Posted on 10/11/2008 6:32:23 PM PDT by tobyhill
After a turbulent week that included new disclosures about Gov. Sarah Palin and signs that Senator John McCain was struggling to strike the right tone for his campaign, Republican leaders said Saturday they were worried that Mr. McCain was heading for defeat unless he brought stability to his presidential candidacy and settled on a clear message to counter Senator Barack Obama.
Again and again, party leaders said in interviews that while they still believed that Mr. McCain could win over voters in the next 30 days, they were concerned that he and his advisers seemed to be adrift in dealing with an extraordinarily challenging political battleground and a crisis on Wall Street.
The expressions of concern came after a particularly difficult week for Mr. McCain. On Friday night, new questions arose about his choice of Ms. Palin as his running mate after an investigation by the Alaska Legislature concluded that Ms. Palin had abused her power in trying to orchestrate the firing of her former brother-in-law, a state trooper.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
>...new questions arose about his choice of Ms. Palin as his running mate after an investigation by the Alaska Legislature concluded that Ms. Palin had abused her power in trying to orchestrate the firing of her former brother-in-law, a state trooper.<
that is b.s.
if you read the report, on p.8, it says she was within her right to fire him.
Nice guys always finish last. There is no “honor” in politics. Trying to inject some is a dumbass idea.
...these people need to channel the spirit of Jesse Helms...
There are no questions about his choice. Stupid article.
These lowlifes have decided to just completely make stuff up now.
And it’s working. Most people, especially those who are still on the fence about whom they will be voting for, get their information from these despicable creatures.
I am definitely not a GOP wimp. When the guy in Wisconsin yelled, “I’m MAD ... I’m REAL MAD.” That could have been me. I’m mad as hell that McCain won’t fight back. If it takes Sarah to do it and drag McCain across the finish line then so be it.
made up fishwrap filled with unnamed sources telling mccain to play dead.
Dennis Miller said, “McCain is going to etiquette himself right out the door.”
I saw McCain on NBC News scolding a older woman about calling Obama an Arab. McCain should have just not answered her and took the mike. Then he said Obama was a descent Human Being and he just differs with him on the issues. I beginning to think that if Fidel Castro was a Senator. McCain would say the same thing. Granted Obama has not murdered anyone but. Obama is not a moderate, he is a communist Socialist with an idea to Social Engineer the country! I don’t want this person in the White house period!
It’s not a campaign. It’s a taxpayer-funded farewell tour.
I think we need to revisit Isaiah 54:17
“No weapon that is formed against you will prosper; And every tongue that accuses you in judgment you will condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the LORD, And their vindication is from Me,” declares the LORD.”
Message to John McCain. The media doesn’t like you anymore. They are in the tank for Obama. You can’t without going after Obama.
What idiot Republican leader besides the head of the NRCC who loves the NY Times would talk to them with this bunch of nonsense? This sounds like what he would say because earlier he said it didn’t make any difference who we elected as our nominee as long as it was close. What a guy to head the NRCC.
I think those people are Democrat plants designed to make Republicans look ignorant and violent.
Sen. McCain is still working on the swing vote until the ground swell anger against ACORN fraud and Obama hip bone connection to it becomes a household term.
Message to bone headed GOP leadership. You screwed the party up probably beyond repair. STOP GIVING ADVICE.
Oh and by the way, you can’t count either. There is 23 days until election day not 30. IDIOTS!
Being a nice guy got him behind in the polls. Being a bad guy will either do the same or do better. The choice is clear: hammer Obama until you break the hammer.
I'm guessing that may happen around April of 2009.
Obama could not answer this because his party's platform and he himself is for mass legalization of these invaders.
There you have it. This is how McCain get swoop up massive segments of the Undecideds.
Do YOU want him to do this?
Do YOU want him to win the election?
Does HE want to win the election?
Maybe so, but I don’t want McCain to whip out I’m getting real mad and If McCain starts playing little games I won’t vote for him! I want him to go after this Communist!
McCain is going to “nice” us right into four years or more of Obama. :-(
Bingo! I say hammer Obama about Ayers, Rezko, ACORN, etc. Go after Obama with all gloves off as Obama has to be defeated.
I don’t think we can expect ADAM NAGOURNEY and ELISABETH BUMILLER to be especially helpful or informative. They are both left-wing pimps of the DNC who delight in lying and disinformation.
I just emailed the campaign telling them to get their sh*t together.
At the moment, the campaign doesn't seem to have a clue and are floundering around.
Simply put, Obama has the most incredible amount of political baggage. And, instead of focusing on this like a laser, McCain is being Mr Nice Guy, praising this socialist.
He (McCain) still hasn't figured out that he's in a war and he better do so pretty darned quickly or he's going to lose, and lose badly.
Use your own discretion.
if McCain is afraid of being called racist, let Sarah take over
ACORN voter FRAUD - Obama FRAUD - stealing an election
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zF70i8nsmY&feature=user
Now that CNN is digging deep, the other media outlets will go after it too. It's bigger than that tasergate crap of Gov. Palin protecting her family from a rogue cop. Similarly, media won't have to fly all the way to Alaska for a story—they can just take a drive downtown to any major city afflicted with a supposed disenfranchised voter base wanting another free handout.
