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PoliGAF Interim Thread of USA General Elections (DAWN OF THE VEEP)

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W

worldrunover

Member
See, this is what the GOP does. Take something like "not visiting the troops" into the only focus of the trip, pound it out at every talking point, and artfully distract people from anything else. Even if Obama has a completely legitimate excuse, his explanation is too long for the American public's attention. "He went to the gym instead of visiting sick troops" is much easier for our feeble minds to digest. Unfortunately.
 
S

syllogism

Member
I guess this is Drudge's assessment of Obama's tour

obama710.jpg


e: he changed it
 
G

GhaleonEB

Member
mckmas8808 said:
Fuck McCain. So they are showing Obama shooting basketball and talking to the troops, while saying he didn't want to visit the troops?!
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And they can't show him talking to the troops too much, because he leaves cameras and press behind (like his visit to Walter Reed recently).

Pretty sleazy ad from an increasingly sleazy campaign. And it's only July! Woo!

Can't wait for Obama to get back and start hitting McCain right back.
 
R

reilo

learning some important life lessons from magical Negroes
So much for McCain claiming he'd run a clean campaign.

Another flip-flop?
 
UltimaKilo

UltimaKilo

Gold Member
worldrunover said:
See, this is what the GOP does. Take something like "not visiting the troops" into the only focus of the trip, pound it out at every talking point, and artfully distract people from anything else. Even if Obama has a completely legitimate excuse, his explanation is too long for the American public's attention. "He went to the gym instead of visiting sick troops" is much easier for our feeble minds to digest. Unfortunately.
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The GOP? Like every political party doesn't do this? I recall this happening a lot to Hillary during the primaries. I've never understood people that are so set in their ways, that when the politician they support does something wrong, they'll defend it with his exact words without thinking it over, and when the opposition does it they demonize them.
 
T

Tamanon

Banned
I think McCain doesn't realize that the negative ads for Hillary only worked at all when they were closer to the election itself. Starting this early just means that he can't swap back into positive mode. You can only alternate between the two in the primaries because people think you're suddenly about party unity and maintaining chances in November. When you're opposing parties, you cross the line, you're there the whole time.
 
F

Farmboy

Member
As far as attack ads go, this one is particularly pathetic and transparent. It even includes footage of Obama actually meeting with troops! It's bound to backfire in several ways, one of which is that it begs the question: Is McCain getting desperate already?
 
S

SouthernDragon

Member
People say the campaign is heavily disorganized and is rolling the dice constantly. Which explains the differing messages, the contradictions, the flip-flopping, praise one day, dismissal the other, and so on.
 
A

Agent Icebeezy

Welcome beautful toddler, Madison Elizabeth, to the horde!
FlightOfHeaven said:
People say the campaign is heavily disorganized and is rolling the dice constantly. Which explains the differing messages, the contradictions, the flip-flopping, praise one day, dismissal the other, and so on.
Click to expand...

It is, that is easy to see. They are going to throw everything at the wall and try to find something that sticks. There is never anything positive, it is all negative and most of it is transparent as hell. McCain is just a bad candidate.
 
P

PhoenixDark

Banned
The reason Obama pulled back from the visit is in dispute. He says the military indicated that the visit could be viewed as political. The Pentagon says the Obama campaign turned away when it appeared a campaign adviser would not be allowed to accompany the senator.

...

Here’s the explanation Obama gave on Saturday: “You know, the staff was working on this, so I don't know everything. Here's what I understand: We had [been] scheduled to visit. We had no problem at all leaving press — we always leave press and staff out, that's why we left it off the schedule. We were treating it in the same way that we would have treated a visit to Walter Reed, which I was able to do quietly a few weeks ago, without any fanfare whatsoever.

“I was going to be accompanied by one of my advisers, a former military officer, and we got notice that he would be treated as a campaign person and it was therefore seen as political because he has endorsed my candidacy but he wasn't on the Senate side. That triggered then a concern that maybe our visit was going to be perceived as political, and the last thing that I want to do is have injured soldiers and the staff at these wonderful institutions having to sort through whether this is political or not, or getting caught in the crossfire of the campaigns.
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http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0708/12072.html

McCain's ad is reckless but this is a pretty weak fucking excuse. Why not visit the troops alone, or with the senators and no one else.
 
S

scorcho

testicles on a cold fall morning
PhoenixDark said:
McCain's ad is reckless but this is a pretty weak fucking excuse. Why not visit the troops alone, or with the senators and no one else.
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it's answered in the portion you quoted -
...That triggered then a concern that maybe our visit was going to be perceived as political, and the last thing that I want to do is have injured soldiers and the staff at these wonderful institutions having to sort through whether this is political or not, or getting caught in the crossfire of the campaigns.
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damned if you do, damned if you don't.
 
