My "gut-level sense of his character" requires a double dose of this:
Posted on 04/09/2008 11:20:37 PM PDT by The_Republican
How many points do you get for just showing up? John McCain will get an idea at the end of the month when he travels to venues where Republicans don't usually campaign. McCain is planning to speak in inner cities, heavily African-American sections of the South, and poor sections of Appalachia. Most of his stops will be in areas where voters have traditionally supported Democrats.
How many points do you get for just showing up? John McCain will get an idea at the end of the month when he travels to venues where Republicans don't usually campaign. McCain is planning to speak in inner cities, heavily African-American sections of the South, and poor sections of Appalachia. Most of his stops will be in areas where voters have traditionally supported Democrats.
McCain's strategists are mapping the tour—and his campaign—on the theory that even if voters disagree with McCain, they come away with a favorable gut-level sense of his character when they get to see him up close. With this tour, McCain is hoping not so much that the people in the hall fall for him as that the cameras capturing the event can convey some of his appeal to independents across the country.
McCain is doing events like this tour out of necessity, too. While the press is focused on the Democratic race, this helps bring McCain attention. The press likes Republicans-doing-unorthodox-things stories, and McCain likes to see himself reflected back as a maverick in their coverage.
The tour also appeals to McCain's strong suit. His better qualities are more likely to come out in a high-risk setting, where he exchanges views with sometimes hostile voters, than in the deadening policy speech told before the beaming faces of GOP stalwarts.
(Excerpt) Read more at slate.com ...
This is a BRILLIANT and NEEDED strategy. Republicans MUST reach out to ALL groups even if the reward is angry slogans, heckling and boos. This opens door to future Republicans to follow McCAin's lead and reach out to every American irrespective of results.
Reagan coalition is dwindling. America is changing and only way to form a Majority coalition is to expand personal and party horizons.
Future Republican generations would be greatful for McCain for blazing these new trails!
Go Mac Go!!!
Why not reach out to the inner city blacks. He’s not reaching out to us, and he needs to get votes somewhere.
Brilliant? No, desperation time.
Isn’t this just like John, always chumming it up with the democrats?
Like who didn’t see this coming. Next he’ll be picking out some case like Tiwanna Brawley so he can race bait the issue to get more votes. ;-)
My "gut-level sense of his character" requires a double dose of this:
He is smart enough to know that you are not smart enough to accept him.
He knows he needs to win without your vote. He is not stupid enough to rely on you.
He can and WILL win. Obama can not carry Ohio, Pennsylvania and Michigan.
Feel free to continue to cry.
Only for the republic my dumb ass friend.
Go sit at home and brood only for the republic. Go join Obama or Hillary.
He will not pander to people who do not know their own best interest.
No one is begging you for your vote. Don’t vote for him. He can win without your vote.
Stands to reason, given the candidate in question. ;)
I’m only surprised he isn’t stopping at Kennebunkport.
Go for it John. Let us know how it works out for you. Maybe you can turn the Republican Party into something that appeals to all Democrats.
Yeah - nothing is more dangerous to Conservative movement than John McCain. Not even proven traitors and marxist taking over Presidency.
Thanks for looking out for the Republic. LOL!
Lindsey? Is that you?
Nah, More like the Stepford wife, Cindy
;-)
I wish I was a tall atheletic blonde heiress with classic model’s features.
Too bad it wasn’t meant to be. Damnit.
I must agree with you. I don’t like to see Repubs writing off big “sections” of voters. People are individuals, and presidential contests are won by narrow margins.
Maybe, towards the end, focus on the most easily swayed. But this early in the campaign, ask for EVERYONE’s vote.
Thomas Sowell pointed out earlier today (in view of his MLK day mea culpa) that McCain is doing the usual idiot RINO approach to blacks—trying to outpander and outgrovel the dems. The sort of patronizing approach that only whets the rage of liberal blacks and insults the intelligence of conservative blacks.
No need. Fat Teddy already has Juan so docile and well-trained, they only need to touch base via a quick phone chat every few weeks or so.
Reaching out is NOT pandering. Only McCain has COURAGE to say to Americans to let MARKET decide course of events. Every other socialist commie loser is handing out HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS to Wall Street and Many more to thugs and morons who can’t manage their own finances.
