McCain is SCREWED

In tonight's speech, the most remarkable thing was not his pasted-on smile or his tired stump speech...

It was the fact that he's now where Obama was a few weeks ago:

FIGHTING ON TWO FRONTS.

He's trying to both take on Obama and differentiate himself from Bush.

During his speech, there were multiple really tense moments when he attacked Bush and Bush's policies where half of the audience wanted to applaud and half wanted to BOO.

30% LOVE Bush... they love his policies, his positions, his personality... For McCain to fight against the 30% who comprise Bush's base... may be suicidal. He's already on shaky ground with the evangelicals... for him to fight the pro-war, pro NCLB, climate-change deniers... may lose him the election.

We'll meet you in November, John.

:kick:

After all, you are going to need a little help getting up out of your easy chair, john dear.

The 30% of dead-enders are what makes me despair for America's future. Those folks are going to stay home in droves in November. With any luck, they won't come out of their houses (or out from under their rocks) for years!

as vp, or actual R candidate, watch out.

Clearly IDed as a phony.

not sure that it would!

:shrug:

more than anything, that they've got another game up their sleeves.

He's just holding a place, I think. He'll drop out and they'll slip someone else in.

I feel like my OP was tempting fate, but DAMN, watching him tonight...

He's trying to both be the change candidate, and maintain the status quo... he looked like an ass tonight, and he'll look like an ass for the next 5 months.

My favorite line was the part where he said something to the effect of "We don't need to look to the past for solutions, but the future." Um, WTF?

Have any of you ever actually seen or met a McCain fan? Because I haven't. Not a single one. Ever. I still meet Bush fans-seems impossible, but yeah, he still has his fans. My own father and grandmother still like him.

But they don't like McCain. People on freerepublic don't like McCain. So who are the McCain fans? Crab people? I almost suspect the Democrats rigged it somehow. Because I just don't see how this guy beat Huckabee or Romney or Guillinaee.(sp?)

I think John McCain is God's greatest gift to the Democratic party. God wanted a Dem in office, and so He made it happen. He made John McCain the Republican nominee.

My friend's dad, a retired Marine, is the most pro-war Republican I know.

He thinks either McCain either was totally messed up psychologically as a POW, or if he WASN'T messed up, there's something VERY wrong with him, and either way, it precludes him from being president. I mean, this guy thinks we should have stuck it out in 'Nam, ya know?

I'm just worried that we're going to be left holding the bag, ya know? :shrug:

and they could make-up for the die-hard Repubes who are lukewarm.

but as Henry James said, "People can be perfectly good, but not good for what one wants."

The last two elections were about who the American voters wanted to have a beer with. That didn't work out so well.

Hopefully this election will not be a meeting of the frat to discuss the guys we met during Rush Week, but a discussion among adults for who is best qualified to lead America.

I respect Senator McCain, but I don't think he's the best person for the job.

My dad was a B-52 pilot, and respects McCain's service.

But he's concerned with McCain's behavior, age and similarities to Bush.

I have yet to meet a true fan and sure voter for him as well.

He really must be telling the truth when he says he's not like Bush. Even Bush isn't that bad. McCain's a dinosaur, a trainwreck, and even Bush fans won't vote for him.

O_O so how is he the Republican winner?

Either way, people are going to be unhappy.

Bush isn't smart enough to tie his shoes. He is a family name wearing a tie. He has to have people that make decisions, and he signs them.

McCain isn't going to be making any decisions on his own either. He is a reputation wearing a tie. He is not a president, he's not traveling to Europe and Asia and everywhere else he'd need to go. He freely admits that he knows nothing about the economy and then has banking lobbyists and fired CEOs on his team.

No, McCain has no place in this race. I chose him as the Republican nominee last year when he was the only potential candidate that went to Davos. And all this time later, he's here. But unless they can cheat 20% vote swings instead of 5% swings like last time, he's toast.

As opposed to many who are voting against a candidate for the wrong reason.

I dislike Hillary Clinton. A lot. But I'll be first in line to vote for her ahead of McCain. I don't think she's in the top 50 candidates that could have run this year, but she will still set policies that are closer to the ones I would want than McCain will.

I think that McCain will finish ruining the Supreme Court.

