Friday, March 21, 2008

The Maverick

"The Straight Talk Express" is pandering hard right to every political enemy in sight that sunk his campaign in 2000. Symbolic moments like this hug seem to have dominated the Republican primary campaign. But no matter how many speech slip ups and straight-talking out of both sides of his mouth, it seems you guys are getting a really consistent media narrative over there . .

"The Media And St. McCain
He can do no wrong.
He's honest, so he cannot lie, he's supporter of reform, so he cannot be corrupt, and he has "foreign policy experience," so he cannot be wrong.
Welcome to campaign '08."
from Atrios
PS-
"Never Mind
The war is super awesome popular now, with a new poll only showing that people who think it was worth it has surged (ha ha!) to 29%, from a recent low of 25%."
also from Atrios because his comments about the Maverick are rather amusing

5 comments:

Mr. Alex said...

Every time I here the words "Maverick" and "John McCain" in the same sentence I think of Stephen Colbert sticky sweet sarcastic "John McCain, what a Maverick!" from his White House Correspondence Dinner performance.

Really, what's there to say about a guy who was tortured for years as a POW but now seems to think its A-OK for our government to torture POWs because it's politically convenient for him to do so? What a fuck.

Ryan said...

agreed. a twisted one at that.

Robert Martin said...

so... what are you saying? who may i ask are you guys voting for? lets all bet on it. it will be like a game. my money is on McCain(i am not voting for him). i am not talking about who would be the best president. just who is going to win.

have you guys seen frontline: cheney's law

its all about Executive Privilege

Don J. said...

My perspective might be off since I am far away from the barrage of Fox News, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, and CNN repeating over and over that whatever happens in the American political landscape, it is good news for John McCain.

What I have been reading is about the primary voter turnouts there have been. Democratic participation has doubled or even tripled in some states since 2004 while the Republicans have had a hard time getting people to show up comparitavely. This is not just about the vote for the preznit but a really big swing in Congress. Conceivably a New Deal kind of swing or like what happened in 1980. Approximately 50 Republican representatives have already announced their retirement, many chased away by scandals. Except for in media circles which more and more seems to be THE MAVERICK´s constituency, people are not responding well to a weak line up Republican candidates. He is now surprisingly the establishment candidate because the powers that be were freaked out by the prospect of a the wingnut religious voters taking their turn at leading the good ol` party. Those same wingnuts that launched Mr. Bush into full majority are consistently threatening revolt or just not showing up to vote.

My point is that the Republican base seems more resigned to McCain as the candidate rather than excited about it, though the media narrative seems to have nothing but good news about his candidacy that was twice dead in the water before his competitors imploded. The American political dialogue is completely retarded in general with the wierd knee-jerk voter issues about identifying with the candidate and wanting to drink beer with him; so your take on the end result of what is sure to be a really nasty general election campaign about image and dissecting every sordid detail for the last 20 years might not be far off from reality.

On the other hand the entire political strategy has bound itself to perceived success in Iraq and a seamless continuation of the policies of the Dick Cheney White House ("Now we gotta get Iran!"), while every poll I have layed eyeballs on shows that only the hard core group that swore unswaying feality to Bush in 2001 (about 30 percent of the electorate) is consistently supporting the 100 year war.

But I have lived in Europe for the last 8 years and hang out mostly with art fags so I do not exactly have my finger on the pulse of American voters.

Are you completely convinced that screaming "Soft on TERROR!" over and over again and quietly pointing out that the other candidate is not a white man will control the vote in 2008? It would not surprise me, but I really hope your bet is a long shot, or Guatamalen pesos are going to start looking like a stable international currency by comparison . . .

Robert Martin said...

McCain's net worth is more than $44 million, with most of the money coming from his wife, Cindy Hensley McCain, who is chairwoman of the nation's third-largest Anheuser-Busch beer distributorship.