What's ironic about McCain using smears - no one knows better than he does how well they work. Being honorable and honest is a strategy that he knows doesn't work - at least for Republicans.

just to play armchair psychologist for a moment: the issue with mccain is not the win-at-all-costs mentality.

the issue is that he has internalized the notion of honor without the values of honor. he is sure that he is honorable, and that, by definition, means that anything he does is honorable.

Being honorable and honest is great...if you have something legitimate to offer the people. McCain doesn't, Obama does. That's why Obama is winning and McCain is smearing.

Here's a new name for McCain: Roboflop

;-)

We learned all we needed to know about McCain's "honor" when he hugged Bush after Bush beat him in North Carolina with the "black baby" smear tacitcs. We had our knowledge confirmed when McC hired the guy responsible for the smear campaign.

Hello! Alert! Surrogates MIA as usual. Someone needs to stand up right now and accuse McCain of having no honor - to go back on his word " I don't care about some washed up terrorist" Hit back fast and hard *before* it becomes 2000 redux

The other angle on the robocalls is that McCain has not bothered to put together a field operation of any size, so he needs something to counter the massive Obama mobilization now going on. The quick and dirty way to do this is to set up a massive robocall operation. I suspect it will not be very effective.

Details about this bill Obama supposedly backed are sketchy.

Does John "Deficit Hawk" McCain say who pays for the medical care this abortion survivor gets? I imagine if an abortion was attempted, some measures must be truly amazing, Herculean, and EXPENSIVE.

Does teh hospital eat the cost? The taxpayer? The mother who couldn't afford it to begin with?

Once again, the right doesn't seem to think much about babies outside the womb.

Not saying he's wrong, and Obama is right. Just asking whether "Ace" has even thought about the subject more than two minutes.

McCain is making these robocalls because he was the victim of a robocall attack in 2000. Not despite of it. Since it was done to him, he feels justified in doing it to someone else. It's only fair, right?

He'd probably torture Obama in a Vietnamese prison if he could.

I still fail to see how these things are at all effective.

Even if you grant that they were the reason he lost the primary in 2000, those were targeting Republicans (who seem to really dig crazy conspiracy theories). This is supposed to convince undecideds??

I very much doubt it (even if people actually listen to the whole thing...which I very much doubt as well)

I don't think McCain is relying on robocalls because he's a coward, or because of the 2000 campaign, or any of that. I think he's relying on robocalls because they're cheap. He is so spread out, forced to defend so many states that he should have expected would vote Republican, that he has to stretch his thin resources as far as they can go. Robocalls are cheap and easy to set up, so they're his best (and possibly only) option for playing defense.

Yeah, sure, and John McCain hated his Vietnamese captors too. Didn't stop him from collaborating with them though, did it?

One thing McCain has always demonstrated: he'll do whatever it take - WHATEVER IT TAKES - to get what John McCain wants.

I guess some people call that honor. I don't.

Or maybe, if you stopped buying into the 'look how mccain has changed' meme, he is using robocalls because he has used them before.

(http://www.dailyhowler.com/dh092508.shtml)

His judgement has NOT changed. It's the same old Mccain. Geez.

Where the hell is Bill Ayers anyway? Why doesn't he come forward and clarify the (non)relationship he has with Obama?

It may backfire on them. Nothing pisses me off more than automated calls (haven't received one, however, since the national Do Not Call list went into effect). I hang-up immediately.

Where the hell is Bill Ayers anyway? Why doesn't he come forward and clarify the (non)relationship he has with Obama? Posted by: Brandt

They do have a relationship - a professional one. Ayers has numerous professional relationships with conservatives as well because of organizations they work with.

I think a better question to answer, one David Letterman had the balls to ask, is why McCain takes campaign contributions from Gordon Liddy, a convicted felon who advocated murdering various government officials around the time of Watergate.

While Liddy "served his debt to society," he's still a hateful piece of human garbage who does nothing to benefit anyone but himself. Regardless of how you feel about what Ayers did 40 years ago, when Obama was a child, the same can't be said about him.

And when will the press ask about Palin's husband's political activities? And why do we not get to see all of McCain's medical records?

The list is nearly endless.

Brandt,

"Where the hell is Bill Ayers anyway? Why doesn't he come forward and clarify the (non)relationship he has with Obama?"

If that's the thing that you're worrying about the most, then you are completely out of touch with what is going on in this country right now.

Of course, my guess is that you could actually give two shits about Bill Ayers, and instead are doing your little part to keep the smear alive for the McCain campaign, just like a good little soldier.

I think a better question to answer, one David Letterman had the balls to ask, is why McCain takes campaign contributions from Gordon Liddy, a convicted felon who advocated murdering various government officials around the time of Watergate.

Not just Watergate -- he was one of the main people calling for the murder of ATF agents after Waco (which is where the infamous "they'll be wearing flak jackets, so aim for the head" comments came from).

But we can't prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that Timothy McVeigh listened to Liddy's radio show, so that proves that Liddy is completely innocent and a victim himself, because no one could have expected that anyone would take his advice seriously. Or so the right wing tells me.

The good news is that robocalls are only marginally effective, if that. They are so cheap that campaigns have overdone them outrageously. Here's a study from 2004. And that was then. When you've been called enough times, and most will be, you turn off.

At least stories about Cindy McCain's drug addiction (and stealing!) have the virtue of being true!

People I know have received robo calls from the Obama campaign attacking McCain vis-a-vis Gordon Liddy. So Obama is doing the same exact thing -- however no news outlet reports it because the press must keep Obama as chaste as driven snow.

And let's see who else reports this story:

Complaint hits Rezko land deal.

http://www.washtimes.com/news/2008/oct/18/whistleblower-hits-obama-friends-appraisal/