I saw that Cindy McCain wore a 300,000 dollar dress. If that aint elitist I dont know what is.

A Freudian slip; TOM RIDGE: Because John Bush- because John McCain is very much his own man.

Bwah.

No, no no. The not so subtle message is "You don't really want to be voting for a nigger, do you?" C'mon, just get it out there. This is what it's all about. No one of any stature or standing on the Left wants to toss this onto the table but that's the strategy in a nutshell. Someone care to dispute it? Look for much more of the "uppity" sort of stuff to get deployed. It's going to get ugly. Yet no one will want to call it for what it is: "You don't really want to be voting for a nigger, do you?"

Jet, get it straight. The dress wasn't 300k. The entire ensemble was pegged loosely at that number by Vanity(?) magazine, the bulk of the money allotted to estimated jewelry outlay, chiefly a pair of 3 carat each diamond pendant earrings. Might as well get your harangue correct.

Time to re-release "Blazing Saddles" in the theaters.

Karl Rove and Hedley Lamarr have a lot in common.

The Republicans routinely deride "coastal elites," New York, Massachusetts, Illinois, California, latte-sipping Seattle, big cities, and half the f@#$%^&*! country as unpatriotic and un-American in their pushing the rural/small town myth.

Well, those Blue states pay the tab for those so-called salt-of-the-earth, ruggedly individualist Red states. And for all their so-called elitism, the Democrats don't sneer at rural America half as much as the Republicans do as a matter of course to half a nation.

Well, Californians are Americans too. New Yorkers are Americans too -- the GOP sure didn't shy from waving their bloody shirts at the conventions last night. It's long past time the Democrats shamed the Republicans for their divisiveness -- it isn't just the right thing to do, but it reinforces Obama's message of unity.

The LA Times report added that GOP strategists are convinced, probably with good reason, that there are voters "who may be struggling economically, detest President Bush and oppose the Iraq war -- but still may vote based on a visceral sense of which candidate respects their way of life."

Well that can't be multi-millionaire Gigolo John McCain, he of the $500 loafers and mulitple mansions, who said that American workers were too weak and soft to pick lettuce for $50 an hour, and that only illegal Mexican immigrants could handle that kind of work.

Might as well get your harangue correct.
Posted by: steve duncan

Im not a fashion mavin, like you. =) The fact is that figure was 'dressed' in 300k of elitism.

It's healthcare, stupid.

Obama at least has a plan - McCain zilch.

And national organizations are already advertising about how serious this issue is.

Vote for McCain and you will never see universal heathcare in your lifetime - that's what you have to loose.

You can dress this message up in love beads and serve it with latte - or you can dress it up with Nascar and serve it with billy beer. Either way - you want healthcare - vote Obama. Let's get real.

One possibility I keep imagining is that not only will Obama win, but he'll win in a bigger and better way than Democrats have in decades. The thing is, if that's going to happen, I don't see polls reflecting it now. But if it does, that's supposed to the case, and hints of his big finish won't start to appear until we're closer to November. I don't know if there's any plausible reason to expect something like this to happen, but I think there's an outside possibility that it could. Of course, if he finishes with something between 300-325 Electoral votes, I'll be happy. He's a black guy from Chicago with the middle name Hussein, after all.

Why is cultural warfare an acceptable strategy, but class warfare is somehow taboo?

Obama himself has played an important part in defusing the effect of this attempt to play on cultural insecurities in the electorate. Sure, part of it is just the times itself, but Obama is such a bridge between cultures and races, and the Republican messaging has been predictably all over the map in trying to figure out how to play him.

"He's a Harvard elitist!"

"No wait, he's a Muslim!"

"Actually, he's a black power separatist, along with this wife, and he hates America!"

"And he sips lattes while drinking OJ and eating arugula!"

"And he's a secret Muslim! Oh wait, we said that already."