That is COURAGE not Pandering. Panderes are Hildabeast and Obambi - promising to pay your mortage.
Only McCain tell truth about war in Iraq and WOT in general. All others are there to tell people we would just rush the troops back.
That is Courage.
Sowell must be afraid that if more Blacks join Republican party, he won’t be such a novelty anymore.
Well, according to your article, it looks like he is going to pander for the liberal vote.
No one is begging you for your vote. Don’t vote for him. He can win without your vote.
If McCain shares your attitude towards conservative Republicans of, "we can win without your vote," he may be in for a big disappointment come November 4th. And why do you think a liberal 'Rat vote would abandon a liberal 'Rat candidate for a liberal Republican candidate?
Oh, and if you are so sure that McCain can win without the conservative vote, why are you posting threads here on FR trying to convince conservatives to vote for him?
Only mcCain has requested 0 Dollars for Earmarks. Between two of them, Obama and Hillary have asked for about 400 million dollars.
That is BUYING vote.
Get your facts straight before buying into HATRED that talk radio verbahideen morons and others heap on him.
Some are hoping that Maverick John is playing possum; that a noble, Marquis of Queensberry approach is the best thing to do to stay above the fray while his two opponents are ripping each other’s guts out. We’ll see after the convention, when the entire dem/lib apparatus is blazing away at him in unison, if his gloves come off or if he really has conditioned himself to defer to dems to the last.
I don’t like to see that. It’s unfortunate.
LOL, too true.
Do you know the difference between reaching out and pandering.
People are NOT genetically liberal. These people are poor and Liberals have injected them with drugs of dependency.
McCain is ONLY taking his message to them. Maybe some will respond.
Asking a Democrat constituency is NOT PANDERING to them. Is asking them to switch sides. Find new allies for their battles.
There’s only one flaw in your postulate. NO republican EVER won the White House by playing democrat-lite.
The American Spectator had a great recent article about all the twentieth-century republican who crashed and burned by campaigning as a “moderate.” Thomas E. Dewey and Wendell Willkie were mentioned, but Nixon was the most interesting example. His 1960 televised debate with Kennedy was examined in detail. He blew it not because of his gray suit or his five o’clock shadow but because he basically agreed with everything JFK said, so why vote for him? He learned his lesson and came on as Mr. law-and-order in ‘68 and ‘72. Of course, that turned out to be an act. If Maverick John thinks he can pussy-foot his way into the oval office, killin’ his opponents with kindness, he is in for one pie-faced, swollen-jawed surprise.
I missed the sarcasm tag.
Ad hominem attacks on gentlemen like Mr. Sowell do not provide any additional force to your arguments.
I respect conservatives who say they will vote for McCain, albeit while holding their collective noses. I simply can't, based on his deeds as a Senator over the past ten years.
Calling me a traitor only firms my resolve. What adjective will you apply to those on active duty that will vote for the Democrats?
Prior to this I have adopted the following question, that has taken care of the McCain phenominon. It goes like this:
Why vote for a pretender liberal, when you can vote for and have the real thing?
That’s essentually what you were saying. I generally agree. This election is unlike any before though, for the following reason. The democrat candidates are so wigged out left, that I think they even scare the bajeebers out of a lot of the democrats. And those democrats need a place to call home.
John, the ultimate third-way candidate if I ever saw one, is poised to appeal to those folks. You consider four groups and John’s chances start to look pretty good.
1. Democrats scared off by dumb and dumber
2. Liberal Republicans
3. Republicans who don’t have a clue
4. Republicans who are conservatives and think Hillary and Barak would destroy this nation in four years, even if Bill couldn’t, and don’t realize that their support for McCain really does stand a very good chance of killing conservatism.
Yep, exactly! Funny how McCain will reach out to the Democrap base, but won't reach out his little finger to the Conservative base! McCain is in trouble. Obama is outraising him 3 to 1! Obama is an idiot, but he has money and the cult of personality on his side. McCain is about as personable as a halibut and the Vietnam war hero stories won't carry him. His smartest move would be to adopt a contract with conservatives and aim it at their values, not his! He needs to drop the Maverick crap and realize that the majority of blacks will not vote against a brutha for a old white geezer! He could have beaten Hillary. Obamba, I'm not so sure.
