Game on, folks: looks like the GOP has decided that McCain's only chance is against Hillary Clinton, and they are pulling out all the stops to garner more "support" -- in appearance only -- to help defeat any chance of a Barack Obama nomination.
This is classic tactic -- not only a GOP one, but also a Democratic one: remember gaming the system during their primaries to keep their players in the race longer? The Democratic interference was less likely to kill a viable candidate's chances -- the entire Republican field sucked; now it simply sucks with an army of one instead of many. But the Republican party has played this game to great effect before: remember the Lamont/Lieberman primary? ePluribus Media covered the GOP/Lieberman alliance at that time:
As long as we're aware of it, we can counter it and let our own voters decide. Let's not be faced with another Liebermanesque type of "victory" due to Republican manipulations.
Crossposted on ePluribus Media.
Via TruthOut, an article by Amanda Garrett of The Cleveland Plain Dealer details what Republicans refer to as "The Plot" -- as in, yet another Republican plot. (It's kind of like "the math" and a case of persistent Athlete's foot.)
It started a few weeks ago when conservative radio powerhouse Rush Limbaugh suggested that his Republican following cross over during the primary to vote for Clinton. Clinton, Limbaugh argued, would be easier for McCain to beat in November than Obama.
Soon, local morning radio show host Bob Frantz echoed Limbaugh on WTAM AM/1100, and the buzz began to grow.
Cuyahoga County Republican Chairman Rob Frost tried to tamp down the temptation. He contacted Republican voters and appeared on the Frantz show urging Republicans "not to heed the siren call of Rush Limbaugh and others."
"Elections are not something you should be playing games with," Frost said last week during a telephone interview.
Yet temptation was strong.
North Ridgeville Republican Hazel Sferry said she was kicking herself all day Tuesday after voting for McCain.
Don't get her wrong. Sferry supports McCain.
But after she voted, she ran into her niece who told her about "the plot."
Her niece, Republican Sherry Newell, crossed over Tuesday after hearing Limbaugh. Newell said she voted for Obama because she thought McCain had a better chance against him.
Regardless, Sferry said she thought it was a great idea to mess with the other party if it helped McCain win.
"I don't mind being deceptive to politicians," she said. "They are deceptive to us."
Now we see a whole bunch of interesting pieces about Bill Clinton appearing on the Rush Limbaugh show, and I run across people who are obviously Republican shills in thin guise as Hillary Clinton supporters trying to play out new sets of anti-Obama talking points.
It's not pretty.
One such shill started a thread over on DelphiForms entitled If Obama were white... -- obviously trying to effect more of the potential race-card outcry, and trying to sound like a voice of reason but only succeeding in coming off as sickeningly condescending:
If Obama were white, with the same tremendous talents and abilities, with the same resume of 1/2 of one term in the US Senate, with absolutly NO foreign policy experience as an adult or at the federal level, never having run a business, met a payroll, served in the military, acted in any kind of executive capacity and was 46 years old that white person would never be considered for president, possibly as a vice-presidential candidate but only possibly.
I know this is a very senseitve area but I believe it is debate worthy.
I like Obama and I am a Clinton supporter but I believe that this is what Ms. Ferraro is saying.
The reasoning made no sense. Military experience as a pre-requisite? Why -- because he's male? Or because he's not a white man?
My response:
And again, that's bullshit.
"with the same resume of 1/2 of one term in the US Senate, with absolutly NO foreign policy experience as an adult or at the federal level, never having run a business, met a payroll, served in the military"
Well, let's see -- we'll just check out our current "executive" qualifications: Bush had no Senate experience, no foreign policy experience as an adult or at the federal level, ran several businesses into the ground, wimped out of his military service. He served as a governor, but didn't do a very good job. ...simply holding positions that expose someone to certain levels of responsibility does not -- in any way -- equate to actually having viable experience in that role. Bush is a perfect example of that.
Face it -- very few Presidents, never mind Presidential candidates, had any foreign policy experience prior to taking office that could have prepared them for the job. Military service is not a prerequisite for the Presidency, nor should it be -- the Presidency is a civilian post.