I think that McCain will finish ruining the military. Bush missed two chances to kill my little brother by having him over in Iraq for two tours spanning 27 months. McCain will ensure that he sees Iraq or Iran or North Korea, etc.

I think that McCain will continue to allow the looting of pensions and investment accounts, and bailing out the people who do the demolition, not the ones who suffer it.

I think that McCain will continue to pour money into defense contractors with no oversight while at the same time railing against tax and spend Democrats who would likely pour money into defense contractors WITH oversight. :-)

There are people that believe that McCain will promote policies that will benefit them. I don't believe that is true.

The regular driver on the bus I catch home from work. He's a Vietnam vet who is very vocal in his support for McCain as "the only one who knows how to keep the damn terrorists out of this country". Yeah, whatever dude.

And don't forget the (probably paid) shills who flood the comboxes of every news blog about the Democratic primaries with comments about how they are irrelevant, since it's obvious that McCain is going to win in November. Apparently, if you say it enough times, it becomes true.

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...he didn't want to be part of that losing campaign.

These were the same two Dems were the first Obama made a beeline to after being catapulted into the Senate (after sucking up first to Teddy). The DNC needed a candidate to put against the Clintons. Obama was all they could come up with. Had he stayed in the Senate at least one term and made a name for himself, he would have been a viable candidate.

Expect a crushing defeat, DNC!

:shrug:

Why don't you fuck off?

but he's going to have to BREAK from the 30% on the right who would LOVE 4 more years...

I think he'd be better served by embracing Bush and arguing for his policies, frankly.

Trying to get the 20% who voted for Bush in '04 but who have since become disillusioned as his BASE... how is he going to get those people, and WIN with them? :shrug:

In 1992 he was running against Bush Sr. in the general election, and he was free to go on the offensive against the incumbent while identifying as a moderate. Yeah, Jerry Brown and some other folks were in the primaries, but he was free to be a moderate dem without worrying about losing a huge part of the party for the GE.

In 1996 he was basically uncontested.

Now you look at Gore in 2000. I love Gore, but he was trying to do what McCain is doing... differentiate himself from the sitting president AND fight his opponent. There are many who will argue that Gore should have embraced Clinton, and I have to say that in retrospect the distance between Gore and Clinton cost us a lot, regardless of who was responsible.

It's like being caught between the Soviets and the Allied powers... where are you going to go when things get tough?

He's competitive in the battlegrounds, and doesn't look like he'll lose any of the states that he's supposed to win.

I think a lot of it is name recognition, and general "warm fuzzies."

Tonight, watching his speech, I was actually worried for a few minutes, then he started to screw up and look tired and desperate. Obama looked like he was coming off a week in a spa in the South of France, and Obama's the one who's been in a nasty fight for the last couple months.

I just really feel like when both of them get up there in front of the American people, McCain will look like your aged grandma next to Obama. I don't have anything wrong with your (or my) aged grandma, but she should be playing bridge with the other seniors and generally enjoying her retirement doped to the gills, and not working the 16 hour days that the presidency requires.

When Cheney stood next to Edwards in '04, he made Edwards look like a baby, and he like the older experienced man. Though honestly I don't see that working for McCain. He looked bad tonight. Real bad. Worse than Cheney ever did.

but they were running for VP, and not president.

Obama exudes youth and vitality. Sure, it's possible McCain will look like an elder statesman, but even the way he talks looks and sounds forced. I mean, Cheney didn't look like he was eager to go backstage so the nurses could give him his shot. :P

It said so on CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS....

:eyes:

With his temper and Obama's grace under pressure he will wipe the floor wit that pasty white rethug.

haha, Joe Watkins said he was impressed by the substance. Tucker made fun of Obama's speech for the "we'll take care of sick children" line, but no mention of Mccain's awkward line about bringing hot water bottles to dehydrated babies? Is that considered substantive these days? Also, did anyone see the asshole GOP guy on CNN (Alex? The one who made the race baiting ads and recently justified the use of the term b-tch ?) say that Republicans care about the rights of people around the world, as opposed to the democrats? Everyone sort of had this stunned "our you fucking kidding me" silence, and then roland martin started hammering him about the shutting down of Iraqui newspapers. I wish that hadn't been the end of the show, everyone started yelling at that point.

I'm afraid we've sprung a leak.