After Sarah Palin blitzed through the Tampa Bay region with her latest hatefest this week, both of our local dailies have wiped off the slime and come out with editorials blasting John McCain and his campaign. Most notably, today the conservative-leaning Tampa Tribune derided McCain's campaign as "erratic," rejected Palin's hatemongering in Clearwater, and belittled McSame's failed attempts to explain to the American people how he actually plans to fix the mess that we're in. The St. Petersburg Times also weighed in, calling McCain "reckless" and "unfocused." That's putting it mildly.
Pointing to Tuesday night's debate, both the Times and the Tribune criticize McCain for his unwillingness or inability to offer voters any specifics at all about how he plans to move our country forward. And both papers obliterate the mortgage bailout idea that McCain unveiled at the debate. First the Times:
McCain recklessly floats unfocused big ideas and leaves them hanging in the air without explanation. He repeated his pledge from the first debate to freeze federal spending except for defense, military veterans and other unnamed priorities. He also said he would order the Treasury secretary to buy mortgages of individual homeowners and adjust them to reflect declining values. That sounds desperate coming from a politician who argues against big government and only recently embraced more government regulation of financial markets. It offers false hope to Americans when Congress would not even allow bankruptcy judges last week to alter mortgage terms for homeowners facing foreclosure.
The Tribune chimes in with its critcism of McCain's mortgage bailout stunt:
...he promises to spend billions to keep overextended homeowners in homes they might not be able to afford. That leaves us wondering where McCain would send the bill - to the majority of homeowners who aren't in financial trouble or to our children?
Many voices are calling for direct aid to homeowners, which may be possible. But McCain, who suspended his campaign to help reach a compromise on a rescue plan, now wants to take personal credit for a costly gift to a targeted minority. Such erratic behavior is uncharacteristic of the old McCain.
"Erratic." "Desperate." Not exactly the kinds of adjectives you want to see editorial boards using to describe you less than a month before the election.
The Tribune also takes McCain to task for trying to claim that there are simple solutions to the severe problems our country is facing, and that he has all the answers.
McCain told us he could fix bad mortgages with a snap of his fingers, fix health care at no net cost, and maintain the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, all while cutting taxes. He tried to reassure us about Osama bin Laden, saying, "I know how to get him."
On the looming problem of how to pay for the nation's over-promised retirement program, McCain said, "It's not that hard to fix Social Security."
Of course it's going to be hard.
But the Tribune reserves some of its harshest criticism for McCain's pick of Palin, and for Palin's reptilian performance at the Clearwater rally this week.
He also has failed to guide his vice presidential pick, Sarah Palin, who is inexperienced on the national stage. At a recent rally in Clearwater, Palin was hammering Obama's association with a former radical when someone in the audience shouted, "Kill him!" Palin let it pass. Another overwrought fan was reported to have shouted a racial epithet at a black member of a news crew. Other reporters covering the event were verbally abused by the crowd. Is this the tone the campaign seeks?
McCain has either lost control of the campaign or endorses her rough campaign tactics. With the ticket trailing in the polls, Palin's role is to excite the base, not dangerously incite it.
I will take issue with one point in the Tribune's editorial. Being the conservative-leaning paper that it is, the Tribune's editorial writers pine for the mavericky "old McCain," who they say they admired because he shot straight "from the hip." We all know that McCain's maverick image was manufactured BS to begin with, but many conservatives actually believe it to the core of their being. So I'll put in this last bit from the Tribune to remind us, I guess, of the true anguish that many conservatives are feeling today as they watch McCain's meltdown:
At a time when a mere nine percent of us tell pollsters we think the country is heading in the right direction, America needs the old McCain to lead us back on course. We need the one who appealed to our common sense and conservative instincts.
The way for McCain to win this election is to convince us he is unafraid to lose. To the old McCain, it would have come naturally.
Hold on for a minute, I just threw up in my mouth a little bit...OK I'm back.
I should add that the Times called Obama's plans on how to tackle several key issues more "responsible" and "realistic," and commended him for acknowledging (unlike McCain) that we're going to have to, um, prioritize.
I know that newspaper editorials don't make or break an election. But with Florida being such an important state this year (as it always is), and with the I-4 corridor between Tampa and Orlando in central Florida being the key to winning the state, I think it is significant that both of our daily newspapers in the region are calling out McCain on his negative tactics and lack of ideas, and are reinforcing memes that the Obama campaign is pushing, such as "erratic." These types of things do help contribute to an overall environment in the region that is clearly moving away from McCain and toward Obama.
UPDATE:
Thanks for the recs. Don't forget to DIGG these two editorials (H/T itswhatson):
Tampa Tribune
St. Petersburg Times