P

PhoenixDark

Banned
From NBC's Jim Miklaszewski
In his official capacity as a sitting US senator, Obama has every right to stay in touch with America's men and women in uniform. According to Pentagon officials, the problem was that Obama's request to visit Landstuhl included two members of his campaign staff -- retired Major General Jonathan S. Gration and Jeff Kiernan. US military officials in Germany informed the campaign the two political operatives would not be permitted on base.

Pentagon officials say Gration was the campaign's point of contact at Landstuhl in arranging Obama's visit and "got torqued" when he was told he would not be permitted to join Obama. It was Gration who later suggested to reporters that the Pentagon short-circuited Obama's visit.

Are there some in the Pentagon or military resentful because Gration has climbed on board the Obama campaign? Did Gration overreact? As a former policy director for the US European Command, he would surely be disappointed -- if not offended -- by being excluded from the visit. It's also been my experience that even retired generals do not want to hear the word "no."

Whatever the reason, Obama and the troops he would have visited have both missed a unique and historic opportunity. According to one Army lieutenant colonel, "Everyone was excited about Obama's visit. It's a shame."
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http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/

It makes no sense to me. I don't see why he couldn't just re-send a request that excluded the two former military officials.

It's not like Obama doesn't care about injured troops, I'm just baffled by the weak excuse
 
MaddenNFL64

MaddenNFL64

Member
That was a different guy. He believed in shit back then. Had balls. Now... man.

Most of his political career does deserve respect though. But his boner to be president... he had to do this I guess.
 
mckmas8808

mckmas8808

Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
PhoenixDark said:
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0708/12072.html

McCain's ad is reckless but this is a pretty weak fucking excuse. Why not visit the troops alone, or with the senators and no one else.
Click to expand...


HE HAS VISITED THE TROOPS ALL OVER THE FUCKING COUNTRY!!! Lame excuse my ass. McCain and his people would have just said Obama is politicizing the troops by meeting them on the campaign dollar.

You personally need to understand that McCain doesn't give a got damn and will blame Obama for everything no matter what he does. For God's sake he blamed Obama for not meeting the troops in an ad WHILE SHOWING OBAMA ACTUALLY MEETING THE TROOPS at the sametime in the same ad!


You call it an excuse, but it's the truth. Why would Obama not meet the troops in good heart? He made a judgement/decision. Let someone call you a presumptuous elitist opportunist or just take DOD's advice and not go (because keep in mind he JUST met like 1,000 troops just days ago).
 
G

GhaleonEB

Member
mckmas8808 said:
HE HAS VISITED THE TROOPS ALL OVER THE FUCKING COUNTRY!!! Lame excuse my ass. McCain and his people would have just said Obama is politicizing the troops by meeting them on the campaign dollar.

You personally need to understand that McCain doesn't give a got damn and will blame Obama for everything no matter what he does. For God's sake he blamed Obama for not meeting the troops in an ad WHILE SHOWING OBAMA ACTUALLY MEETING THE TROOPS at the sametime in the same ad!


You call it an excuse, but it's the truth. Why would Obama not meet the troops in good heart? He made a judgement/decision. Let someone call you a presumptuous elitist opportunist or just take DOD's advice and not go (because keep in mind he JUST met like 1,000 troops just days ago).
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And in both Iraq and Afghanistan, on the same trip. Extensively.

And again, I gotta quote Josh Marshall:

Just think that a couple weeks ago the entire campaign was engulfed by scrutiny of Obama's suggestion that he might be "refining" his plan for a 16 month timetable for withdrawal -- a twitter, if that, on the seismograph of campaign course corrections. Now consider that over the span of a few weeks Sen. McCain has gone from predicting a decades long presence of American troops in Iraq and attacking any discussion of timetables for withdrawal to endorsing Maliki's push for a 16 month timetable and tying himself in knots trying to explain why what Maliki's endorsing is any different from Obama's.

When confronted with Maliki's own words saying that he supports what Obama supports, McCain now falls back on that last redoubt of philanderers, asking the American people, "Who you gonna believe? Me or your lyin' eyes?"

For all the seismic shifts that have taken place over the last two weeks, we need to recognize that McCain has now abandoned virtually everything he's been campaigning on for the last year. There's really no more eloquent confirmation of that reality than the fact that McCain now appears determined to base his campaign on charges that Obama is unpatriotic and despises American soldiers.
Click to expand...
 