The memes and messages here are SO divergent and ridiculous in their spread that none of them end up taking hold in any real sense. It was just so much easier to peg Kerry, and I think that lulled the GOP into a false sense of ease when came to doing the same 4 years later to a much savvier and better-prepared candidate.

Time to play the Crazy Old Man card.

In 2002 McCain thought Iraq was a great idea. Obama said it would be a disaster. That was six years ago. Has McCain's brain function improved since then? Nowadays he jokes about more wars, can't keep even the major players straight, and can't even remember the number of homes he owns. Four years from now... That old coot will be downright dangerous, and/or the church lady will be running everything.

The choice is Competence Vs. Incompetence

What's it going to be, bubba? The crazy old white dude who can't remember shit and his lightweight sidekick, or the pair of professionals with the brains and the plan?

And remember which team Bush hugs all over. He sure is competent, right?

Your choice.

re: steve duncan at 11:15...

You're wrong. Racism is a factor in the minds of some voters, and some Rs will play to that. But the larger issue is that Rs have been following this playbook for decades (read Benen's posting). The candidates are interchangeable -- the only thing that matters is that they are Democrats and thus enemies to be vanquished, whatever it takes.

"Republcian Strategist" Andrea Tanteras, on MSNBC just descrubed McCain's speech as sounding too much like a term paper. I'm guessing she wasn't an A student.

One possibility I keep imagining is that not only will Obama win, but he'll win in a bigger and better way than Democrats have in decades. The thing is, if that's going to happen, I don't see polls reflecting it now.

Check out Five Three Eight or electoral-vote.com, not the national composite polls. EVs are all that matter, and Obama's enjoyed a comfortable lead there for some time -- particularly by flipping quite a few Red states: Colorado, Ohio, possibly Virginia, maybe even eventually Indiana. He's even leading in North Dakota(!).

I think a 300 EV landlsite is quite possible this year for the Democrats.

Brian @ 11:28. Well, I'm more of a worrier and a tin foil hat person. I think as long as the corporate pollsters keep saying how close the election is, the more likely it is that the Rethugs will steal it through vote rigging and suppression because it just seems like McBush "pulling it out" will be that more plausible. (No Freudian comments about "pulling it out", please. This is a family blog :-)

No question. "Cultural affinities" is Republican for racism. McCain/Palin are the whitest of the white. And reminding white America of this is their only real strategy.

And "cultural warfare" IS "class warfare." There is no difference.

Also, has anyone noticed how much Palin looks like the SuperNanny?

Steve Duncan is absolutely correct about the hidden (and not-so-hidden) message of 'voting for a nigger.' (It's hard to even type the word). I am African-American and believe me, that's one reason why so many of us had to be 'brought around' to the idea (mainly by Michelle) that Barack could win. We never thought we'd see it in our lifetime. That's the Republicans' most potent card, but will they ever play it!

Most white Americans have no idea what this means to us. Just look at the picture of the black delegate during Obama's acceptance speech in the current issue of Newsweek. It tells the whole story....

hey, thanks for the website info, gregory. that really made my day!

After that speech last night, this election isn't 1980, 1992 or 1996. It was 1984 -- with McCain playing Mondale's role.

When Mondale selected Ferraro, he also selected a history making woman who had been poorly vetted. At first, he galvanized his base -- he closed a 16 point poll deficit. The rest, as they say, is history.

Can't we play the resentment issue the other way by pointing out that Republicans think the voters are fools ? That Republicans think you're too dumb to notice their blatant deliberate lies ? That they think you'll buy a vague promise of "reform" from the party that got us into this mess, with not a hint of any actual policy agenda ?

One campaign is treating voters like adults; one is treating them like fools.

This goes to the core question of this election, and the state of our country for that matter.

Will Americans once again be fooled by the divisive wedge issues, the cultural and class warfare that the republicans have waged year after year, election after election? Will the same stale strategy continue to work?

In my mind, it's do or die for our country right now.

