Vote for me, or I will give another speech.
After sleeping on it, it is clear what the Republicans are doing this year- they are asking us all to suspend reality and pretend that up is down, black is white, and that more of the same is the real reform. It really is the only way to explain how they think that the people best positioned to clean up after eight years of disastrous Republican rule are… two Republicans.
And the suspension of reality is woven throughout McCain’s speech. The entire presentation was a contradiction. It is hard to figure out how to deal with someone who will state the following:
The — the constant partisan rancor that stops us from solving these
problems isn’t a cause. It’s a symptom. It’s what happens when people
go to Washington to work for themselves and not for you.
Again and again — again and again, I’ve worked with members of both
parties to fix problems that need to be fixed. That’s how I will
govern as president. I will reach out my hand to anyone to help me get
this country moving again.
Is he serious? Did he not watch his own convention? Did he miss the nasty, snide, and condescending presentations from Romney and Giuliani the night before? Did he pay no attention to Lyndsey Graham, just an hour earlier, claiming Obama’s entire campaign is based around a loss in Iraq? Did he miss the untested and unproven running mate of his, Sarah Palin, launch vicious and snide remarks about Obama? Has he not paid attention to the last 3 months of his own campaign? Does he forget repeatedly accusing Obama of choosing to lose awar to win an election?
I understand that convention speeches have to throw out red meat, but compare what was said at the Democratic convention and what was said at the Republican convention. The Democrats attacked McCain’s positions and ideas. The Republicans attacked Obama with nasty personal attacks. If McCain wants to take a step toward ending partisan rancor, he could cancel the 2012 Republican National Convention.
How are we supposed to take McCain seriously when he talks about alternative energy when both he and his running mate have voted against it every chance they get? How are we supposed to take them seriously when they discuss balanced budgets when Sarah Palin left her town 20+ million in debt after formerly being in the black and McCain’s plan for fiscal responsibility calls for… more tax cuts. How are we supposed to take them seriously when McCain spends months stating that the VP should be ready to lead from day one, and then he picks someone who is so not ready for the job that the campaign refuses to allow the media to interview her. How are we supposed to take them seriously when they claim they have the honesty and integrity needed to reform Washington, when the first week of Sarah Palin has brought us nothing but brazen and nonstop lies about the Bridge to Nowhere (and that is what it is- a sociopathic and brazen lie. It is rather chilling to watch someone so new on the political scene that quickly and eagerly lie to the American people and not think anything about it).
And on and on and on. The Suspension of Reality tour requires you to not answer these questions, and just vote McCain- because he is change you can believe in! In short, they have no ideas. They have no answers. They have nothing but a biography, and you know what the next eight weeks will look like- a lot like this:
They got nothing.
oh really
John McCain is the greatest public speaker since George W. Bush.
So much talent in one party.
jibeaux
I’m just sayin’ that I love this blog.
Punchy
How fucking dare you continue to trash Palin’s daughter…
cervantes
All that is true but you are expecting the voting public to have a grasp of reality, which for the most part, they do not. McCain is running ads saying that Obama’s only answer to our economic problems is to impose painful tax increases on middle class people. Apparently, there’s no law against that. People will believe the advertisements — they couldn’t just lie about that, could they? — because they don’t get information from any other source.
Also, Barack Obama is a negro. I don’t know if you’ve noticed that.
Right now, the latest polls are showing a tie. Maybe they got nuthin’, but it seems to be enough.
PK
John,
You promised there won’t be a lime green screen.
Punchy
Wow. Sexist AND racist.
Michael
I think the GOP sees that Americans are angry about the past eight years. However, they believe that we are angry about traditional political corruption. They think we are angry about selling political influence and abusing powerful positions for sexual reasons (think Abramoff, Delay, airport bathrooms, house pages, etc.).
The reform they are pitching is reforming these abuses.
They don’t realize that people are really angry about authoritarianism, abuse of the constitution, wars based on lies, the destruction of the middle class, crony capitalism, incompetence, putting party and zealotry above purpose, etc.
So, if you limit the scope of what you are angry about, you can delude yourself to believe that McCain/Palin are outsiders and reformers.
sparky
yeah, this whole season is like being in a strange psychology experiment, except that unlike Milgram, it’s for real. or maybe the GOP really IS lord of the universe.
where’s the monitors for this experiment, dammit?
ps: props for fixin’ the site.