There’s only one reason John won’t reach out to conservatives and you know what it is. He is not a conservative. I don’t expect Hillary to reach out to conservatives. I don’t expect Obama to reach out to conservatives. Why should they? Why should John? He’s spent the last 20 years chumming it up with, getting in trouble with, devising policy with, backing policy with, and voting with democrats. Okay, so be honest with everyone and switch parties John.
I agree that Obama presents a real problem for McCain. That money issue is going ot loom large.
The personality issue is dead on too.
My only qualm with the contract idea is that at this stage I wouldn’t buy it if he dared try it.
He has now stated he wants to naturalize illegals along with those who waited in line and are here legally.
He’s toast. Even Bush couldn’t scrape together enough states to win comfortably, and he was marginally better than McCain. Now what?
So is AMNESTY.
True Story: I made precisely this same observation to another FReeper, several weeks back... to which she huffed, agitatedly: "Well, he [McCain] won the primaries with scarcely any money, didn't he? Then he can do exactly the same thing with the election, in November!" [!!!]
That's the sort of blissfully unaware mind-set you're dealing with in most cases, re: McCainiacs, in perfect (and painful) miniature: the blandly oblivious sorts of political tyros and parvenus who genuinely cannot readily discern the difference between scraping up a plurality votes in, say, New Hampshire or Idaho... and mounting an effective, winning campaign for the ballots of tens of millions, nationwide, versus an opponent with a campaign war chest six or eight times greater than their own.
Brutal. It's going to be just absolutely brutal.
“I want a Conservative(R) in there. If that’s not going to happen, sure let the democrat(D) have it. At least we can band together as conservatives to oppose them.”
Exactly.
McCain is nearly as bad as Hillary or Obama, and he will be rubber stamped by a bunch of Republican sycophants in Congress.
He may not be quite as far left as the other two, but he’ll do a lot more damage than either of them.
I WANT GRIDLOCK!!
BUMPed and repeated for Maximum Truth!
I am delighted that McCain is wasting his few resources in an attempt to win votes he never will obtain. I sometimes can’t believe how stupid McCain really is. But, then again, he finished fifth from the bottom of his class.
“Future Republican generations would be greatful for McCain for blazing these new trails!”
“Go Mac Go!!!”
BITE ME, SOCIALIST!
What he said.
Wrong there sparky:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15534009/
Points do not equal votes.
Fools that we are, we have been laboring under the misconception that he needed actual VOTES, not simply "good boy points".
But he could still prove us wrong and gain a few inner-city votes.
5 or 6
Well, at least he's got that going for him.
“Reaching out is NOT pandering. Only McCain has COURAGE to say to Americans to let MARKET decide course of events. Every other socialist commie loser is handing out HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS to Wall Street and Many more to thugs and morons who can’t manage their own finances.”
Oh really? Maybe you ought to be reading http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5g6OTvvWxmdp5Q2IvjYry89Ikh1YwD8VUPJMG0 This article about how McCain wants to bail out “some” homeowners. That’s what democrats do....like McCain.
You make a fascinating case. I wouldn’t consider it for a moment at any other time but these are interesting times (unfortunately). I agree that the only worse thing than being a republican voter right now is being a democrat voter. The more Hillary memories that are dusted off (now that roughly half the lib media is no longer covering for her), the more Obama revelations that come to light , the more putrid the dems’ choices look. For my own part, I’m betting that the pollsters are being lied to and that Obama is going to be blowed up real good in the PA primary. The more he is revealed to be just another angry black race hustler/poverty pimp AND a red-diaper baby the more convinced I am that he won’t have a prayer in the general. The usual suspects may be able to intimidate/guilt-trip/finesse/bamboozle whitey out in the open but “Harry and Louise” are NOT going to pull the lever for him in the privacy of the voting booth. They didn’t for Jesse and Al and they won’t for Barry.
No matter who staggers victorious out of the Denver Gotterdammerung in June, both dem candidates have run so far to the far-out Left they will not be able tack right successfully afterwards. Technology won’t allow them to get away with it. I’ll admit that as much as I despise Maverick John I’ll end up doing as Mother Roberta put it (too bad she’s not running) and “holding my nose” as I vote for him in November. I just wonder if his groveling, pandering approach to winning the dem vote will make him such a complete laughingstock. He is as much an economic illiterate as his opponents and his dedication to “Global Warming” is proof positive of that.
