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McCain takes aim
February 13, 2008
To judge by his victory speech after the Potomac primaries, John McCain expects to be fighting Obama in November.
Hope, my friends, is a powerful thing. I can attest to that better than many, for I have seen men’s hopes tested in hard and cruel ways that few will ever experience. And I stood astonished at the resilience of their hope in the darkest of hours because it did not reside in an exaggerated belief in their individual strength, but in the support of their comrades, and their faith in their country. My hope for our country resides in my faith in the American character, the character which proudly defends the right to think and do for ourselves, but perceives self-interest in accord with a kinship of ideals, which, when called upon, Americans will defend with their very lives.
To encourage a country with only rhetoric rather than sound and proven ideas that trust in the strength and courage of free people is not a promise of hope. It is a platitude.
A well crafted line, aimed precisely at Obama’s weakest spot. Note that McCain does not disdain hope and inspiration: he celebrates them, yet still turns the line against Obama. I wonder if Obama is ready for the possibility that McCain will be harder to squash than Hillary.
I do not think Obama has a weakest spot, because all his spots are equally weak. What are his strengths, apart from shallow branding and hollow rhetoric?
As an actor he is great. But this is not some TV series about a fictional president, this is a choice for the real thing — a choice which will stand for the next four years!
Posted by: RCS | February 13th, 2008 at 10:56 pm | Report this commentSen Obama should avoid at all costs a debate with Sen McCain–any setting where
1 he is not too far for a closer look by those he preaches to,
2 he is not shielded by prepared slogans,
3 he is made to provide specifics of his rhetoric,
4 he is compelled to answer questions,
5 he is left with no choice but to react to events just after they transpire and statements as well as rebuttals just after they are made.
Neither can Sen McCain force him–unless at least a few clucking people in chicken suits start appearing on our TV screens at every Obama event.
Posted by: HKLivingston, 26, investment banker | February 14th, 2008 at 2:36 am | Report this commentOf course McCain will be harder to squash, because he will have the Republican establishment behind him, though he will have to do a lot more backtracking and flip flopping on immigration to avoid a revolt by the Dobbs/Tancredo anti-Latino lobby.
McCain is also perfectly within his rights to use the “hope” theme as well as Obama, even though his co-opting of this word is no less of a platitude than Obama’s doing the same. Who is ever going to run as the anti-hope candidate? Certainly not Huckabee, who is from Hope, Arkansas, or Hillary, whose husband is from the same place.
The reality is that “hope” is one of those very nice campaign phrases, like the Bush family’s “compassionate conservatism” (an oxymoron if there ever was one) that will be discarded immediately after the election, along with “change”, “experience” and all the other meaningless phrases that the American public, which is being treated as a bunch of 12 year olds by the media (perhaps 12 is too high) is being asked to take seriously by the various campaign managers, who are far too smart to do so themselves.
I am making these comments even though I am an Obama supporter. But I support him, not because he is good at using elegant phrases, but because he has courageously and consistently spoken out and/or voted against torture, “Lewis Libby Justice” and the other abuses of the Bush administration which are undermining the democracy that makes elections and campaigns possible.
Hillary, on the other hand, is the classic opportunist. We do not need another four or eight years of phony “centrism”, “triangulation” or “New Democratic” politics, as these are just polite words for expediency. Of course, this would still be far better than McCain’s continuing the Bush tax cuts for the rich and locking the US into Iraq for a hundred years.
Posted by: algasema | February 15th, 2008 at 11:02 am | Report this comment