LITBMueller
Line of the day, John, courtesy of Red State:
Further comment is unnecessary…
dewberry
It’s the POW-POW-POW tour for the next 8 weeks. They’re running on biography.
I’m trying to reach out to independent friends for some of their thoughts. I realize that I have my pro-science googles on a lot of the time, and I’m just curious what they think.
sparky
pps: anyone have any suggestions about how to complain to yahoo? their front page news feed is the ap, i guess, because the news headlines are a non-stop mccainlovefest. ewww.
Bob In Pacifica
There is something about being separated from reality. You don’t have to worry about facts. I expect in a couple more elections we’ll have the Republicans claiming it was Lieberman and the Jews who did this to us.
Yeah, change. Change into George Bush from a George Bush buttboy. Change you can count on.
matt
Nice job, John. And keep her family out of it.
germ78
What really got me excited about John McCain’s speech was thinking of all the hilarity that will ensue when people start adding things to the chroma-key blue background.
4jkb4ia
After sleeping on it myself, and not seeing the whole speech, there is a contradiction in the speech itself. McCain wants you to think that he will pursue a good idea wherever it comes from. But raising taxes can never be a good idea. He promises to keep taxes low, and he is doing it for the sake of party orthodoxy. Similarly Palin’s first attack on Obama after the community organizer thing was “He will raise your taxes”. To the Republican audience this may even have been true. They are trying to appeal to the people Michael Moore, of all people, described as RINOs because they are Republicans because “the Democrats will raise my taxes”. This is not a sign of energy or confidence.
matt
I’m predicting that Sarah Palin is going to be the all-time harshest rebound ever. She simply isn’t who they think she is, and when that sinks in (after all this) it’s going to be an unpleasant comedown.
4jkb4ia
Where are the references to Palin’s daughter in the text? Perhaps John cleaned it up.
gbear
John McCain doesn’t even care what anyone else said before him – his acceptance speech was the gold ring that he’s been grabbing at for all these years.
The winning of the presidency is everything. The functioning as president is secondary. This is why he doesn’t see his age as an issue. If he can get thru the next two months and win the election, he’s fulfilled his lifelong dream, and this is why his speech last night felt more like a testimonial dinner than the kickoff for a new quest.
The Moar You Know
No, I don’t, but I have noticed the same thing, and it predates McCain – they have a heavy pro-GOP bias. I don’t even think that it’s AP’s fault – someone over there at Yahoo must be manually selecting stories for the front page that are as pro-Republican and pro-McCain as possible.
Just don’t go there is my advice.
Zifnab
Sarah Palin is exactly who they think she is. That is to say, she’s a Rovian-age partisan double-talker who’ll happily launch hand grenades at her liberal opponents and run on whatever wacko fundie anti-tax corporate welfare platform the GOP demands of her.
The only difference between her and Dick Cheney is subtlety. Independents trusted Dick back in 2000. They won’t have any of that faith in little Sarah.
That part of the speech was aborted.
Notorious P.A.T.
I remember watching “Bob Roberts” in theatres and thinking that no one so obviously unqualified could get elected to office.
Hahahahahahaha!
gbear
Actually, yes, it is AP’s fault.
PC
It’s subtle, but it’s there. If you squint really hard. And put vaseline in your eyes. Ever since last Friday any attack against McCain or Palin is an attack on Palin’s family. And it’s sexist.
PeterJ
Why do you bring up the children? Leave them alone.
If Palin’s husband ran for the vice presidency you wouldn’t bring them up, would you?
Sexist.
D.N. Nation
Not exactly.
NonyNony
Of course they are. If they have to run this on the issues, they lose. So they need to use their magic Jedi-like powers to confuse the electorate and make them think that reality is the opposite of what it really is.
It’s worked in the past. They managed to convince half the country that the idiotic privileged son of a former President was a down-home good-ol’ boy who was smart enough to be the Commander In Chief who would bring Honor and Dignity back to the White House. Twice. Why not roll the dice and try it one more time?