Bite yourself. Hahaahahaaahha..
Addressing the issue of 12 million illegals living in the shadows is a reality that has to be dealt with. Rounding them up and pushing them back across the border is probably neither doable nor realistic - not to mention politically fatal.
BEST solution is the one they have adopted in Arizona. PENALIZE the employers of illegals so heavily that they dare not hire anyone they are not completely sure about. That is actually REVERSING immigration in AZ.
I said before....McCain should adopt a variant of that bill and propose it Nationally.
Might as well....He dropped trou’ on the conservative base!
I didn’t drop the trou’ on Conservative base. The Conservative base dropped the trou’ on me.
McCain X.
LOL!
Yes, but McCain's thrilled to be Soros' back-up just in case Obama has a serious meltdown, which could happen with a total novice.
McCain recently urged Republicans running for office not to be too tough on immigration.
McCain had a chance to vote for the Sessions amendment but he did not. He appears not to want to keep his "borders first" promise.
SA 4231. Mr. SESSIONS (for himself, Mr. Vitter, Mr. Demint, and Mrs. Dole) proposed an amendment to the concurrent resolution S. Con. Res. 70, setting forth the congressional budget for the United States Government for fiscal year 2009 and including the appropriate budgetary levels for fiscal years 2008 and 2010 through 2013; as follows:
On page 69, after line 25, add the following:
SEC. 308. DEFICIT-NEUTRAL RESERVE FUND FOR BORDER SECURITY, IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT, AND CRIMINAL ALIEN REMOVAL PROGRAMS.
(a) In General.--The Chairman of the Committee on the Budget of the Senate may revise the allocations of 1 or more committees, aggregates, and other appropriate levels in this resolution by the amounts authorized to be appropriated for the programs described in paragraphs (1) through (6) in 1 or more bills, joint resolutions, amendments, motions, or conference reports that funds border security, immigration enforcement, and criminal alien removal programs, including programs that--
(1) expand the zero tolerance prosecution policy for illegal entry (commonly known as ``Operation Streamline'') to all 20 border sectors;
(2) complete the 700 miles of pedestrian fencing required under section 102(b)(1) of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (8 U.S.C. 1103 note);
(3) deploy up to 6,000 National Guard members to the southern border of the United States;
(4) evaluate the 27 percent of the Federal, State, and local prison populations who are noncitizens in order to identify removable criminal aliens;
(5) train and reimburse State and local law enforcement officers under Memorandums of Understanding entered into under section 287(g) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1357(g)); or
(6) implement the exit data portion of the US-VISIT entry and exit data system at airports, seaports, and land ports of entry.
Pretty sad state of affairs when no matter who gets elected President in November 2008... It will be someone owned by Soros.... Owned by a guy who’s main mission in life is to destroy the power and the economy of the USA.
If it is not a question of whether or not it is do-able to send them home, it becomes a question of how much of the United States we are willing to concede if we fail to get them to go back.
If employer sanctions work, great, let's do that, but slowing/stopping the flood coming in has to be done as well, and that takes some sort of barrier
Millions more have invaded while Congress has been wanking around with that.
The Azatlan folks are 'claiming' turf the Indians would NEVER have let them have, up into Cheyenne, Blackfoot and Crow country, not to mention the Sioux. Historically, that is horsecrap.
You never hear about the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo or the Gadsen Purchase, only how the "white man" has "ripped them off".
We either send them home, assimilate them--which will not be done by pushing a number for OUR native tongue--or we have been invaded, and lose the territory.
McCain would provide amnesty to a group whose size is understated by a factor of two or three (to make the idea more palatable and hide the misfeasance of those sworn to uphold our Constitution--which includes defending our borders from invasion), who does not speak our language, and who have contempt for our laws--or they would not be here.
The most damnable part of that is that Republicans (not conservatives) would be under intense pressure to go along with any such amnesty from the RNC and the GOP with a Republican POTUS. If a Democrat POTUS proposed this they'd have to fight it. I, frankly would rather have the latter.
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