Palin Drops Reference To William Ayers From Stump Speech
After attacking Barack Obama's association with William Ayers for several days running, including yesterday, Sarah Palin made no mention of Ayers in her speech at a joint appearance with McCain in Pennsylvania that ended moments ago. Neither did McCain.
The missing Ayers reference suggest that the Ayers attacks may have backfired, and that the Obama campaign's counter-attack -- that the McCain team wants to use slimy negative attacks to distract from a discussion from the economy -- may have been effective.
It's also possible that Palin dropped the reference today because unlike in the past few days, she's appearing jointly with McCain. But even if that's so, it suggests that the McCain team doesn't want McCain directly associated with the Ayers reference.
Palin's non-mention of Ayers is only the latest sign that the McCain team is all over the map on Ayers right now. This morning, The Politico quoted McCain advisers saying McCain wouldn't focus on the former Weatherman going forward. But the McCain campaign also blasted out a statement from John Murtagh, who says his house was bombed by the Weather Underground when he was nine, hammering Obama's ties to Ayers.
In other words, the McCain campaign wants Ayers to be discussed in the press, but doesn't want McCain -- and now also Palin, perhaps -- associated with such a slimy attack at a time when voters want solutions to the economic crisis.
Apparently Cindy took some pot shots at Obama today.
Whatsamattah, McCain? Too chickenshit to take Obama on directly, you gotta farm it out to your lady friends?
He's a pathetic old man.
October 8, 2008 2:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think it's more than that...
I think that McCain is ashamed of the campaign that he's been running. After all the talk of Bill Ayers in the last few days from all of the McCain surrogates -- especially Palin -- why didn't he bring it up last night at the debate? He could have snuck a little jab about Ayers at any time throughout the debate, and arguably changed the course of the campaign.
Why didn't he? I think it's because McCain knows what a sleazy campaign has been run in his name. Country First my ass.
http://thepajamapundit.com/
October 8, 2008 3:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think you are giving McCain too much credit. I believe the reason he didn't blast away at Obama to his face is because McCain is a coward.
McCain isn't ashamed of mixing it up, he is afraid to.
October 8, 2008 3:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
+1
McCain, for all his tough-guy bluster, is likely afraid of Obama himself. But I think he's even more afraid of what Obama could do to his cherished 'Maverick' persona if McCain was stupid enough to open himself up for the punch.
He knows in his heart that he's never faced an opponent who could thoroughly destroy him if he had a mind to, and that's why Ayers didn't come up last night.
October 8, 2008 3:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think it's more likely that they're trying to split the difference here. They want to maintain that McCain is waging an honorable campaign and hasn't gone back on his word. Having surrogates do your dirty work is how this is always done. But these attacks happen to be incredibly dirty. I understand why they want McCain to not say this stuff directly; it would instantly destory his brand. Right now we're getting a slow burn.
http://pufferfish.typepad.com/
October 8, 2008 3:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
I really don't think it was calculated or deliberate by the McCain camp at all. When it came time for John to stand up, look his opponent in the eye, and deliver a hard right to the face, he just didn't have the cojones to throw the punch. He was afraid of the counterpunch, and rightly so.
For all his bravado and bluster, McCain is a chickenshit.
October 8, 2008 4:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
Agree! Why do you think he became a fighter pilot, instead of -- say -- an infantryman. OK, so he came from a Navy family. Why not a front-line Marine, with fixed bayonet?
He wanted to do his work from 500 hundred feet up (or higher) in a fast plane.
Coward. But then he got shot down. Ooops.
October 8, 2008 7:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
Accounts of his behavior whilst a POW also echoes these sentiments. He begged with his captors for good treatment in exchange for his cooperation with divulging military intelligence.
They agreed and he kept his word, telling them all sorts of stuff that should've gotten him court marshalled.
October 8, 2008 9:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
I suspect you're right. O is very quick on the uptake, and if McCain were to start an attack, God only knows what would blow back on him. He's a frightened and desperate man, and he doesn't realize the game is over and it's time to go home.
October 8, 2008 5:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
Possibly, the reason that McCain didn't bring up Ayers in the debate is because he knows that the whole nation is watching. Negative attacks like that don't go over well with independents and are far too visible. In stump speeches, especially with Palin the attack dog uttering her hate speech, it gets noticed, but the crowd is so sympathetic that (they hope) it won't have the effect they know it would have on national TV.
I think it's also true that they know the attacks on Obama regarding Ayers are baseless, while attacks on both McCain (Keating, among others) and Palin (the Alaska Secessionist Party, her wacko church) are far more reasonable hits against them.
McCain needs to appear reasonable and "presidential" in debates. On the stump, he can be the nasty old man with his nasty young milf.