W

worldrunover

Member
UltimaKilo said:
The GOP? Like every political party doesn't do this? I recall this happening a lot to Hillary during the primaries. I've never understood people that are so set in their ways, that when the politician they support does something wrong, they'll defend it with his exact words without thinking it over, and when the opposition does it they demonize them.
Click to expand...

Oh, you're exactly right, the difference is the democrats are pretty friggin inept at doing this (at least in the past few decades). Think of all the damning political ads in the past few years (swiftboating, Harold Ford, etc etc) they're all from the GOP. The last democratic ad campaign that really left the GOP in shambles was probably the Daisy ad from 1964.
 
F

Farmboy

Member
scorcho said:
damned if you do, damned if you don't.
Click to expand...

It's a virtual certainty that the McCain campaign would have attacked his decision had he gone: "...politicizing our troops, while the DoD specifically requested him not to... arrogance...".
 
K

KRS7

Member
Los Angeles Times said:
In study, evidence of liberal-bias bias

The Center for Media and Public Affairs at George Mason University, where researchers have tracked network news content for two decades, found that ABC, NBC and CBS were tougher on Obama than on Republican John McCain during the first six weeks of the general-election campaign.

You read it right: tougher on the Democrat.

During the evening news, the majority of statements from reporters and anchors on all three networks are neutral, the center found. And when network news people ventured opinions in recent weeks, 28% of the statements were positive for Obama and 72% negative.

Network reporting also tilted against McCain, but far less dramatically, with 43% of the statements positive and 57% negative, according to the Washington-based media center.
Click to expand...

Wonder if this will end the "Media giving Obama a free ride" narrative. I doubt it.
 
F

Farmboy

Member
Be sure to read (and perhaps Digg) this Frank Rich op-ed. Some nice passages (though I recommend reading it in its entirety):

Frank Rich said:
The growing Obama clout derives not from national polls, where his lead is modest. Nor is it a gift from the press, which still gives free passes to its old bus mate John McCain. It was laughable to watch journalists stamp their feet last week to try to push Mr. Obama into saying he was “wrong” about the surge. More than five years and 4,100 American fatalities later, they’re still not demanding that Mr. McCain admit he was wrong when he assured us that our adventure in Iraq would be fast, produce little American “bloodletting” and “be paid for by the Iraqis.”

[...]

But it’s not merely the foreign policy consensus that is shifting Obama-ward. The Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens has now joined another high-profile McCain supporter, Arnold Schwarzenegger, in knocking the McCain nostrum that America can drill its way out of its energy crisis. Mr. Pickens, who financed the Swift-boat campaign smearing John Kerry in 2004, was thought to be a sugar daddy for similar assaults against the Democrats this year. Instead, he is underwriting nonpartisan ads promoting wind power and speaks of how he would welcome Al Gore as energy czar if there’s an Obama administration.

[...]

“We have one president at a time,” Mr. Obama is careful to say. True, but the sitting president, a lame duck despised by voters and shunned by his own party’s candidates, now has all the gravitas of Mr. Cellophane in “Chicago.” The opening for a successor arrived prematurely, and the vacuum had been waiting to be filled. What was most striking about the Obama speech in Berlin was not anything he said so much as the alternative reality it fostered: many American children have never before seen huge crowds turn out abroad to wave American flags instead of burn them.

[...]

The election remains Mr. Obama’s to lose, and he could lose it, whether through unexpected events, his own vanity or a vice-presidential misfire. But what we’ve learned this month is that America, our allies and most likely the next Congress are moving toward Mr. Obama’s post-Iraq vision of the future, whether he reaches the White House or not. That’s some small comfort as we contemplate the strange alternative offered by the Republicans: a candidate so oblivious to our nation’s big challenges ahead that he is doubling down in his campaign against both Mr. Maliki and Mr. Obama to be elected commander in chief of the surge.
Click to expand...
 
S

syllogism

Member
http://thepage.time.com/transcript-of-mccain-on-this-week-2/

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS, ABC NEWS: Senator Obama was in London this morning, and he was responding to your comments from yesterday when you said that 16 months might be a pretty good timetable in Iraq.

He said, “We’re pleased to see that there’s been some convergence around proposals we’ve been making for a year-and-a-half.”

SEN JOHN MCCAIN: That’s really good. Look, it’s not a timetable, as I said. I was asked, how does that sound? Anything sounds good to me, but…

STEPHANOPOULOS: But you never used the word before.