There wasn’t anything to clean up. This is one of those Internet traditions known as “snark”. Become aware of your Internet traditions, “my friend”.
JGabriel
The tone of this convention reminded me of nothing so much as the 1992 Republican convention. As a Democrat, I found that somewhat heartening – after all, the Dems won in ’92.
Seriously, the parallels are striking. The McCain/Palin convention spent a lot of time on divisive rhetoric to shore up conservative support, just as in ’92. The most applause lines, the most red meat rhetoric, was reserved for former Buchananite Sarah Palin, just as they were for Buchanan himself in ’92.
What we’re seeing is a GOP playing so hard to the right that they’re scaring off moderates and independents, and ignoring the economy just as everyone else is concerned about it. Again, just as in ’92.
At this point, all Obama needs to do to lock up the general election is to come off as competent, patriotic, and presidential in the debates. Independents and moderates are only looking for confirmation that Obama doesn’t resemble the right-wing caricatures they’ve been hearing. Once he exceeds that low bar, expect his polling numbers to jump up by another 5 points.
Obama should be able to do this easily. The only significant hurdle is that he has to do it while playing under Jackie Robinson rules and Clinton rules. But Obama’s been playing by Robinson rules for his entire career, so that shouldn’t be a problem. And as the Palin/McCain campaign has gotten uglier – and as criticism of the media has increased from the blogosphere – the mainstream press (i.e., outside of Fox and the right wing punditry) has become more hesitant to apply Clinton rules – to Obama anyway, if not to the Democrats in general.
So, I think the GOP misread the electorate and badly played their hand for the convention, and I’m feeling pretty good about Obama’s chances come November.
.
John McCain on the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act:
This is only true if you think the “business of a free enterprise system” is to swindle the employee.
.
JGabriel
I’ve been thinking a little bit about the “Hockey Moms” label that Palin is so proud of, and how it plays off the “Soccer Moms” catchphrase of previous elections.
Whether you liked it or not, the “Soccer Moms” label was kind of brilliant. It extended a conservative frame around a modern popularity for a sport that had previously been considered “foreign”, due to its popularity in Europe and South America. “See,” it said, “you can still go for newfangled things like soccer while supporting national security and safety for our children, even in a multi-cultural world.”
But hockey? Is there a whiter sport in the world? It’s pretty much the antithesis of “multi-cultural”. So, of course, it plays well to the Republican base. But to independents and moderates? To Hispanics or Asians? Probably not so much. Let’s face it, if you’re living in the Southwest, hockey is unlikely to be the first sport you identify with.
For a party seeking to broaden its base in a tight election, it’s seems rather tone deaf.
.
Conservatively Liberal
But… but… but McCain is a POW and he is a MAVRICK, a MAVRICK I tells ya! And Sarah can arm wrassel a grizly bear while feild dressing a bull moose and giving burth to a enfant! They are rebel refomers and they have you runing skared!
What are Osama/Bieden ofering? A dead feetus in every pot? Passing out free marijewanna pot joints at public skouls? Handing the keys too the White House too the turists? Changeing the hand over the heart to a turist fist bump? Rap musik in evry mall? Uppity watermellons? Kummunitiee orginizers?
They are limp liebrul weennies compered to the Republican Power Couple!
/fundie
Richard Bottoms
I thought Hawaii was an elitist state?
les
Variously, yeah he watched, yeah he knows and remembers, etc. I don’t intend to offend–but this exact campaign, style and substance convinced you to vote for Bush, twice. And you’re obviously not stupid or inattentive. They’re advocating the exact same bullshit, and claiming it’ll work for them. And tens of millions of ‘Murkans will buy it. I weep for my country.
jibeaux
This is my proposed question to Palin on the L.L. Fair Pay Act.
“Governor Palin, I’d like to ask you about some proposed legislation called the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. Ms. Ledbetter was a worker who was paid as much as 40% less than her male colleagues, and a jury agreed with her that she had been discriminated against because she was a woman. The Supreme Court, however, said that she should have filed her suit long before she ever knew that she was being paid less. The proposed law would have clarified when a person’s right to pursue their claim for discrimination begins to run. John McCain wasn’t around to vote, but stated that he would have voted against it because it would have led to “frivolous lawsuits.” I’m a woman who does not consider her ability to help provide for her family to be frivolous, and I wonder if you agree with me or with Sen. McCain?”