October 8, 2008 5:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
He's been getting a response from his more educated conservative base and it hasn't been positive. Plus, there have been media responses that these smear tactics are drastic measures for a failing campaign. So, essentially, it has backfired.
I'm sure McCain also got a nice scolding from the Secret Service.
October 8, 2008 8:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think there are many level of reasons:
McCain is embarrassed to the degree a national politician who apologized for Keating 5 and then became the deregulator, who sought to reform campaign finance and then when fully engaged in a campaign sought not to follow his own law, the same person who railed against religious right after 2000's primary smear then went and sought to law in bed with them this time around, shall I continue?
No McCain is not embarrassed he is being tactical but not strategic, oh that is what a fighter pilot is, tactical----he knows that he cannot actually mouth the smear in public, or have his running mate on the same stage.
It is a tactic that is not working, and their playbook like the movie Jaws is running out of options, I think they are now going to lower a shark cage in the water and stick a 25 foot shark with a needle. That will work.
A campaign needs four things, a message (what is McCain, elect me?), money (cash to a degree they got but not enough), organization (well I know CO's and it ain't much), and credibility....well that they are missing.
October 8, 2008 10:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
Frankly, I think McCain was using Palin's charges as a trial balloon...if they stuck, and polls went up for him as a result, he'd start using the attacks himself. If the charges backfired, he could gracefully (in his mind) step away and have his people drop back, too.
Trial balloons...because he's losing and doesn't know how to stop it from happening....
October 8, 2008 6:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
I like this theory. That's a fairly effective technique. I remember Bill Clinton used to rock that method on a regular basis. All sorts of various rumors would be floating around from various levels of his campaign, and then he'd take the most popular sounding one and run with it.
However, he was better at dropping the negative ones faster, before they got a chance to make him look bad for even thinking about it.
October 8, 2008 7:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
I was listening for it too. Maybe it's because McCain was standing next to her and maybe because his family was there too.
I guess next time she's on the trail on her own we'll find out.
Maybe, just maybe, after the Secret Service got involved and spoke to Politico about the "kill him" shout, the McCain campaign was informed to tone it down a bit with the hate speech.
Now, that's change you can believe in.
October 8, 2008 2:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
I notice that Josh has a post up about that speech and the people yelling "traitor" when someone says Obama's full name - which is their new way of saying: "Goddamn it, people, he's black!"
Josh now thinks they are plants. I do too - it cannot happen that consistently without something being up -
October 8, 2008 2:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
We thought they were plants yesterday.
October 8, 2008 3:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
You're wrong, girl. It's "Godamned it, he's a Muslim, Arab, and black, and that makes him a terrorist."
October 8, 2008 3:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
They might be plants, but I don't think they have to be. Since Palin didn't reprimand the first one, other yahoos may have decided that yelling "Traitor" is appropriate behavior.
If it could be proved they are plants, that would kill McCain's campaign completely. If they are orchestrated, he's playing a very dangerous game, in more ways than one.
October 8, 2008 4:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
They are firing up the pent-up hatred of their base. There may be plants, but there are plenty of rabid fans of hate and demonization out there. I mean, the Republican Convention itself was nearly that bad, and only a little prodding might have gotten them chanting "Terrorist!"
I think Palin, in particular, is doing her damndest to bring out the worst of our population - its intolerance, its anger and its overt or latent racism. Mostly, they are trying to whip of the "fear of the other," which is essentially what Hitler did with Jews. To me, it's not much different. Palin is drunk with power. She needs to be stopped and slapped hard with a dose of reality.
The real losers are all of us. We have to live in this country together, whoever wins on Nov. 4, and we already have too much intolerance, ignorance and cultural division. To whip up and encourage these basest and most tragic elements of our culture - of humanity - is beyond irresponsible. It is a slap in the face of our country and a despicable tactic that I hope backfires and sends both McCain and Palin packing - McCain into permanent retirement and Palin into moose-hunting obscurity.
But even if McCain loses, this damage, this incitement of riotous intolerance, will remain an open wound, and one that shouldn't have been intentionally opened.
Mob rule is not the definition of democracy. It is never for the good of the people.
October 8, 2008 5:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
This rings so true to me..
October 9, 2008 3:12 AM | Reply | Permalink
God, I'm so naive. I never even thought of that. Guess I'm too old and idealistic.
October 8, 2008 5:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
I feel like Linda Blair in The Exorcist. My head is just spinning around trying to follow the McCain campaign's flips, flops, stops and starts.
Please tell me the media won't do the McCain's campaign job by endlessly discussing Ayers. Please.
October 8, 2008 2:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
Seconded. I hope this is an end to it today.
There is no there there - we've already done this.
I hope they let it go and since there's not much story, I think they might.
October 8, 2008 2:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hey, cut it out! I used to live in Oakland!
At least now there's an intermittent there there -- the part closest to Berkeley!