I'll make an admission, I am from the south, and for a long time held racist and bigoted views. Not based on my upbringing, rather, based on my experience, having been bused to the projects during the late 70's and early 80's as part of integration of public schools. I often attended schools where it wasn't uncommon to have an 80% black majority. I took a lot away from those experiences.

But I had an awakening, out of the love for my country. Whether one likes it or not, our racial makeup isn't going to change. As a matter of fact, whites will be a minority in a few decades. That means my children will be a minority. Our society truly is the melting pot as they call it. And you know what? That isn't going to change. No matter how much these old south types long for some Rockwellian existence of the 50's, where women and minorities knew their place, it ain't gonna happen.

So what do we do? WE FACE THE CHALLENGES BEFORE US. We accept that our society has changed, and America in the 21st century will be vastly different from the last 232 years.

So watching the republican convention, hearing their media cheerleaders and their party members, looking at the racial makeup of the convention attendees, has convinced me that the republicans' only motivation is the fear of being a minority and losing power. They care not for our country and the people within. One word sums up their psychological state: SCARED. this is why we are seeing this campaign devolve into a circus of petty name calling and the regurgitation of ancient stereotypes.

Americans have a choice now, to elect Obama and leap into the 21st century; to not be scared of the future and what it holds, but to face head on the fissures that have divided our country, and to realize the dream our founding fathers laid out for us to pursue.

Major problem w/the competence angle: it doesn't work. Remember that, in 1988, the Dems promoted Michael Dukakis' competence as his primary asset; he was destroyed in November by GHWB (y'know, the only Bush to actually win an election).

This isn't to say that Obama/Biden is a far more competent team than McSame/Church Lady; that should be self-evident. But, in and of itself, it's not a winning hand to play. After all, this is a country which manifestly *doesn't care about competence.* Otherwise, there is not even the slightest chance that it would have (arguably) elected GWB over Al Gore + John Kerry.

-Z

So bee52, you're telling us that other than Dems being the perpetual culture war foils for Republicans Schmidt won't view it as a twofer that Obama is black, providing an entire additional set of bogeymen for all their lily whites asses to shake in fear over? "He wants to kill babies, raise your taxes, invite Bin Laden over for dinner, AND HE'S A GODDAMNED UPPITY NIGGER!" No, I stand by what I said. The race card is getting played, along with the other 52 cards in the deck.

David Frum was on NPR yesterday expressed some serious reservations about the new McCain/Palin strategy of attacking cities and portraying small towns as superior and "real America." He said that there are some serious weaknessess in this strategy because of the math-- 1/3 of the people in this country live in small towns. The other 2/3rd live in or around urban centers. Frum said they are risking getting the urban areas and suburbs unified because McCain/Palin are acting like they're all bad Americans.

So I hope they continue with this strategy-- they're only going to screw themselves.

"bee[p]52, you're telling us that other than Dems being the perpetual culture war foils for Republicans Schmidt won't view it as a twofer that Obama is black..."

Not at all. In fact, I stated outright that race is a factor among others, which is essentially what you later said with "The race card is getting played, along with the other 52 cards in the deck." Your first comment addressed only race, and with that, I disagreed.

We never thought we'd see it in our lifetime. That's the Republicans' most potent card, but will they ever play it!

If it works, one tragedy would be the post-election analysis, "America not ready" when it should be "Small group of voters not ready to be Americans"

*

A couple of weeks back, I was ordered to report back to this site after a week or so. At that point in time, the Democratic Convention + McCain's seven houses was supposed to result in Obama being up double digits in the poll. Okay, here I am: where's the big Obama lead?

