McCain is heading for defeat, says Republican analyst
VTR
Voters lose faith in party amid economic meltdown
* Suzanne Goldenberg in Washington
* The Guardian,
* Wednesday October 8 2008
* Article history
Barack Obama answers a question during his debate with John McCain at Belmont University in
Nashville, Tennessee
Barack Obama answers a question during his debate with John McCain at Belmont University in
Nashville, Tennessee. Photograph: Jim Young/Reuters
John McCain is heading to near-certain defeat in the presidential election because American
voters no longer trust Republicans on the economy, a strategist for the party warned yesterday.
Steve Lombardo, who has worked on Republican campaigns since 1992 and advised McCain's
opponent, Mitt Romney, in the primaries, said it would take a major external event, such as a
terrorist attack or a crippling error by Barack Obama, for McCain to make a comeback.
"Basically unless there is some external event the dynamics of this race are being driven
almost entirely by the financial situation here in the United States and globally, and that
works for Barack Obama," Lombardo told the Guardian.
"If there isn't some sort of event or, God forbid, a terrorist attack that moves the election
on to foreign affairs or national security, it is unlikely that McCain can regain the lead,
just because voters have decided that the base of the problems they face are the Republican
party, George Bush, and, by extension, John McCain."
McCain last night tried to get past Obama's advantage on the economy by making a personal
connection with voters, in the second of three presidential debates in Nashville, Tennessee.
Taking advantage of a town hall format, McCain walked up to the studio audience to make his
pitch. "I know how to get American working again," he said.
But the outlook for Republicans did not look good. Yesterday saw Bush brought to a new low. The
25% approval rating was recorded just after Congress approved a $700bn (£400bn) economic
bailout, suggesting the public gave no credit to the White House for its rescue plan.
The rating, a new nadir for a historically unpopular president, puts Bush one point ahead of
Richard Nixon on the eve of his departure in 1974. It is three points higher than the poll's
all-time low for any president, Harry Truman's 22% in 1952.
Lombardo laid out his misgivings in a memo obtained by the Guardian, in which he wrote that
McCain's attempts to make the election about Obama's character were unlikely to work. The memo
argues such attacks at this point seem "desperate"; the time to define the Democrats' character
had been in August - before the presidential debates. "The economic situation has virtually
ended John McCain's presidential aspirations and no amount of tactical manoeuvring in the final
29 days is likely to change that equation," the memo said. "There are more turns to come in
this election and it is not over yet but it sure seems like it is."
The memo said McCain lost the election on September 15 - two days after Lehman Brothers filed
for bankruptcy - when he told a rally in Florida: "The fundamentals of the economy are strong."
McCain saw fresh signs yesterday of the damage to his prospects in polls showing him trailing
in four battleground states and fighting to keep Indiana and North Carolina. He suffered
another blow when the wife of a retiring Republican senator seen as one of the Republicans'
experts on national security officially endorsed Obama. "We're in two wars, two of the longest
we've ever been in. We've run up a third of our nation's debt in just the past eight years.
We're in the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression," said Lilibet Hagel, whose
husband, Chuck, is a senator from Nebraska.
With less than four weeks until election day, the slide in the polls brought an even more
personal edge to McCain's attacks on Obama. The Democrats hit back with an ad released on cable
networks yesterday, accusing McCain of being "out of ideas" and seeking to distract voters from
America's economic problems. "With no plan to lift our economy up, John McCain wants to tear
Barack Obama down," it said.
In the latest bad news for McCain, a Time magazine-CNN poll showed the Republican struggling to
hold states Bush carried easily in 2004. In Indiana, Republican since 1964, McCain and Obama
were tied among registered voters on 48%.
Palin, meanwhile, emerged as the attack dog. The vice-presidential candidate redirected her
attack from Obama's association with 1960s radical Bill Ayers to Obama himself. "You mean he
didn't know that he launched his political career in the living room of a domestic terrorist?"
she asked a rally in Jacksonville.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/oct/08/uselections2008.johnmccain
A 'Nam Veteran
VTR <vexj...@gmx.us> wrote:
and sarah does her best; ?
>> - Palin's impact on the left was seen almost immediately after her
>> - rousing speech last month at the Republican National Convention,
>> - when Obama's campaign reported the next day that over $8 million
>> - had poured into it from over 130,000 donors.
>>
>> http://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSTRE4971SJ20081008
>>
>> Paul P
>
>Palin has definitely become an asset for the Democratic Party. Her
>extremism and arrogance are turning off independants and motivating
>Democrats. As any reasonable person could have predicted. I guess
>McCain isn't very reasonable. No surprise there.
--
Money; What a concept !
A 'Nam Veteran
<georgewkspam-D9CE...@sn-ip.vsrv-sjc.supernews.net>,
and;
By Ed Stoddard - Analysis
DALLAS (Reuters) - Republican evangelicals are not the only political
base vice presidential pick Sarah Palin is energizing.
Democratic foot soldiers have sprung into action in response to John
McCain's running-mate's personal attacks on their candidate, Barack
Obama, her opposition to abortion rights and her endorsement from
religious conservatives.
"When Palin's radical and extremist views are combined with her
inexperience and questionable record, it makes for an energizing brew
more potent than Red Bull," said Colorado Democratic leader Pat Waak,
referring to the caffeinated energy drink.
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE4971SJ20081008
MACK DADDY
wrote:
> In article <georgewkspam-D9CE19.13420309102...@sn-ip.vsrv-
> sjc.supernews.net>
> A 'Nam Veteran <georgewks...@humboldt1.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=28942
>
> If Sarah Palin had made just one of the wildly inaccurate
> statements smugly uttered by Sen. Joe Biden in last week's vice
> presidential debate, there would have been 3-inch headlines in
> newspapers across America. (I can almost hear Katie Couric
> asking me, "Which newspapers?")
