politicalsoup

“McCain says Obama will ’say anything’ to win”

The headline came from the Yahoo news feed that I look at in my e-mail. Maybe it’s just my Obama-love playing into the equation, but somehow, doesn’t it feel like this is a backward statement. To me it seems like, of late, it’s McCain and his campaign that have been “saying anything to win.” Let’s lay down a few examples:

“Palling around with terrorists,” “that one,” “spreading the wealth,” and “welfare.” Many of these statements have been skewered to death my the media, but to me it seems like when it comes to “saying anything to win,” it seems like the McCain campaign is more likely to throw out the random, perhaps somewhat irrelevant comment in order to play on peoples fears and prejudices (see yesterday for more information on that topic).

And it’s getting so confusing out there that I can’t even tell what the lead is anymore. The AP swears that things have pulled within 1 percent nationally (though perhaps they’re just drumming up the figure to generate more news - which would be morally wrong of the media too), while other polls are showing Obama maintaining his 5-8 percent lead, with some polls showing as much as 10 percent plus. Looking at state by state polls and the CNN election center, to me it doesn’t look like anything’s changed that much. It still looks like unless McCain is going to hold all the states he’s challenged for, win all the swing states and steal one or two larger Obama-leaners, he’s going to lose.

Surprisingly the election could be made on the west end of the nation - where Colorado, New Mexico, and Nevada are must wins for McCain. I don’t buy that he’s going to steal Pennsylvania or New Hampshire, which means if he doesn’t hold those three western states, the Ohios and Floridas won’t mean a damn. And it’s still looking like he could even lose in a red state, like here in Indiana, where Barack was speaking today. His ads are EVERYWHERE - I can’t log onto a Web site or turn on my TV without catching an Obama ad. McCain is sending his lipsticked pit bull to Fort Wayne on Saturday, and she was here last Saturday, but otherwise their campaign seems to be pretty confident they’re going to hold the state. Where I once thought that was impossible, some polls I’ve seen have been showing it dead-even or Obama advantage. And I know with major college campuses like IU and Purdue boasting massive young-voter turnouts, my home county of Lake being a Democratic monster, and Indy - it could be enough to vault him to victory here.

Again, maybe it’s just me being somewhat blinded to one side of the story. But I’m sitting here and from what I’ve heard off the national wires and elsewhere, it’s the GOP that’s “saying anything” right about now. Sadly, whether true or not, it appears to be working. I read an interesting syndicated column yesterday that compared the latest “welfare” comments from McCain to Reagan’s use of the same term, which helped to drum up support among whites against blacks. If there’s truth behind that - which I’m going to believe, since at least in the household I grew up in, my parents are dead sure that the welfare and aid programs in this country are broken because blacks abuse it - that’s type of low tactic that McCain and his campaign are accusing the other side of doing.

If that’s true, you better put a leash on your pit bull too, John, since she’s spewed more garbage than anyone in his campaign. You might consider getting her to talk about the issues. . . oh wait. . . she’s inexperienced and more or less clueless on those, right. (Alright, alright, I’m getting out of hand, time to back it off).

Well then McCain, perhaps the greatest addage on the topic comes from the elementary school playground - “takes one to know one.” Check your strategies before you fly off the handle with a comment like that in the future, please. Let’s try to be civil about this.

Oh wait, it’s election season - I nearly forgot.

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