How Low Can McCain Go?

Let us review. McCain and Palin create a climate conducive to fear and hate-mongering, suggesting that Obama is tied to terrorists, and receive a groundswell of hate speech and shouts from their supporters in reference to Obama, including, "Terrorist!", "Kill him!", and "Off with his head!" A veteran and sufferer of the Civil Rights Movement, John Lewis, points out that this is very similar to his experiences with George Wallace's campaign, where a climate of racism and hatred were encouraged. McCain's campaign then complains, not about the racism of their supporters, but about Wallace's comments. Wallace states that he went too far, and does not think Palin and McCain are racist, but rather that their action or inaction have encouraged a very frightening climate of racism at their rallies. Obama agrees, saying he felt Wallace went too far. Later, McCain finally says something briefly at an Obama rally, saying he is not Arab, but rather a "good, family man", which evidently is mutually exclusive with being Arab. McCain then calls on Obama to denounce Congressman Lewis', though Obama already said he thought Lewis went too far, and McCain was saying racism was being brought in the campaign by those pointing out the racism in McCain's supporters.

It can't get any worse, right? You can't expect the McCain campaign to go further into the mud and vile filth of the gutter, right? Never fear, the McCain campaign will not fail to disappoint.

Today, we find out that, because a supporter of Obama has pointed out the racism of some McCain supporters and the climate of fear encouraged by the McCain campaign rhetoric, the McCain campaign now feels that they are now justified in bringing up Reverend Jeremiah Wright again. Yes, that Wright- the one McCain said he'd never bring up. Until he was way down in the polls, and realized the only way he could win was to continue his anti-maverick streak of embracing racism and all the dirty politics that Karl Rove and George Bush previously used against him. Yes, that Wright, who Hillary Clinton had previously brought up in her own racist attacks, pointing out his errors because he was deep in the black preaching tradition.

Do not doubt. Reverend Wright preached nothing new, nothing different from what you find in black churches throughout America, and have heard for 150 years. Awareness of the black preaching tradition would make that clear, but sadly, few whites have the benefits of this experience. So Hillary just had to bring up some quotes out of context, to use them to attack Obama. And now, McCain, smacking his lips in the uncomfortablness of deceit and the joy of denigration, has apparently decided that, because his racism encouragement was called out, he is now justifed in turning to further racist attacks.

So again I ask, Mr. McCain, how low can you go?

The Finest Political Ad Ever

We must begin with one of the worst ads of this year. I have to say one of the worst, because McCain has had a string of outright lies recently, most egregiously claiming that Obama did not support US troops, lying that Obama had not visited injured troops because he couldn't bring cameras, when in fact Obama didn't visit them because he didn't want them to use them for political gain. (We now know that, if Obama had visited the troops in Germany, McCain was prepared to launch an ad stating that Obama had used them for political gain.) That commercial claimed that Obama instead went to the gym, and it uses footage of Obama playing basketball with US troops, but conveniently blurs out the troops themselves- a rare hat trick of taking advantage of US troops and Obama at the same time.

One of the other worst ads of the year is one suggesting that Obama isn't ready to lead because he is too popular. I've previously dealt with the blatant racism in this ad, but now want to focus on the use of Paris Hilton and Brittany Spears. The McCain campaign wants to pretend that there is no racist element to combining two young beautiful white women with a black man- as if they are completely ignorant of the history of the South and African-Americans.

It is of course rather ridiculous to suggest that, if someone is popular, we shouldn't elect them. McCain must think you become President by being selected by an elite cabal, rather than a popular vote. He must think that people all over the world are so stupid that they like someone for no reason, and not because they think he would make a good leader. Obama has responded with his own remarks. But I believe Paris Hilton has come up with by far, the finest response, and the finest ad of this political season.

See more Paris Hilton videos at Funny or Die

The Hypocrisy of John McCain

When McCain was on his tour of South America, he made a great point of how he would not criticize Obama while McCain was abroad. McCain said that was inappropriate. He felt one should not criticize a President or someone running for President while you are overseas in "time of war", or in a war with metaphor. For McCain, a united front without criticism is true patriotism. It is inappropriate to act the role of maverick while overseas. Therefore, McCain went negative on Obama only while he was on the plane flying down to South America. Evidently that was some sort of difference from being on the ground in South America.

That was McCain when he was overseas. But, though McCain feels agreement is important if he is overseas, evidently this does not apply if the person you are criticizing is overseas. So while Obama is overseas, McCain has been non-stop criticizing Obama, most recently coming close to questioning Obama's patriotism, stating Obama is willing to lose a war to win an election.

