This is what the right seems to want us to believe now:
Barack is a Muslim extremist who wants to make your kids gay. He's also some sort of revolutionary black nationalist who hangs out with rich white land developers. Oh, and an Ivy League elitist who is also some sort of ruffian from the streets.
It's cute. Really.
It's not that I'm shocked at the nature of these attacks. I'm not. We've seen how low the Republicans, and their allies, have stooped before, and it's completely unsurprising that they will do it again. But what does shock me is their complete lack of message discipline this time around, which has resulted in their laughable, contradictory memes, none of which have seemed to work.
In 2004, they hit Kerry hard, mainly with below-the-belt attacks, but all of which hit on the same themes: liberal, elite, flip-flopper, weak on national security. Kerry didn't do enough to hit back, but that's beside the point. The central issue was that Republicans and their 527s stayed on message. They basically just went after the "French guy." Karl Rove was a master of this, a guy who could craft a tight, negative message that would reach large numbers of people before they knew what hit them.
This time around, I have no idea what's going on. Is it that their caucus is split? Is it that McCain was, at first, resistant to the negative stuff? Is it a profound disconnect between McCain's allies and Palin's? Is it a disconnect between the candidates themselves?
All I know is that the conservative base itself is in complete disarray...either that or they're on smack. Because they've reduced themselves to flinging their own feces and sending transparently contradictory messages that don't pass the laugh test, even for underinformed voters.
Oh, and they claim that we've rigged all the polls. Nice touch.
Take it sleazy,
PSD