...what the hell does meeting a payroll have to do with Presidential qualifications? Seriously -- he's not shooting for an accountancy.
The reason behind my use of Bush as an example was two-fold:
- He is a perfect example of why those conditional pre-requisites fail, and
- I suspected that this person was a Republican, and thought this would help reveal the true colors.
Sure enough, an idiotic response came back:
Bush was significantly older, had military experience in jet fighter flying, had executive experience both in politics and out and came form a poliyical savvy family. Your analogy is defeated and my contention stands.
Wow -- what inanity.
I also noticed the typical Republican-shill tactical equivalent of a foot-stamp, "Your analogy is defeated and my contention stands."
Here's the takedown. Note: I initially left out the military point and posted it later when I realized it, but I'm posting the whole thing together here.
Your analogy is bogus, and the more you try the more obvious it becomes.
Let's do it by the numbers, shall we?
- Assertion: Bush was significantly olderYeah, so was Reagan -- and he was technically incompetent due to the onset and progress of Alzheimer's Disease, but he remained President. Technically, Obama is old enough -- do you have any idea what the ages of the previous Presidents were? Let me clue you in about who some of the youngest were:
<tbody>AGE | # | Name |
42 | 26 | Theodore Roosevelt |
43 | 35 | John F. Kennedy |
46 | 18 | Ulysses S. Grant |
46 | 42 | Bill Clinton |
47 | 22 | Grover Cleveland |
</tbody>
Mmmmm...judging by the list, I can see why you're so scared of Obama, tho. A Roosevelt, a Kennedy and a Clinton seem to stand right out there.Nice try, but don't leave your day job.
- Assertion: [Bush] had military experience in jet fighter flying
Technically true, but Bush had no practical military experience being deployed anywhere of consequence, and his service overall was a joke -- the equivalent level of training required to learn to fly a private jet would be sufficient for anyone to run on base on that.
Additionally, two important points:
- There is no military-experience pre-requisite to qualify one for the office of the Presidency. It is a civilian role.
- What kind of military experience does Hillary Clinton have? Since you seem to think that military experience matters, where's Clinton's?
Case closed, pinhead. Try back later, when people are sleeping.
- Assertion: had executive experience both in politics and out
Bush's executive experience proved that he was an incompetent executive -- he drove every business he ran into the ground financially, just like he's done to our nation today. His governorship screwed up the state of Texas and served as a model of the best we could have hoped for in terms of how little damage he might do to the nation, but he blew that model right out of the water and broke new grounds in incompetency.
Is that the type of experience you prefer for a future President to have? It certainly doesn't seem like a very intelligent qualification from where I'm sitting.
- Assertion: came form a poliyical savvy family
Political connections born of a family that has prospered from war profiteering and been involved in some of the most corrupt, illegal national scandals of our century are not positive contributing factors toward the consideration of a President. If anything, those "connections" and that "political savvy" simply promise more of the same in terms of corruption, and a lot less work for the people of the nation. Not much of a qualification. Try again.
There's another good analogy, too, that helps quell the idiotic "experience" meme:
<font>Votemaster</font>:
How good Are experienced presidents, anyway? Suppose you had to choose between two Presidential candidates, one of whom had spent 20 years in Congress plus had considerable other relevant experience and the other of whom had about half a dozen years in the Illinois state legislature and 2 years in Congress. Which one do you think would make a better President? If you chose #1, congratulations, you picked James Buchanan over Abraham Lincoln. Your pick disagrees with that of most historians, who see Lincoln as the greatest President ever and Buchanan as the second worst ever, better only than Warren "Teapot Dome" Harding. Both served in what was probably the most difficult period in American history, where slavery and secession tore the nation asunder.
So, it's game time folks.
The Republicans are up to their usual tricks, and we have to step up our efforts to expose and mitigate them.
The interesting part here, tho, is that we've gotten much better and seeing through and taking down their rhetoric and propaganda -- they're running scared. A word to the wise -- a scared, cornered animal is dangerous...and I suspect these weasels are rabid.1
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Footnotes
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1. No offense meant to real, actual weasels.