PC
That’s Osama/BinLieden to you.
Rick Massimo
John, I finally figured it out: Just like Palin’s speech was written for her before they knew that it was going to be, um, Palin’s speech, McCain’s speech last night was written when they thought Lieberman was going to be the VP nominee. That not only explains the bit about reaching across the party lines and “I don’t work for a party” and blah blah blah, but it explains the crypto-fascist “Country First” signs that were everywhere (why have they gotten exactly no shit for those, by the way?).
Put McCain and Lieberman, the old Republican and the old (former)(fake) Democrat arm in arm behind those signs, and, well, it’s still bullshit, but you can see what they’d be trying to say. Put Sarah Palin in there and it was more like “Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein McCain.”
PC
This is what needs to be beaten.
Sirkowski
Sarah Palin had an affair.
Conservatively Liberal
Damn! I’ll never become a fundie if I can’t learn to talk like them.
I guess I can live with it.
Tom65
You’d be tasered before you could start your second sentence, and Steve Schmidt would put a sudden end to the press conference.
The Other Steve
I pray for our nation’s safety and future, that McCain/Palin does not win.
Punchy
Dammit you’re obtuse. Look, they’re everywhere. For example:
Did he miss the nasty, snide, and condescending presentations
Clearly this is describing the media’s reaction to Palin’s daughter.
Did he miss the untested and unproven
Another slam on Levi’s condom.
Has he not paid attention to the last 3 months
Why not just go ahead as say it? TRIMESTER! There, feel better, you anti-prego punk?
The whole post is a slam on Palin’s kids. Just ridiculous.
TheFountainHead
Can someone please explain to me how we catch up to history?
John?
Anyone?
No. Seriously. I swear to God I’ll donate $100 to Obama today if anyone can make that make any kind of sense.
Ned Raggett
Might have been mentioned in comments elsewhere but did anyone catch Obama on O’Reilly last night? Friend of mine did and was quite intrigued — his thoughts, summed up:
* Fox ‘knows what time it is’ and O’Reilly doesn’t want to end up like Limbaugh
* ‘Grudging respect and admiration’ was the tone — sample O’Reilly line: “Obama’s strong…he’s not a wimp.”
* My friend felt that Obama came closest to ‘sputtering’ when asked about Iraq but that he got on firmer ground when explaining details of his opposition, to the point where O’Reilly said “ok, ok, moving on…”
* My friend concluded that McCain — or Palin? — would need to do something comparative to look competitive, especially since Fox and O’Reilly will be pushing this for some time to come.
les
Get out the checkbook, ‘Head. They will continue to ignore, devalue, underfund and denigrate science and expertise of all kinds; they’ll continue to fuck up the education system, until anybody’s stupid ass illiterate fundagelical idea is as good as any other; they’ll continue to export talent and jobs, until we’re exporting cheap shoes to China; they’ll ignore the energy situation until the oil runs out, and then move away. And we’ll catch up to the dark ages.
harlana pepper
“We create our own reality.”
gbear
Because STFU!!
Now go donate that $100.
jibeaux
Oh, most definitely, but d’ya think they’re going to have those youtube style debates where I could be many states away? I do think it would be a terrific question, and I was going to buy one of those Flip video cameras pretty soon.
wasabi gasp
Get the unanimous opinion that George W Bush is the Worst President Ever.
Randall
If this website doesn’t go down soon I won’t get my work
done for this week. I count on its outages to feed my family.
Davis X. Machina
Rock
PeterJ
If The Enquirer’s story checks out then we’ll have a ticket with two adulterers.
Cindy will then force Palin out.
DBrown
John, you raise good points and as a life long liberal I am lost how anyone (except the repubic polcats that run things) can follow and keep such twisted logic running in their brain. So my question is to you – how did you handle and justify that type of thinking much of your life? I really want to understand how you handled such a mess in your mind?
Jon H
“eight years of disastrous Republican rule are”
Actually, eight years of disastrous rule by a Republican “reformer with results”.
Remember that bullshit from 2000?
