McCain is delusional

[madbrian]

Posted: 8/12/08 at 9:11pm

"We’re not sending any negative message in our campaign. We’re drawing differences in positions between myself and Senator Obama, which are significant. He wants to raise taxes; I want to keep them low. He doesn’t want to drill offshore or have nuclear power; I want both. I’ve never heard Steve Schmidt say we need a negative message in the campaign. …I’ve run many, many campaigns and I have never believed that we need a strong negative message."

Seems like he's the only person on the planet who doesn't think his ads have been negative.

[roquat]

Posted: 8/12/08 at 10:23pm

Offshore drilling, touted by McCain and several others as the answer to our fuel crisis, would take ten years to have any effect on gas prices. It would also decimate the environment and would probably result in eighteen million barrels of oil at most--enough to satisfy current U.S. demand for roughly seven months.

[romantico]

Posted: 8/12/08 at 10:40pm

You want delusional?

John McCain casts himself as the movie hero "Rocky" at a rally in Pennsylvania.

In perhaps the corniest political stage crafting ever, the theme song from "Rocky" blared over the speakers as the McCain campaign bus drove into the rally auditorium. None other than the Senator Joe Lieberman introduced McCain as "Rocky McCain!"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIwPbky6rLs

Tomorrow he is going to be Luke Skywalker!

[papalovesmambo]

Posted: 8/12/08 at 11:01pm

this is what you people are calling negative? the celebrity meme and asking if bammy's ready? when did your side become such p*ssies? oh i remember when you realized that anything less than outright worship of your candidate would attract attention to his flimsiness and thus must be labeled an attack and negative. it's a freakin' presidential campaign. put on your big girl panties or turn off the tv and computer and go listen to dreamgirls on repeat for the next three months. please.

you ain't seen negative yet. trust me, when our side decides to go negative, you'll freakin' know it. at least ya will if they listen to me.

[Reginald Tresilian]

Posted: 8/13/08 at 10:01am

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I've always understood "positive" campaigning to be statements asserting why you should vote for a particular candidate; "negative" campaigns are those that tell you why you shouldn't vote for the other guy.

It's not a matter of degree, Papa. It's not about "Can't you take it?" It's simply the approach.

Nobody said the ads were offensive or out of line or hurt our feelings.

[papalovesmambo]

Posted: 8/13/08 at 10:11am

well, by that logic there has neve rbeen a positive campaign in the history of the untied states of american and there never will.

and yeah, yer crying like slapped babies.

[Reginald Tresilian]

Posted: 8/13/08 at 10:13am

"and yeah, yer crying like slapped babies. "

Oh.

Well, I'll try to tone it down.

[Reginald Tresilian]

Posted: 8/13/08 at 10:18am

So it's not this, right?

"Negative campaigning is trying to win an advantage by referring to negative aspects of an opponent or of a policy rather than emphasizing one's own positive attributes or preferred policies."

Posted: 8/13/08 at 10:31am

There never has been a positive campaign and there never will be. Negative works. GO negative early and go hard.

[papalovesmambo]

Posted: 8/13/08 at 10:41am

joe, you know damn that mac can't go hard without looking like he's in the pocket of the drug companines.

[madbrian]

Posted: 8/13/08 at 11:02am

He doesn't need drugs, Papa. War is enough to arouse him. Well, that and Joe Lieberman.

[roquat]

Posted: 8/13/08 at 4:39pm

Both of them are going negative (or responding indignantly to the other's negative ads), and neither has time for anything else. That is what's alienating voters (both Republican and Democrat).

I remember when Hilary was criticized for going negative during the primaries. She was being Noel Coward-polite compared to this...

[KrissySim]

Posted: 8/14/08 at 3:44am

"[This is the] very first condition which has to be fulfilled in every kind of propaganda: a systematically one-sided attitude towards every problem that has to be dealt with…
"[Propaganda] does not have multiple shadings; it has a positive and a negative; love or hate, right or wrong, truth or lie, never half this way and half that way…"
-- Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, p. 182 & 183

[papalovesmambo]

Posted: 8/14/08 at 5:36am

what was that old adage about this first side that resorts hitler?

[romantico]

Posted: 8/14/08 at 7:20am

Here ya go!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2zRVmcTwto

[KrissySim]

Posted: 8/14/08 at 12:01pm

"what was that old adage about this first side that resorts hitler?"

"side" ? Have I taken a side? I just think it will be interesting in the debates ahead to see who follows Hitler's formula more closely. It was he who stressed that propaganda should emphasize only the good points of "your" side and the bad points of the opposing side. (Notice the quote "your" is in the general sense, it is not an accusation.)

He also considered "the masses" as being essentially stupid:

"The receptivity of the great masses is very limited, their intelligence small, but their power of forgetting is enormous. In consequence of these facts, all effective propaganda must be limited to a very few points and must harp on these in slogans until the last member of the public understands..."
-- Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, pp. 180-181.

Now, about that "old adage", please fill me in on that. I'm not familiar with it.

[papalovesmambo]

Posted: 8/14/08 at 12:31pm

the side that invokes hitler automatically loses

[KrissySim]

Posted: 8/15/08 at 1:16am

I think your links make some good points, but that was not my point. Hitler did use effective propaganda techniques that obviously rallied an entire country. The problem with his technique, when comparing it to democratic principles, is that it reduces "debate" to shallow often emotional rhetoric, as he himself stated "limited to a very few points.... in slogans". This effectively hid an underlying agenda that the German population did not fully understand. These are not good principles for an informed Democracy.

I have seen some of these tactics used by politicians in many countries, most notably in Venezuela (though in this case I have not been there myself, I have friends who were lucky enough to escape before Chavez completely solidified power).

Does this mean that I think America is headed on this course? NO. Certainly not. America has a good working Constitution and there are many checks and balances in the system to prevent that. However, reducing debate to simplistic emotional rhetoric can can still put a smokescreen over and hide a party's true agenda keeping a lot of real issues away from the public eye. This does not facilitate an informed Democracy.

The notion that those who invoke Hitler automatically lose... this depends on what you mean. When I was in Belarus as Lukashenko was running for office, I compared some of his propaganda tactics to those of Hitler and stated so openly. Yes, Lukashenko won and effectively drove the country to dictatorship. I don't think, however, that I really had anything to do with his winning or with his transforming Belarus to a totalitarian state.

Making too long a story short here, I think Hitler's formula is a good one to be aware of any time there is a heated political debate.

I have not picked sides and am essentially watching this as an outsider. Like watching the Yankees and Red Socks compete even though I live in neither city.