MCCAIN: … you know, the point is…

STEPHANOPOULOS: You made a point of never using…

MCCAIN: … I never…

STEPHANOPOULOS: … the word before.

MCCAIN: Look, I have always said, and I said then, it’s the conditions on the ground. If Senator Obama had had his way, we’d have been out last March, and we’d been out in defeat and chaos, and probably had to come back again because of Iranian influence.

It’s conditions on the ground — the way that the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said, the way that General Petraeus has said — conditions on the ground, so that the Iraqi government can have control, can have the sufficient security, so that we don’t have to come back. Senator Obama said that if his date didn’t work, we may have to come back.

We’re not coming home in victory. We’re coming home in victory.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But it does seem…

MCCAIN: But it is a — it is not a date. I want to make it very clear to you, it is not a date. It’s conditions on the ground.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So, you shouldn’t have used the word timetable.

MCCAIN: Pardon me?

STEPHANOPOULOS: You shouldn’t have used the word timetable.

MCCAIN: I didn’t use the word timetable. That I did — if I did…

STEPHANOPOULOS: Well, it’s a pretty good timetable.

MCCAIN: Oh, well, look. Anything is a good timetable that is dictated by conditions on the ground. Anything is good.
Click to expand...

and it goes on and on

e:
MCCAIN: I like six months, three months, two months. I like yesterday. I like yesterday, OK? That seems really good to me. But the fact is, the conditions on the ground…
Click to expand...
 
G

GenericPseudonym

Banned
Is Obama going to start raining down negative GOP attack ads? I mean really pointing out McCain's weakness as a candidate, the shitty job Bush has done, McCain going back on, hell, everything he has stood for. Obama seems to be letting this election be about him, and that's not always the best idea.
 
C

Cheebs

Member
GenericPseudonym said:
Is Obama going to start raining down negative GOP attack ads? I mean really pointing out McCain's weakness as a candidate, the shitty job Bush has done, McCain going back on, hell, everything he has stood for. Obama seems to be letting this election be about him, and that's not always the best idea.
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He likely won't go full force negative ads, it isnt his style.
 
T

Tamanon

Banned
He's always been about the off-hand negative remark or the counterpunch. I expect if McCain keeps it up, they'll start tying it into a dishonorable campaign and lament that they could not run against 2000 McCain.
 
S

scorcho

testicles on a cold fall morning
it's almost to the point where McCain could host a press conference for the expressed purpose of fucking 10 prostitutes in front of a national audience and the polls would nary budge in response. this election has become a referendum on Obama and little else.
 
G

GenericPseudonym

Banned
Cheebs said:
He likely won't go full force negative ads, it isnt his style.
Click to expand...

Well then I don't see why this thread has such a big problem with the MSM's McCain bias.

If Obama is not going to do anything to make McCain's record, McCain's gaffes or McCain's hypocrisy an issue on the campaign trail, then no one should expect the media to pick it up.
 
C

Cheebs

Member
GenericPseudonym said:
Well then I don't see why this thread has such a big problem with the MSM's McCain bias.

If Obama is not going to do anything to make McCain's record, McCain's gaffes or McCain's hypocrisy an issue on the campaign trail, then no one should expect the media to pick it up.
Click to expand...
Oh Obama will talk about it but full forced negative ads? Obama never does that.
 
T

Tamanon

Banned
GenericPseudonym said:
Well then I don't see why this thread has such a big problem with the MSM's McCain bias.

If Obama is not going to do anything to make McCain's record, McCain's gaffes or McCain's hypocrisy an issue on the campaign trail, then no one should expect the media to pick it up.
Click to expand...

Oh that stuff goes on behind the scenes, there are countless memos pushed back and forth to the media agencies.
 
S

StoOgE

First tragedy, then farce.
Chrono said:
So is Obama back in the US now? Should we expect a VP announcement in a few days...?
Click to expand...

Rumors say we should know in about a week.. a few weeks before the Olympics.
 
Keylime

Keylime

ÏÎ¯Î»Ï á¼Î¾ÎµÏÎγλοÏÏον καί ÏεÏδολÏγον οá½Îº εἰÏÏν
BO on Meet the Press if anyone's interested.
 
M

Mumei

Member
I'm attempting for the first time to explain to my mother why I prefer Obama, and I've gotten past the point of health care and foreign policy, and now I'm on energy. I have far less knowledge on this issue than I do on the other two, and I only really remember specific items. Would anyone happen to have something that comprehensively analyses their plans? All I really seem to be able to recall are gaffes with regards to McCain...
 
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