We’ve seen what Republican reform looks like. The Obama campaign should get some of that “reformer with results” crap on tape and show it along with McCain promising reform.
demer
“Suspension of reality” has been the strategy since Gingrich became House Speaker.
Sadly, it’s worked.
Napoleon
I have a theory that will be tested in this election and over the next 10 to 25 years, and that is that starting sometime in the 1968 through 1972 period the “swing” portion of the electorate came to pull the lever for the Republicans at the top of the ticket if all things were more or less equal. Basically they became the default choice, and in large part for the issues that Republicans have been using over that period: the cultural war and a perceived advantage on national security and budget issues. I think that has flipped over the last 2 to 6 years, so that no longer when the Republicans roll this crap out people believe it. To put it another way the curtain has been drawn back. That is not to say everyone suddenly see it, just enough that the Republicans no longer can basically win by default by turning the election into a discussion of these issues.
Jim Pharo
This is dangerous. The Republicans are demonstrating a willingness to act on the most ridiculous denials of reality. Palin as rock-star. McCain as strong leader. Policy prescriptions they know are ludicrous. And on and on and on.
In fact, there is not one thing that these guys have said over three days that is not on some fundamental level a lie.
Life begins at conception. We just need to re-train our workers using community colleges. Lowering taxes creates jobs. We’ve always been at war with Eurasia.
This is not tit-for-tat political battling. This is the creation of a movement that, win or lose in November, is going to haunt our society for generations to come.
It’s a cliche, but I can’t help but weep for the future we are letting these people create.
Punchy
How about a tickle fight between the two instead?
Xenos
Probably the same way I rallied to Bill Clinton’s defense when he was scurrilously accused of fooling around with Lewinsky, or thought that Teddy K. could not really be at fault for Chappaquiddick, and felt that Carter was not really at fault for Desert One, or claimed that Rostenkowski was a hero and would never have stolen postage, and god knows what other stupid positions I have taken in my life.
When the jerk is one of your jerks, your brain looks for ways to excuse the corruption, the dishonesty, the thievery. Some people grow out of that flaw, but many, many people never do. They call themselves ‘true believers’, and they are toxic.
Ned Raggett
My theory is that when all is said and done that legendary ‘bitter’ comment from Obama will be proved. (I am enough of an optimist to think that this won’t be some sort of sign for nasty shit to happen.)
croatoan
I know the Republicans are running from Bush, but the Democrats need to remind people that the Republicans were in control for most of his administration. Republican president. Republican House. Republican Senate. Republican Supreme Court. Republican war in Iraq. Republican failure with Hurricane Katrina. We already know what will happen with the Republicans in charge.
John PM
After reading John McCain’s speech last night (could not bring myself to watch) vis a vis (is that elitist?) all of the previous speeches, I think that McCain has a two-prong plan for the final two months: (1) McCain will campaign primarily in the swing states and present his mavericky and grandfatherly image to independents to try to convince them that he will really reform Washington because, after almost thirty years, clearly he knows everything that is wrong with Washington; (2) Palin will campaign primarily in the Bible belt to the fundamentalists, trying to take out states that might have been up for grabs to Obama; no press will be allowed to speak to her or to view any of her events, in order to avoid reporting on her view that electing her and John McCain will bring about the Rapture and her proposal of creating an alternative energy source by incinerating Democrats and the “liberal media.”
BTW, wtf is McCain doing making education a highlight of his campaign? I thought Republicans hated the Department of Education and No Child Left Behind. Is McCain going to say something like this: “Having graduated fifth from the bottom of my class at the Naval Academy, I now know how important it is to have a first-class education…”
I gotta tell, since I am from Illinois, I have been ambilivent about Obama because of the way politics works here (given how Illinois Democrats and Republicans scratch each other balls and take my money), but I am going to do everything in my power to make certain that Obama is elected president and that every single Republican who has been involved with the Bush Administration for the last eight years ends up in jail!
gopher2b
There was a time when Republican ideas were better, and more importantly, the people elected to office to implement those ideas actually believed in them. It will rebound, but in the meantime the party needs a thorough cleansing….which it is about to get.
JGabriel
Rick Massimo:
I was talking with a Russian friend the other night who told me he couldn’t stop laughing at that “Country First” slogan.