October 8, 2008 3:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
Obama was pretty fierce on McCain today. It is interesting how Obama applies pressure. When polls are down and people want him to go after McCain, he is cool and collected. Then when the polls are up and you'd think he could coast more he goes for hard core political attacks.
My assumption is that they are doing this because it is part of their strategy: not burning through any goodwill when the polls are low, then burning some political capital when the polls are up in order to further define McCain.
October 8, 2008 3:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
In case you missed it here's a link to Thomas Friedman's article about Palin's patriotism remark that you might find interesting.
October 8, 2008 3:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks. But like he said, it's like shooting fish in a barrel.
October 8, 2008 3:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
Um, why is McCain paling around with people who pal around with terrorists?
So let me get this straight, McCain...you think that Obama is dangerous to the country because he pals around with terrorists, but you're more than willing to tout the endorsement of someone who has a much, much deeper relationship to William Ayers than Obama?
October 8, 2008 3:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
Perhaps this is why they dropped the Ayers reference today. I'd like to see that get more traction. People don't even know that the board was for the charitable Annenburg foundation.
October 8, 2008 9:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
October 8, 2008 3:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
palin: vision 20/12
October 8, 2008 3:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is the silliest damned idea - I'm sorry, but it's just flat silly.
God - I heard for years that Bush would never leave - he'd always be in charge.
Wrong.
Then I heard Hillary was throwing the primary to set herself up for '12.
Wrong.
Sarah Palin? Come on - you only get to actually run for president if you first get a whole shitload of money and power behind you. She will never have either one. She's going to disappear as soon as this election is over.
October 8, 2008 3:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
dan quayle ran for president in 2000, anything can happen
October 8, 2008 3:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
Dan Quayle's presidential run was so poorly thought of that he left the race before he even got to the point of getting on any primary ballots. Basically, IIRC, the pros in the business ordered him to ... just go away. Nobody gave him any money, and the candidacy died at conception. Just because he was Veep, didn't give him any gravitas or standing to be President. As for Palin, she is less than Quayle.
October 8, 2008 3:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
From your mouth to God's ear.
October 8, 2008 3:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
I really hope you're right Tena, but I'm not so sure. She is the darling of the far right and they started pumping bundles into McCain's campaign when she got on the ticket. They will spend the next 4 years honing her image and training her and readying her. I think she does have her eye on 2012, whether she gets there or not I don't know.
Certainly some of the more moderate, less evangelical portion of the republican party doesn't like her right now but they may come around. Then there's the low info independents...
I say keep a close eye on her and hold her to all her errors, ethical issues, etc. Hopefully the Alaskan's that have become disillusioned will vote her out in two years. But I'm not holding my breath on that either.
October 8, 2008 9:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
McCain didn't go there either but I think he did preview the next meme.
He implied that Fannie and Freddie gave mortgages to, you know, those irresponsible people and that was the Democratic plan. So Obama will take your money and give it to those irresponsible people.
That is a distortion on about 5 different levels, the least of which is that it takes the Republican off the hook for the economic mess we are in. But it also hooks up with the old Nixonian theme of saying liberals just want to take your money and give it to, you know, those people.
The crowd at today's McCain rally clearly was hungry for red meat. They got a little bit but in future rallys I think they will be more tuned into Fannie and Freddie as the next code words for what they really want to hear.
October 8, 2008 3:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
If we're doing plants now, how about someone at the next repug rally shouting out, "What about Ayers?!" to force them to deal with it in public, instead of just sliming it around the press room.
October 8, 2008 3:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sarah doesn't mention Ayers? Oooh, you made my day. Let me run down the wine cellar, get the glasses ready...Oh wait, I hear someone calling "kill him."
Shoot, Sarah came close to becoming Gandhi today. I'm hopeful. May be tommorow. She does look cute with a 72 year old dick on forehead.
Please...26 more days and not a second more.
October 8, 2008 3:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
"My fellow prisoners"?
October 8, 2008 3:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYFm5kK4f1k
October 8, 2008 3:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYFm5kK4f1k
Oops. Sorry for that.
Officially, he's losing it. But at least he's recognizing that Americans are right now POW (Prisoners of W.).
October 8, 2008 3:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
The sad part is what McWildman is saying.
The FUNNY part is to watch S Palin's face right afterward. She turns her head away toward her right, and you can almost see her thinking, "He didn't just say that, did he? And I'm the one they're keeping away from the press?"
Really funny!
Obama/Biden '08!!
October 8, 2008 7:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
By the way Greg, thank you for watching the McPalin horror show on our behalf. It means a lot a more than meets the eye.
October 8, 2008 3:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
The probability of a black president is starting to sink in on the right, and the extremists--the fat, stupid, bible thumping racists--are really fired up. It truly is time to quadruple Obama's secret service detail.
