NYT: Bearhug Politics: Careful Steps to a New Bush-McCain Alliance

It was one of the odder embraces in American politics since Sammy Davis Jr. hugged Richard M. Nixon at the Republican Convention 32 years ago this summer: George W. Bush and John McCain's back-wrapping bearhug and side-head-smooch on the campaign trail last week.

For most of the past four years, Mr. McCain and the man who beat him for the Republican nomination in a bitter campaign in 2000 have treated each other like a pair of reversed magnets, members of the same metallurgical family held apart by reciprocal repulsion. Now their locked arms are raising eyebrows.

"Don't make people who hate you hug you," Bill Maher joked on the HBO program "Real Time." "Whatever the Bush administration is blackmailing John McCain with, stop!"

(snip)

"John is so sharp," said former Senator Alan K. Simpson of Wyoming. "I think he knows that whatever his future is, it can never go anywhere unless he's seen as supportive of the party and supportive of the president, and anything else will abort whatever he may have in mind."

more…
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/21/politics/campaign/21mccain.html?hp

in him. Wouldn't that be honest of how he really feels.

he has a weird S&M thing going with Bushco as far as I can see.

threat to his family.

I must have missed this story.

Can you tell me what it is, please?

in the national polls unexpectedly dropped out of the Presidential race. Perot said he dropped out because he claimed to have recieved credible death threats aimed toward his family from his political enemies. As a result, Clinton surged in the polls as Perot was passed off as crazy by the media and by the Bush campaign - the possible source of the threat but most likely, it came from the same Texans who are now smearing Kerry's war record with lies.
At any rate, due to Perot's grass root support pressuring him, Perot re-joined the race on Oct 2nd and still managed to garnish 20% of the popular vote.

I always kind of suspected this guy was a fraud.

Hitch your wagon to fewer Republican kooks in future. That's the trick!

McCain's actions are louder than his words.

McCain called on Bush to denounce the Swift boatshit, labelling the ad as "dishonest and dishonorable." Bush and his campaign have failed to do so, yet McCain continues to stand with him -- even as the Swift bs continues to spew.

Where's the journalist who will question McCain's integrity for standing by a "dishonest and dishonorable" candidate?

primaries, I don't see how McCain can be near that slimebag Bu$h without punching his lights out or spitting in his face, because he deserves it. McCain must have lost his honor and pride somewhere along the line.

The anatomy of a smear campaign
By Richard H. Davis, 3/21/2004

Having run Senator John McCain's campaign for president, I can recount a textbook example of a smear made against McCain in South Carolina during the 2000 presidential primary. We had just swept into the state from New Hampshire, where we had racked up a shocking, 19-point win over the heavily favored George W. Bush. What followed was a primary campaign that would make history for its negativity.

In South Carolina, Bush Republicans were facing an opponent who was popular for his straight talk and Vietnam war record. They knew that if McCain won in South Carolina, he would likely win the nomination. With few substantive differences between Bush and McCain, the campaign was bound to turn personal. The situation was ripe for a smear.

Anonymous opponents used "push polling" to suggest that McCain's Bangladeshi born daughter was his own, illegitimate black child. In push polling, a voter gets a call, ostensibly from a polling company, asking which candidate the voter supports. In this case, if the "pollster" determined that the person was a McCain supporter, he made statements designed to create doubt about the senator.

We chose to address the attacks by trying to get the media to focus on the dishonesty of the allegations and to find out who was making them. We also pledged to raise the level of debate by refusing to run any further negative ads -- a promise we kept, though it probably cost us the race. We never did find out who perpetrated these smears, but they worked: We lost South Carolina by a wide margin.

http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:bavW-e6_DMsJ:www.boston.com/news/politics/president/articles/2004/03/21/the_anatomy_of_a_smear_campaign/+bush+smear+campaign+mccain+2000&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&strip=1

Bush trashed McCain in 2000. “Several Republican senators and the Bush camp have been identified as spreading rumours that question Mr. McCain’s mental equilibrium.”

“With McCain zooming in New Hampshire polls come whispered insinuations from Republicans, including some George W. Bush supporters, that his years in Viet Cong dungeons, which included two suicide attempts, drove him cuckoo. There have also been rumors that GOP rivals are trying to dig up his medical records.”

Bush attack machine targets John McCain. “In the 2000 GOP presidential primary, the Bush machine did not hesitate before turning John McCain’s record as a prisoner of war against him. Recognizing in Mr. McCain a military with which they could not compete, Bush strategists started a whisper campaign, insisting that Mr. McCain’s years in the custody of the Viet Cong had left him “mentally unstable” and unfit for the presidency.”

Bush campaign looked smear McCain’s military record in 2000. “Using the code word “temper,” a group of Senate Republicans, and at least some outriders of the George W. Bush campaign, are spreading the word that John McCain is unstable. The subtext, also suggested in this whispering campaign, is that he returned from 5 1/2 years as a POW in North Vietnam with a loose screw. And it is bruited about that he shouldn’t be entrusted with nuclear weapons.”

http://www.libertypost.org/cgi-bin/readart.cgi?ArtNum=61661&Disp=10&Trace=on

the Michael Jackson-Lisa Marie Presley "embrace" at the MTV Music Awards a few years ago..

My man Stu is quoted in this article, albeit last paragraph it gives him credibility that he wouldn't have had if McCain wasn't in the spotlight stumping for Bush. Go Stu Go!!!!