[There is a difference between countering a position and just making shit up. When you figure out the difference, you can post here, but just saying anything debunked thing you wish to believe does not have to be tolerated, and won't be. -Mod]

Lena, as deluded as Sean Hannity. From the Daily Howler. Further research will affirm the veracity of this thorough debunking. Reading this, lena? Can you say "sycophant" everyone?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

SEAN HAPPENS! Dissembling Sean played the Horton Card. Behind that, there lies a long story:

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 2002
SEAN HANNITY’S PROBLEM WITH THE TRUTH: Robert Reich was the latest victim. On last night’s Hannity & Colmes, a fair-and-balanced debate was under way about whether Dems were playing the race card. Reich thought he had the perfect squelch:

REICH: Sean, wait a minute. Who did the Willie Horton ad?
As Hector said of Paris: “Foolish man!” Anyone who has watched Reich’s host through the years would have known what answer would follow. Here is the exchange which ensued—as Alan looked silently on:
REICH: Sean, wait a minute. Who did the Willie Horton ad?
HANNITY: Al Gore.
REICH: Who did Willie Horton?
HANNITY: Al Gore. Al Gore. Al Gore.
REICH: Let’s have—
HANNITY: Al Gore brought Willie Horton to the American people. Al Gore.
REICH: Oh, come on, Sean.
HANNITY: In the primary—
REICH: Look it, this is revisionist—
HANNITY: Wait a minute. In the—
REICH: This is revisionist history.
HANNITY: In 1988, Al Gore brought Willie Horton into that race. Al Gore did. Does that answer your question?
REICH: Yes. Well, I see. Well, a lot of Americans who are now watching this program find it very—find your revisionist history fascinating.
HANNITY: My revisionist history? It’s a fact. Go—go read the press accounts.
“This is revisionist history?” Conservative dissemblers have played the Horton Card against Al. Gore since 1992 (see below). Unknowing, Reich went like a lamb.
Is it true? Did Al Gore “bring Willie Horton to the American people?” Did Al Gore “bring Willie Horton into that race?” Only in the dysfunctional world of our deeply devolved public discourse. What actually happened in 1988? In one of 45 Dem debates that year, Candidate Gore challenged Candidate Dukakis to defend a Massachusetts furlough program under which convicts serving life sentences without hope of parole were released on weekend passes. In particular, Gore noted that two furloughed prisoners had committed new murders while on weekend leave. (Willie Horton was not one of these convicts.) The program was almost impossible to defend. But Gore only mentioned the program once, and he never mentioned any prisoner’s name; never mentioned any prisoner’s race; never ran any TV ads on the topic; and never used any visuals. More specifically, he never named Willie Horton, or mentioned his specific crime (Horton committed a brutal rape while on leave). In the Bush-Dukakis general election, the Bush campaign—and an independent, pro-Bush group—made extensive use of the Horton incident. In particular, the independent group used visuals of Horton which seemed to emphasize his race (he was black). In later years, as he neared his death, Bush campaign director Lee Atwater apologized for his own conduct in pushing the racial aspects of the Horton matter.

Did Gore “bring Willie Horton to the American people?” As usual, Hannity was lying, once again. Meanwhile, Alan Colmes again sat silently by as his partner slandered Gore, misled his viewers, and dragged our discourse through the mud where Hannity’s kind has always been happiest. What does it mean? What does it mean when the world’s most important democracy conducts its public discourse this way? We can say one thing: It means that Sean happens. Gaze again on the devolved, corrupt culture we now laughingly describe as a “press corps.”

BAD WILL HUNTING: Conservative dissembling about Gore-and-Horton began in 1992, when Gore was announced as Clinton’s VP nominee. Gore appeared on the July 12 This Week. George Will began the dissembling about Willie Horton, posing this laughable “question:”