We surely are the stupid party for nominating this 'tard.
yes but the anger must be controlled and we must never lose our rationality otherwise we’ll just look like a bunch of crazy kooks. That’s what Obama is counting on.
I know this may come across badly to some, but I get the feeling McCain got too used to being a POW and lost or maybe really never had that fighter instinct.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/us_elections/article4926283.ece
From The Sunday Times
October 12, 2008
McCain tussles with Palin over whipping up a mob mentality
Sarah Baxter
With his electoral prospects fading by the day, Senator John McCain has fallen out with his vice-presidential running mate about the direction of his White House campaign.
McCain has become alarmed about the fury unleashed by Sarah Palin, the moose-hunting “pitbull in lipstick”, against Senator Barack Obama. Cries of “terrorist” and “kill him” have accompanied the tirades by the governor of Alaska against the Democratic nominee at Republican rallies.
Mark Salter, McCain’s long-serving chief of staff, is understood to have told campaign insiders that he would prefer his boss, a former Vietnam prisoner of war, to suffer an “honourable defeat” rather than conduct a campaign that would be out of character – and likely to lose him the election.
Palin, 44, has led the character attacks on Obama in the belief that McCain may be throwing away the election and her chance of becoming vice-president. Her supporters think that if the Republican ticket loses on November 4, she should run for president in 2012.
A leading Republican consultant said: “A lot of conservatives are grumbling about what a poor job McCain is doing. They are rolling their eyes and saying, ‘Yes, a miracle could happen, but at this rate it is all over’.
“Sarah Palin is no fool. She sees the same thing and wants to salvage what she can. She is positioning herself for the future. Her best days could be in front of her. She wants to look as though she was the fighter, the person with the spunk who was out there taking it to the Democrats.”
McCain, 72, has encouraged voters to contrast his character with Obama’s. The campaign launched a tough television commercial last week questioning, “Who is Barack Obama?”
Frank Keating, McCain’s campaign co-chairman, last week called the Democrat a “guy off the street” and said he should admit that he had “used cocaine”.
McCain believes the attacks have spun out of control. At a rally in Lakeville, Minnesota, the Arizona senator became visibly angry when he was booed for calling Obama “a decent person”. He took the microphone from an elderly woman who said she disliked Obama because he was “Arab”, saying, “No ma’am, no ma’am”.
When another questioner demanded that he tell the truth about Obama, he said: “I want everybody to be respectful and let’s be sure we are.”
However, his campaign has stepped up its negative advertising against Obama, accusing him of lying about his relationship with William Ayers, the leader of the Weather Underground group responsible for bombing the Capitol and the Pentagon in the early 1970s, who is now a Chicago professor.
Palin has continued to lead the charge against Obama’s alleged lack of candour. At a rally in Wilmington, Ohio, she mocked him for attending a supporters’ meeting in Ayers’s home when he was seeking to become an Illinois state senator in 1995. “He didn’t know he launched his career in the living room of a domestic terrorist until he did know,” Palin said.
“Some will say, jeez Sarah, it’s getting negative. No it’s not negativity. It’s truthfulness.” The crowd bellowed its appreciation with chants of “Nobama” and “Go Sarah Go!”
John Weaver, a former senior McCain adviser who left the campaign when it almost imploded in the summer of last year, questioned the purpose of the attacks.
“People need to understand, for moral reasons and the protection of our civil society, that the differences with Senator Obama are ideological, based on clear differences on policy and a lack of experience compared with Senator McCain,” he said.
“And from a purely practical political vantage point, please find me a swing voter, an undecided independent, or a torn female voter that finds an angry mob mentality attractive.”
A McCain official confirmed that there was dissension in the campaign. “There is always going to be a debate about the costs and benefits of any strategy,” he said.
“After November 4, the feelings of individuals will come to light. It is only natural and will be expected.”
Palin’s frustration with McCain has led to clashes over strategy. When she learnt he was pulling resources from Michigan, an industrial swing state leaning heavily in Obama’s favour, she fired off an e-mail saying, “Oh come on, do we have to?” and offered to travel there with her husband Todd, four-times winner of the 2,000-mile Iron Dog snow-mobile race.
She also told Bill Kristol, the conservative New York Times columnist, that she wished the campaign would make more of Obama’s 20-year association with the Rev Jeremiah Wright, his controversial former pastor, who said, “God damn America”.
more...
lol... that’s my new tagline.
Adam and Liz two lefty odumbo supporters are really concerned about McCains message. I guess he is starting to do something right
I don't think we did... I think cross-over voting and the MSM nominated John McCain.
“Mark Salter, McCain’s long-serving chief of staff, is understood to have told campaign insiders that he would prefer his boss, a former Vietnam prisoner of war, to suffer an “honourable defeat” rather than conduct a campaign that would be out of character – and likely to lose him the election.”
Then lose.
unfreakinbelievable! McCain is surrounded by wimps and it's turning him into a wimp.
So what? McCain can call for anything. The crowds will yell what they want.
The other nominees, with the exception of possibly Duncan Hunter and Fred Thompson, would have chosen their twin for a running mate. Only a person who thought outside the box, like John McCain, would have even considered Sarah.
A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down...;)
As the crowds should. The crowds should also treat the media like the enemy they are.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.