Turns out, it was one of the Communist Party’s major slogans in Soviet times.
He also says that the media is increasingly resembling the media of the Soviet Union in the late 80’s.
You know, you’ve got to start worrying when emigrant Russians, who came who here to escape the Soviet Union, start saying that the US is beginning to look real familiar.
It’s not like they don’t the signs. And they’re very prone to exaggerating either. The friend quoted here is particularly dry and understated, even for a Russian.
.
JGabriel
Correction:
It’s not like they don’t know the signs. And they’re not very prone to exaggeration either. The friend quoted here is particularly dry and understated, even for a Russian.
Tsulagi
This year? Only this year?
Yep, while McCain’s “Change you can believe in” was previously known as Stay the Course, it’s totally different coming from a former POW. You did know he was a POW, right?
Burning question this morning for the patriots, though, should be where the hell was Country First McCain’s flag lapel pin last night. He wasn’t wearing one. Or any pin. Could have at least worn something for the baby Jesus.
One point cracked me up during McCain’s speech. While he was going on his “We’re gonna drill the fuck out of this country first, then drill some more!” to wild applause, the camera panned the audience to someone waving a partially green “Environmentalists for McCain!” sign. Yep, now that’s
Stay the Coursechange you can believe in.chopper
go to electoral-vote.com and breathe easier.
Napoleon
Makes perfect sense since the torture techniques they used are copied from the Communist Chinese and the phrase they use for torture is the same one the Nazi’s used.
Jon H
“Makes perfect sense since the torture techniques they used are copied from the Communist Chinese and the phrase they use for torture is the same one the Nazi’s used.”
The trifecta, one might say.
D. Mason
Here’s the question that’s been bugging me. How are so few people noticing that they’re basically copying Obamas campaign? I watched most of both conventions with a friend who has also been keeping a close eye on the races so far. We both noticed that in addition to running against the Republicans in office, they’re co-opting the Obama campaigns rhetoric and even positions. I’m not that old and have really only been watching politics since the shit-storm after Bush v Gore. Maybe this kind of thing is common in politics but to me it seems rather bizarre.
ThymeZone
Best comment out there on the tubes I’ve seen today, this synopsis of McCain’s speech:
lawnorder
Anyone with regards logic as a good thing and has any shred of intellectual honesty has left the GOP already. This is just window dressing to make their laying supporters feel good about themselves.
Jeff
Thanks Jon H
They are running Bush’s 2000 campaign.
cain
+5 dude. That is totally true.
cain
rawshark
Do you listen to sports radio? KTAR this morning, Wolfly and Brown were talking football and Frank Catoliendo’s(sp) name came up. He’s the guy on TBS who does impressions, he’s got a good Bush one. Anyway Brown says that he wonders if Frank has a McCain impersonation, Wolfly says he hopes it’s better than McCain’s. Then they went and ripped into his speech. Wolfly actually used the word ‘creepy’ to describe McCain smiling. Normally I don’t care for their show, I listen because there is nothing else on. This morning I’m a fan.
Bubblegum Tate
This is by far the most depressing thing. They should be getting their ass kicked, but they’re not–they’re running very close.
El
Sarah says that in her 7th month of pregnancy her water broke just before a scheduled speech in Dallas. Instead of going to a hospital, she delivered the speech and then returned to her home in Alaska – a trip of 6 to 7 hours flying time that included waiting for connecting flight from Seattle to Anchorage.
She then drove 45 miles home to Wasilla.
Maybe she should have named the baby Kegel.
Brachiator
I disagree with you here. Americans are displeased with both Bush and Congress, but I don’t know that they are particularly angry, or maybe it’s that the shallow and lazy media have never really investigated the source or people’s disastisfaction.
But one thing that is clear is that many people love and approve of authoritarianism, and will eagerly toss aside the Constitution if the president claims that it will keep them safe.
And the small, but energized fundamentalist core of the Republican party are neither angry nor disastisfied, and are eager to see their religious agenda advance. These people have found their Joan of Arc in Sarah Palin.
By contrast, the Democratic base never transformed their anger into substantive political change. No incumbent politician has been voted out of office for favoring authoritarianism.