October 8, 2008 3:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
I guess I'll have to live with Josh thinking I'm a dupe for doubting those hate-mongers were plants.
October 8, 2008 3:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
Was thinking the same thing. After recently seeing Obama (and McCain!) in person after their press conferences and interviews over the bailout deal a couple weeks back and thinking how easy it was for a crowd to spontaneously form and be that close to them:
It gives me the chills.
There was a robust and visible (not to mention the no so visible!) security element there but we were essentially random folks off the street and really not THAT far from the candidates...
This riling up of the racially charged lunatic fringe of our society is a very dangerous development. Beyond disgraceful. I'm not the most religious man in the world but I'm praying for the safety and well-being of the candidates a lot recently.
October 8, 2008 4:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
HuffingtonPost.com
“On Wednesday morning, John McCain’s campaign released a list of 100 former ambassadors endorsing the GOP presidential nominee.
Second on the list, though her name is misspelled, is Leonore Annenberg, currently the president and chairman of the Annenberg Foundation and widow of ambassador and philanthropist Walter Annenberg. Ms. Annenberg was herself the “chief of protocol” at the State Department under President Reagan.
If the last name sounds familiar, it’s because it also graces the name of the Chicago education board where Barack Obama and William Ayers sat in the room six times together.
In recent days, the McCain-Palin ticket (and particularly Palin) has faulted Obama for having served on that board with Ayers, who was a founding member of the radical 60’s Weather Underground group when Obama was in grade school.
Since then, however, Ayers has been rehabilitated in Chicago society, carving out a niche in education circles. As a former Republican representative in Illinois told NPR on Monday, smearing Obama for his board association with Ayers is “nonsensical.”"
“It was never a concern by any of us in the Chicago school reform movement that he had led a fugitive life years earlier … It’s ridiculous,” Republican Rep. Diana Nelson said. “There is no reason at all to smear Barack Obama with this association. It’s nonsensical, and it just makes me crazy. It’s so silly.”
October 8, 2008 3:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
OT: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/08/coleman-spokesman-humilia_n_133026.html
So funny
October 8, 2008 3:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
Andrew Sullivan posted this from an Israeli reader of The Dish, commenting on the fog of murderous madness that the hate speech and tactics of the Palin McCain is now rabbelrousing on the stump,,,, and what it inevitably leads to.
An Israeli reader writes:
Your post on "The Danger of Obama" immediately brought to mind what happened here in Israel in the period leading up to Yitzhak Rabin's assassination. Even allowing for the differences in political culture between the two countries, some of the sounds we're hearing in the public debate around the election have a haunting echo. Here no one would have thought it possible that an Israeli Jew would take the life of a high official. There's little doubt that the crescendo of demonization toward Rabin – including accusations of treason, flyers picturing Rabin as an SS officer – and the difficulty, in a society guaranteeing free speech, of 'civilizing' the public debate before it creates a fertile bed for actual violence, all helped create the context in which Rabin's murderer decided to take matters into his own hands.
I'd like to see which Republicans will denounce this turn towards demonization. And if there are no takers – maybe Joe Lieberman?
October 8, 2008 3:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
OT, but can someone in the media press McCain on what the hell he meant in this exchange last night about Social Security?
Brokaw: Sen. McCain, two years for a reform of entitlement programs?
McCain: Sure. Hey, I'll answer the question. Look -- look, it's not that hard to fix Social Security, Tom. It's just...
Brokaw: And Medicare.
McCain: ... tough decisions. I want to get to Medicare in a second.
Social Security is not that tough. We know what the problems are, my friends, and we know what the fixes are. We've got to sit down together across the table. It's been done before.
I saw it done with our -- our wonderful Ronald Reagan, a conservative from California, and the liberal Democrat Tip O'Neill from Massachusetts. That's what we need more of, and that's what I've done in Washington.
Sen. Obama has never taken on his party leaders on a single major issue. I've taken them on. I'm not too popular sometimes with my own party, much less his.
So Medicare, it's going to be a little tougher. It's going to be a little tougher because we're talking about very complex and difficult issues.
My friends, what we have to do with Medicare is have a commission, have the smartest people in America come together, come up with recommendations, and then, like the base-closing commission idea we had, then we should have Congress vote up or down.
Let's not let them fool with it anymore. There's too much special interests and too many lobbyists working there. So let's have -- and let's have the American people say, "Fix it for us."
October 8, 2008 3:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's just like everything else - fixing the economy, finding bin laden, finishing Iraq, finishing Afgahanistan - he knows how to do it. He's just not going to tell anyone how until he's elected.
October 8, 2008 3:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
What. That doesn't make sense to you? It makes perfect sense to me and all rest of my friends here at the funny farm.
October 8, 2008 3:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
I wonder if this is what Palin would sound like if she could speak in complete sentences?
October 8, 2008 3:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
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