WILL: Senator, it’s an article of faith in your party and in much of the media that the use of Willie Horton by the Bush campaign was impliedly racist and certainly negative beyond propriety. The Republicans learned about Willie Horton because you used Willie Horton, because you used Willie Horton against Michael Dukakis in this city [New York] in April 1988, running against him in the primary. Given that you used Willie Horton, do you agree that it was racist and insupportably negative?
Sad, isn’t it? Dissembling hard, Will managed to say “you used Willie Horton” three separate times in a single “question!” Gore, asking if he could offer “a polite correction to the way you posed the question,” said that he had never even heard Horton’s name at the time that he raised the issue. Will broke in: “You raised the issue of furloughs, Senator. You did raise the issue of furloughs which is what Willie Horton was about.” “That’s correct,” Gore said, “I raised the generic issue.” But was something now wrong with raising an issue? The criticism of the Horton matter had dealt with the content of specific TV ads. If there was something wrong with just raising the issue, Will never tried to explain it. But through the years, conservative dissemblers kept making this point, often in ways that were baldly inaccurate. It was really Gore, not Bush or his supporters, who had first “used Willie Horton,” they said. And they kept insisting that this vile conduct showed how negative and nasty Gore is.

Lest we forget, Dr. Martin Luther King was a Republican.

No, he wasn't.

And trotting out Lincoln once again to excuse the Republican Party's embrace of racism is simply pathetic. Two words, jackass: Southern Strategy. Sure, the Democratic Party used to be infested with racists, and they left in droves after LBJ -- a Democrat -- pushed civil rights. The Republican Party welcomed them with open arms.

Any credit the GOP has had on civil rights it gleefully pissed away over the past 40 years in the name of identity politics. That dog won't hunt.

Lena:

Was Lincoln a liberal or conservative?

Was MLK a liberal or conservative?

You need to bone up on your history. The Democrats and Republicans basically traded places regarding race decades ago--further proof that progressives are able to look into the future with open minds, consider the needs of the people instead of the corporations, and change with the times.

Think about this: if a Republican freed the slaves a century and a half ago and a Republican axes Head Start or Affirmative Action or let's New Orleans drown today, what direction is your party going in?

Resentment, unlike anger or disapproval, is almost always a negative, destructive emotion. More than most emotions it also seems to defy reason no matter how absurd. The Republicans have learned to play resentful types like a violin. Sure, John McCain has a 100 million dollars, too many houses to count, and a wife who makes Leora Helmsley look humble, but it's the Democrats who look down on regular folk! The only way to counter this, I think, is loud, persistent, confident mockery. Make the Republicans look like the fools they are.

"It's healthcare, stupid. Obama at least has a plan - McCain zilch." - D. Kinder

That is so untrue. John "Zinger" McCunt has a plan. His plan is to liberate you from the tyranny of your company human resources health insurance representative so you can "make your own choices for your family" when it comes to health insurance. The fact that this will leave most Americans at the mercy of already immoral insurance companies pales in comparison that it is a $3,600,000,000,000 (that Trillion children) tax increase over ten years.

Yep, that's some plan.

What happens along about 2050, when insecure, white males are a minority throughout the United States? The future of the Republican Party does not look bright....

"A couple of weeks back, I was ordered to report back to this site after a week or so. At that point in time, the Democratic Convention + McCain's seven houses was supposed to result in Obama being up double digits in the poll. Okay, here I am: where's the big Obama lead?" Posted by: tom

Obama is up by seven to eight points, and has broken 50% in one poll for the first time. Also, there is usually time after a convention for a bounce to build. Note that the Republicant's and John "Zinger" have done all they can to step on that. Obama is leading, not only nationally but in the Electorale College.

That seems good enough for me.

Tom: You may not have heard this, as I am sure you have your tin foil hat tuned to Limpballs or Dildo Reilly's radio shows, BUT, Obama's camp raised 8 MILLION DOLLARS in the hours after Palin's speech, opposed to about 1 million you people raked in.

What say you to that? BWAAHAAAHAA

"The LA Times report added that GOP strategists are convinced, probably with good reason, that there are voters "who may be struggling economically, detest President Bush and oppose the Iraq war -- but still may vote based on a visceral sense of which candidate respects their way of life."

I always thought that this was largely what Obama was talking about when he made the "bitter" comments. What do you think?