I admit I'm no professional politician. Maybe I just don't get it. I know, it seems to me that, if it's important not to criticize another American running for President, it is more important to do so when the person criticizing is abroad, then when the criticizer are abroad. Typically that's been the tradition, when the President is abroad, to withhold criticism to some extent. But McCain must know something about the nature of the politics of patriotism that I don't.

But maybe it's just that McCain has flip-flopped on his values since he was in South America a month ago. Or maybe going negative is the only way he's found to remind us that he is still in the race.

I like McCain.

Okay, I know this post is two years old. Sorry I haven't gotten around to it sooner. But there are a lot of reasons why I thought, two years ago, I could stomach McCain. Before Obama came around, I thought, of all the Republicans out there, I, a life-time Socialist-Democrat, could perhaps vote for McCain. He was more against the war than Bush. His stance on immigration and the environment were palatable. (It's hard to remember how much higher the standards have risen with the rise of Obama.) But most of all, because of his background, his stance on torture was actually right, and not in pursuit of crimes against humanity as the Bush regime desires.

Which is why I get exceptionally angry at the recent rise in accusations of flip-flopping directed towards Obama. Many of us remember how we once (relatively) liked McCain, if there were no other options. Many of us have been astonished at how very much he has reversed his positions, and, I say this with no political gloss, truly become a clone of George Bush. I today see really no difference between the two- except that McCain hasn't actually done the sins of Bush. Which I suppose is marginally better- that you only want to commit the sins, but haven't yet done so.

For the alternative, we have Obama, who has begun to move towards the center, as you do in any general election, but it is more glaringly obvious because of this super-long primary season this year. Yes, my left-wing bleeding-heart self is disappointed at these moves toward the center, but in truth, they are quite minor. Fox and other Republican establishments are all over the airwaves now, declaring that Obama is now calling for a responsible and gradual withdrawal, instead of an immediate one. They seem to have forgotten all of Obama's debates, where he said he would immediately begin withdrawing, but we should be as careful getting out as we were careless getting in. I remember. I remember thinking, I wish he would just withdraw everyone immediately, but I understand how that isn't possible to say, if you want to be elected President. I understand that I could never be elected.

Saddest of all, the Republicans may be able to sway the American consciousness, stricken as it is with Short-Term Memory Syndrome. They woke up and realized their candidate was flip-flopping all over the place, and decided in Rovian style that they had to immediately accuse their opponent, en masse, of the sins of their candidate. But truth has never been an impediment to these ideologues. They fear the light, for they do not understand it, but they are intimately familiar with the ways of darkness.

Let every vote count.

Lately, Hillary has been stating, many times, that she has won the popular vote. She makes this assertion by including Florida (where she campaigned against party rules but Obama didn't), including Michigan (where she was on the ballot but Obama wasn't), and not including four caucus states, where the popular vote was estimated but never officially reported. Hillary has even run ads in South Dakota making the specious claim that she won the popular vote- and from the most recent polls, has managed to fool the voters there as well.

That a candidate can win a caucus state with no official popular vote reported highlights the difficulty in trying to argue that the popular vote is important. Rather, in agreement with Hillary Clinton (of October, 2007), the popular vote doesn't matter- it's the delegates. When you have a caucus state, there's a range of individuals voting for delegates at the precinct level, and then a range of delegates at every level representing the next level up. It's the system we run by- a system not guaranteed in any way constitutionally. The Supreme Court has regularly upheld that primary and caucus votes are private party votes, and so there is no constitutionally guaranteed right to vote, on that level.

There is a certain irony that, if Michigan and Florida had waited, considering the extended primary season, their vote would have mattered a good deal more, even ignoring being seated as full delegations. For that matter, Puerto Rico could have been more of a deciding factor if they had stuck with their original June 7th date, rounding off the primaries, in a cheaper caucus. There has been regularly a fear that states won't get their dues, so they act on that fear, and lose out on the reward they would otherwise have gained.

But still, I want my vote to count. If I'm in a state that followed the rules of the private party, that didn't try to jump ahead and steal the thunder of another state, I feel my vote ought to count.

But I'm in one of those four caucus states that Hillary would exclude in order to maintain that she won the primary vote. I'm in Washington. So I ask. How dare you, Ms. Clinton, try to strip me of my voting rights within the party? How dare you suggest that my vote doesn't matter? You tell the superdelegates that you have won the popular vote, only on the back of my disenfrachisement. My state didn't jump the gun. We obeyed party rules. And yet you have the audacity to suggest that how we voted, and the vast numbers of us who voted, don't matter? What makes you think we would even consider voting for you in 2016?