Sarah Palin will never sink on her own. She has to be pushed over the political edge by the Democrats. She must be shown to be a fraud. Her most unsavory actions (advocating book banning, loving earmarks, firing good employees, leaving a deficit, Troopergate vindictiveness) have to be brought front and center.
Hardcore GOP supporters may not care about reality, but Obama and Biden have to fight hard for moderates and independents.
gil mann
I’m trying to imagine the baseball pitcher equivalent of Alan Keyes.
mannemalon
Anybody else starting to get seriously alarmed, that a psychotic, egotistical, peter principle, dim witted bitch is a 60 day sprint away from being the #2 to a 72 year old cancer survivor?
This shit is starting to bug me out. If you’ve been paying attention to any of this stuff, it’s becoming evident that we’re dealing with a small-time mind rising to the top of a small, kooky isolated segment of the country, who thinks she’s actually hot shit. One of those in their own world my own arrogance blocks my ability to see that I only have modest amounts of intelligence types.
This shit is seriously like a movie. Are the bad guys gonna pull this one out? If it was a Hollywood movie, Obama would swoop in at the last minute and whoop ass. But seeing Bush get re-elected killed any of that life’s awesome goodness will prevail stuff.
Like what if McCain-Palin actually wins? Has anyone really actually tried to comprehend that yet?
chopper
people have been talking about how palin would take over if mccain kicked it.
shit, it isn’t even that.
if mccain’s cancer comes back for number five (sheesh), and he’s a like 75 year old in chemo, palin is gonna be running the show.
shit, my pops died last year at 74 from melanoma. it got him the second time around because he refused to do chemo again – it wrecked him so fuckin’ bad the first time.
mccain doesn’t have to die in office. all he has to do is get sick again.
Krista
Then God help us all, and I’ll charge $400/month to board in my spare room up here in Nova Scotia.
vaux-rien
Look, these folks still haven’t grasped the relationship between taxes and spending and they’re deeply confused about the notion of “smaller government” but it doesn’t matter because they’re the folks who would never think to question their leaders. It just doesn’t matter what they’re told as long as the boilerplate includes the right balance of fear, resentment and empty promises.
AZmando
I think Obama/Biden should just leave Sarah alone in her Bush-like cocoon until the last two weeks or so. Totally ignore her. Then come out blazing about the book banning, earmarks, abuse of power and deficit. Let her brag about all that great experience for six weeks, then nail her!
McSame’s campaign will not see it coming, and it hits when the public is really paying attention.
Especially the deficit, because people really are disgusted with the GOP for the lack of fiscal responsibility. “Is this the type of fiscal responsibility that should be a heartbeat away?” (reminding everyone about McSame’s age at the same time).
tavella
What he said.
John
What I found interesting and scary, was the fact that when the crowd started cheering McCain, it was obvious that you wouldn’t have been able to hear what he was saying. But they cheered anyway. He could have been promising to stick things up their Mom’s butts, but it wouldn’t have mattered.
Republicans, man. What a scary, scary bunch. As a non-American, I consider them a bigger threat to my family’s safety than Al Quada.
Do something.
oh really
I like the name — Suspension of Reality Tour — but it’s so, so, hmmm, so elitist. There’s no way it will resonate with the snow machining, moose and helicopter wolf hunting, Earth-is-6000-years-old, Bible-thumping, evolution-hating “real” people of Wasilla and other small-brained small-towners.
Maybe they’d feel more comfortable calling it simply
The Phony Baloney Tour
For those who like the Suspension of Reality Tour name, but want something longer, it’s possible that the addition of a few words would make it even better. Something like:
The Magical Mystery Suspension of Reality Tour
That would give McCain the opportunity to grab yet another song without permission.
Just curious. Is that different from The Suspension Bridge to Nowhere Tour?
grumpy realist
Well, I predict that if McCain and Palin get elected, the US will very very quickly learn that reality doesn’t play out like a Hollywood movie. The Lone Ranger doesn’t come riding over the horizon, the cavalry doesn’t arrive in time, and death-daring odds of 500 to 1 end up with people dead 499 times out of 500.
I’m mordantly watching America’s slide toward the historical trash pit and getting my Russian and Chinese up to par. The people on that side of the planet may be bastards, but at least they’re not *idiots*