Note the extremely irony behind Sarah and the Gop using Obama's 'bitter' and 'cling to guns and religion' to achieve this objective.

And I'd like to point out how they don't use the term 'antipathy.' I bet that doesn't get traction in rural areas. Not to call these people the low information voters, but if these tactics work - the shoe fits.

I have been saying consistently, on TCBR and here, that Obama would win at least 400 EVs. I now think I was understating it, especially if the Palin choice keeps exploding in McCain's face -- as it will. (One thing it has done is make it more likely that McCain will lose Texas. We forget that elected officials do have organizations that they can use for the Presidential Candidate. The loyal Texas Bushites were never going to work that hard for someone Bush despises, and who despises him -- and McCain's speech won't turn many of them on. But if Kay Bailey Hutchinson is also 'pissed' as the 'open mic' session implied, and she sits on her hands as well, giving only token support, bye-bye Texas.)

Already Palin may be energizing McCain's religious base -- which is smaller than people think or Huckabee would have been the nominee -- but she's not doing much for the rest of the Republicans. On the other hand, judging by fundraising, she's doing a hell of a job of energizing Obama's base and a lot of Independents.

He insulted a lot of politicians in his speech last night. Sure, some of them will think 'Yeah, he had to SAY that, but we know he didn't mean it.' But others might think 'hey, if he's in office, he doesn't need out support to get there any more, he might just do what he said.' And again it's 'sitting on their hands' time.

On the issues, McCain is wrong on every one, including -- by now -- the social issues. Gays aren't scary any more, and a lot of people wil finally realize that a McCain presidency (and a Palin VP or succession) would really mean that Roe v. Wade is in danger. (Until GWB, the Republicans only paid lip service to fighting it, but with Stevens and Alito on the court, this time it could be changed.)

As for 'using the race card' this isn't the Fifties any more. Yes, racism exists, but most of the racists are already Republicans, and would have voted for McCain anyway, even if Hilary, Biden, or Dodd had been the opponent. (Or they would have voted for a third party like Baldwin because of McCain's adopting a 'black' -- visually if not 'Negro' -- baby and actually showing her on tv, and because of the times Republicans praised Lincoln.)

Rural America isn't the 'rural America' of the Fifties either. (It's smaller, for one thing.) People there use computers, travel, and are probably more worried about the price of gas and foreclosure than are city dwellers. They might, in fact, be returning to the attitude of 1890-1930, when the most Progressive people in America were in the Farm Belt.

If Chico's still here, I'll take your bet and raise it. I'll bet 20-1 on Obama winning, and 2-1 on McCain not getting 150 electoral votes, and figure I'm offering a sucker bet either way.

What happens along about 2050, when insecure, white males are a minority throughout the United States?

Two words: minority rule. Democracy? A cursory glance back at the past 8 years will confirm to all but the most willfully blind of us that the GOP cares little for it.

-Z

How about we talk about the GOP culture of corruption? You know, this culture war thing cuts both ways.

Yeah, you guys all have us pretty much nailed. We are racists, and we are insecure about it. We bitterly cling to our guns and religion, we aren't smart enough to understand why our taxes should be increased to pay for "tax relief" to the 50% of wage earners who unfortunately can't get a tax rate cut because they pay no federal taxes. We are not smart enough to understand the things Obama says, like "The problem with gas prices is not that they are high, but just that they rose too fast." These kind of things. It makes us culturally insecure because we know that Washington Monthly posters disapprove of us.

You guys simply have us nailed to a tee. The idea that you are all bigots never crossed my mind, nor anybody else out here in the red states.

"Visceral sense" - that tells us what we need to know about the "little people" who vote Republican (since the big shots do it for self interest.)

Do you guys do anything on this blog besides jerk each other off with your constant stroking of your own egos? It is a shame that you couldn't do it without the need to insult everybody not like you, but that has always been the easy way to self esteem and that feeling of superiority that keeps you coming back to this blog, adopt bigotry.