>
> These weren't insignificant errors, such as when Biden said,
> "Look, all you have to do is go down Union Street with me in
> Wilmington or go to Katie's restaurant or walk into Home Depot
> with me where I spend a lot of time, and you ask anybody in
> there whether or not the economic and foreign policy of this
> administration has made them better off in the last eight years."
>
> It turns out that Katie's restaurant, where Biden gets his feel
> for the average American, closed 20 years ago. The only evidence
> that he spends any time in Home Depot is that it appears that a
> pipe wrench fell on his head one too many times.
>
> Palin would surely have been forced to withdraw from the ticket
> had she said something like that, but most of Biden's errors
> were not trifling mistakes like these. They were lengthy Lyndon
> LaRouche-like disquisitions that were pure fantasy from
> beginning to end.
>
> For example, Biden said about Hezbollah: "When we kicked --
> along with France -- we kicked Hezbollah out of Lebanon."
> Hezbollah was never kicked out of Lebanon.
>
> He continued: "I said and Barack said, 'Move NATO forces in
> there. Fill the vacuum, because if you don't, Hezbollah will
> control it.'" This is madness -- Lebanon is not a NATO country,
> nor had any NATO country been attacked by Lebanon.
>
> Somebody please tell me that Biden wasn't picked for the
> Democrat ticket based on his knowledge of foreign policy.
>
> Biden also stoutly denied that Obama ever said he would sit down
> with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Liberals find it
> hilarious that McCain can't use a computer keyboard on account
> of his war injuries, but Biden is apparently unaware of the
> Internet, because there are clips all over the Internet of Obama
> saying exactly that during the CNN/YouTube debate last year.
>
> Biden might have remembered that debate since: (1) He was there,
> and (2) he later attacked Obama's answer, telling the National
> Press Club in August 2007: "Would I make a blanket commitment to
> meet unconditionally with the leaders of each of those countries
> within the first year I was elected president? Absolutely,
> positively, no."
>
> And that's still not all! Obama's own Web site says: "Obama
> supports tough, direct presidential diplomacy with Iran without
> preconditions."
>
> Somebody please tell me that Biden wasn't picked for the
> Democrat ticket based on his ability to remember well-known
> facts.
>
> Biden also gave a long speech at the debate on vice president
> Dick Cheney's "dangerous" belief that "he's part of the
> legislative branch." The great constitutional scholar Biden
> cited Article I of the Constitution as proof that Cheney "works
> in the executive branch" and has "no authority relative to the
> Congress." Biden huffily added: "He should understand that.
> Everyone should understand that."
>
> Palin would have had to deny that Alaska is a state in the union
> in order to say something comparably stupid.
>
> Article II, not I, describes the executive branch. Someone tell
> Biden, who is supposed to be a lawyer. Apart from getting the
> Articles of the Constitution mixed up, what on earth does Biden
> mean when he says that the vice president "has no authority
> relative to Congress," apart from breaking ties?
>
> The Constitution makes him president of the senate every day of
> the week. I realize that Biden may not be able to count to two,
> but Article I says the vice president is president of one of the
> two houses of Congress -- the one Biden is in, for crying out
> loud -- which is what you might call "authority relative to
> Congress."
>
> Somebody please tell me that Biden wasn't picked for the
> Democrat ticket based on his knowledge of the Constitution.
>
> In one especially hallucinatory answer, Biden authoritatively
> stated: "With Afghanistan, facts matter, Gwen. ... We spend more
> money in three weeks on combat in Iraq than we spent on the
> entirety of the last seven years that we have been in
> Afghanistan building that country."
>
> According to the Congressional Research Service, since 9/11,
> we've spent $172 billion in Afghanistan and $653 billion in
> Iraq. The most money spent in Iraq came in 2008, when we have
> been spending less than $3 billion a week. So by Biden's
> calculations, we've spent only about $9 billion "on the entirety
> of the last seven years that we have been in Afghanistan
> building that country." There isn't even a "9" in $172 billion.
>
> Somebody please tell me that Biden wasn't picked for the
> Democrat ticket based on his knowledge of math.
>
> In the same answer, Biden went on to claim that "John McCain
> voted against a comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty that every
> Republican has supported."
>
> The last nuclear test ban treaty the Senate voted on was the one
> Clinton signed in the '90s. As The New York Times editorialized
> on the Senate vote a few years later: "Last week, Senate
> Republicans thundered 'no' to the nuclear test ban treaty,
> handing the White House its biggest defeat since health care in
> 1994." Forty-nine Republicans voted against the treaty; only
> four liberal Republicans voted for it. That's the treaty Biden
> says "every Republican has supported."
>
> Somebody please tell me that Biden wasn't picked for the
> Democrat ticket based on his ability to function as vice
> president.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
So typical of you righturds, whenever the facts look bad for the case
you are trying to make you ignore the question. Maybe there is no
Katies restaurant anymore. Go to another restaurant down the street.
Go to a restaurant in YOUR town. You totally missed the point Biden
was making.
John W. McSame has no plan whatsoever to ever remove our troops from
Iraq.
Voting for John W. McSame is like giving George Dumbya Douche a 3rd
term.
John W. McSame is a warmonger.
Sara Pain is a bimbo.
John W. McSame and Sarah Falin think Iraq was responsible for 9/11
Sarah Falin is not qualified to be President of the USA, let alone be
mayor of a city of 7000 people.
John W. McSame and Sarah Falin are against finding Bin Laden, the man
who was responsible for 9/11
Sarah Falin thinks seeing Russia from land there in Alaska makes her a
foreign policy expert!
John W. McSame is no Maverick. He votes with Bush 95% of the time.
My Friends, That is NOT change!
***********