The American Spectator

Reader Mail

Callin' It Quits

10.8.08 @ 12:02AM

(Page 3 of 4)

McCain needs to air ads showing Obama doesn't even know how many states there are or basically isn't bright enough to be President. Lampooning and making fun of Obama isn't going to hurt McCain, but it is going to cause Obama and his handlers to go berserk. McCain needs to start having fun at Obama's political expense. Scorch the political landscape and scatter Obama's political ashes to the wind.
-- Michael Tomlinson

Thank you for printing this article. It's very helpful.

I understand articles in left-leaning publications trying to suppress right-leaning voters. I understand articles in right-leaning publications trying to suppress left-leaning voters.

This article, whether true or false, will only serve to suppress votes for McCain.

Publishing something like this at this time has what purpose? Have your marketing people given you advice that you would sell more magazines if Obama is elected?

Perhaps you suffer the kind of white guilt that only permits one answer to this multiple choice quiz:

If 95% of all ______________ people vote for the ___________ candidate, the
election outcome will be the result of racism.

a. Black
b. Hispanic
c. American Indian
d. Asian
e. White

Morons.
-- Jim North

I have been a subscriber to American Spectator, and a site visitor, for years. I am disappointed by the defeatist article by Robert McCain you just published. Please save such demoralizing articles until AFTER the election!
-- Vivek Rao

"How John McCain Lost"? Get serious. The McCain/Palin ticket is not dead, for several very good reasons.

First and foremost is the Bradley effect. This is not a typical white bread Presidential election. This is the first Presidential campaign involving a black candidate for President. While the citizenry of this country has become largely colorblind in recent decades, there are still a number of people who won't vote to place a black man, or a woman or other minority, in the White House. This is reality. Various scholars of this phenomenon place the percentage of voters who would vote against a minority candidate, even though they say they would support him, at between 5% and 12%. Even allowing for a monolithic block of minority votes for a black candidate, this is not insignificant. Especially in a close race.

Second, there is the philosophical bent of the individual candidate. Both McCain and Obama know that they can not win a national election against even a mildly conservative candidate if their personal philosophies become a major point in the campaign. They are both simply too liberal to satisfy the bulk of the voters in this country. In this contest, however, John McCain has a clear advantage. While John McCain is a proven liberal populist, Barack Obama can be shown to be decidedly communistic, and decidedly anti-American, in his philosophy. The McCain campaign, through Sarah Palin, is busily exploiting that now.

Third is the undecided voter. The popular identification of the undecided voter; chiefly among scholars and blue-state and Washington pundits; is a person who is an independent or moderate Democrat. While these groups are, indeed, a potential source for McCain votes, they are not the most significant group of undecideds that are available to McCain/Palin. That group is Conservatives. Though a significant number of conservative voters have, reluctantly, decided to support a McCain Presidency, there are still a large number of Conservatives who have not. They view John McCain as being the person that has actively worked against conservative ideas, aims and goals and they have no trust in him to abandon his previous positions on various issues and embrace Conservative principles. Now, this is the area where the campaign can do much more. The continued exposure of Obama as a dangerous anti-American, socialist radical will attract working-class Democrats and Conservatives alike. This is the time to go positively negative. No one with an I.Q. above the ambient temperature in Nome, Alaska truly believes in political promises. Politicians have been proven to say anything and do anything to win an election. Therefore, what the candidates promise is largely irrelevant. Their character and philosophy are not. And this is what will make a difference on election day, not who is proposing a better health insurance package for the 15% of the population without one.

This election will boil down to whether the American people would rather have a likable liberal populist or a radical socialist with ties to a wide array of criminals (Rezko, Ayers) and anti-American firebrands (Rev. Wright, Louis Farrakhan, Ayers again, etc.). It all depends on how aggressively the McCain campaign exposes Barack Obama's true nature.

Letter to the Editor

topics:
John McCain, Barack Obama, Sarah Palin, Bill Clinton, Business, Religion, Abortion, Supreme Court, Founding Fathers, Military, NATO, Socialism, Immigration, Alaska, Oil