. population.

These two issues are just some of the most pressing, that are hurting America very hard.  If Obama wants to pull the hard-right nationalists back toward the middle, he needs to try to solve the issues that are truly scaring them, deep inside.  Incidentally, those same issues are scaring the rest of middle-class America.  So we really aren't that different, are we?

McCain's Got Nothing To Say

Woooo!!! 3rd and final debate last night!  Of course, I was rooting for Obama, but I was really interested to see if either of them had anything, ANYTHING new to say, or if it would simply be the same old, same old.  Even Bob Schieffer agreed: "By now, we've heard all the talking points, so let's try to tell the people tonight some things that they - they haven't heard."  And, of course, we were both disappointed.  This far close into the campaign, there's nothing else to say, it's all been said before - they're just fighting over every small difference in their policies, trying to win those few percentage points in the battleground states.  

But one thing really struck me hard - McCain focused so much on attacking Obama, it just made me want to puke.  On the majority of the issues, he would make an attack on Obama's policy, and then seem to ignore what Obama said to refute the attack - because he would then repeat his attack, with different wording, in his next chance to speak.  Here are several examples I picked up on:

TAXES

McCain used an encounter with a plumber named Joe from Ohio to accuse Obama of planning to raise his taxes.  Obama refuted the attack, saying that the plumber would most likely be making less that $250,000 a year, and so therefore would not see a tax raise.  McCain then came right back at him, saying all over again that Obama would raise his taxes.

NEGATIVE CAMPAIGNING

McCain made his good ol' attack about Obama's relationship to Ayers, and then threw in a new one, where the organization ACORN was "now on the verge of maybe perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in voter history in this country, maybe destroying the fabric of democracy" - and then having the gall to insinuate that Obama was connected to them.  Bizarre claim, but Obama refuted the attacks with skill, proving there was no justification for McCain's claims.  (All of this is old hat, been said before by both of them).  But does McCain listen? No, of course not!  He comes right back with more of the same, taking a quote from a book Ayers wrote way, WAY out of proportion and still insinuating Obama had something to do with ACORN.

HEALTH CARE

McCain goes back to his good buddy Joe the plumber, and claims that under Obama's plan, Joe would have to pay fines if he didn't take Obama's health care plan.  But Obama refutes this point, saying that Joe, as a small business owner, would be exempt from the health care requirements that big businesses would have to cover.  But McCain wasn't listening, because he repeated himself once more, saying that, under Obama, Joe the plumber would have to pay fines if he didn't provide the health care that Obama wanted.

I don't know about you, but it seems to me that McCain really has nothing to go on now.  He's slipping in the polls, the voters trust Obama way more than McCain on economic issues, and his policies really don't look that different than Bush's.  So what does he have left to run on?  Nothing but (incorrect) attacks on Obama's policies, and, what's really troubling, accusations calling into question Obama's character.  I believe I've said this before in an earlier post, but it seems like I need to say it again: McCain is calling out the worst in American Politics, by getting down and dirty in his attacks against Obama.  We, the voters of America, need to show him and his fellow Republicans that we are not going to accept any longer the terrible and demeaning campaign methods that "elected" Bush into office.  Vote Obama into office on November 4, and vote out an era of negative campaigning.

Source: CNN Transcript of the Debate

Hey, McCain - Rein in your Pitbull!

On Monday, McCain announced that he would enter a new stage of attacks on Obama - ones focusing on Obama's character, background, and leadership.  This is not unexpected, with less than a month left until the election and Obama gaining a lead in the polls, due to his perceived superiority in economic matters.  However, the lengths that the McCain camp and supporters have been going to to discredit Obama and create fears and doubts in the minds of voters is simply despicable.  McCain himself, so far, has only ramped up the attacks on Obama's policies and past records in the Illionois and U.S. Senate.  Which, I believe, is appropriate, to a certain extent.  It's a good thing for the voters to see the candidates explain their policies and past decisions, as it can give us insight as to what they truly believe, beyond party platforms, and how they can be expected to act in the Oval Office.  However, what is truly despicable, and, unfortunately true to Republican form, is the effort that Sarah Palin and the Republican surrogates have gone to in order to create an image of Obama that sounds like an un-american, terrorist-favoring, America Hater.  

First, the surrogates:

• During the weekend, Sean Hannity hosted a program on Fox News called "Obama and Friends: The History of Radicalism".  As you can imagine, the program was filled with (completely unsubstantiated) attacks on Obama's character and background.  One of these claims was that Obama's work as a community organizer in Chicago was actually "training for a radical overthrow of the government".
• Andy Martin, a conservative writer, accused Obama of secretly of being a Muslim.  He also created a bizarre, twisted connection between William Ayers, the former member of the Weather Underground, and Barack Obama, that went through the Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, to Fidel Castro, back to Hugo Chávez, and finally to Obama.
• Jerome Corsi just published a book that is filled with unsubstantiated accusations about Obama's alleged drug use and connections to Islam.

And then, there's Palin.  She just finished a campaign rally swing through Florida, where all she did was make accusations and smear Obama's good name.  She talked a lot about Obama's relationship to Ayers, making it sound like Obama is sympathetic to a violent overthrow of the government.  And the scariest thing about it?  The audience bought it all, snapped it right up - even yelling things like "kill him" and "terrorist" when she mentioned Obama by name.  

Is this what America has come to in this election?  Use of xenophobia and anger to defeat the opposition?  One man even yelled racial slurs at a black cameraman at the rally.  To me, that is absolutely unnecessary, over the top, and just plain wrong.  This is the 21st century, and America is nothing if not everything.  The America I know is made up of Hispanic-Americans, African-Americans, Asian-Americans, Caucasians, and everything in between.  Obama shouldn't have to defend his "American-ness".  HE WAS BORN IN AMERICA!  What more could you want for a definition of an American?  

So please, McCain, Mr. "Maverick", rein in your pitbull.  She's just dividing the country even more, between "us" and "them", at a time when we need to come together more than ever and show that we are a nation, united.  And to the American Voter - please, let's show the Republican Party that we are above fear- and hate-mongering, that those terror tactics have no place in a truly democratic and free America.  Vote Obama into office in November, and usher out this era of smear politics.

Sources: The New York Times

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