My, my! John McCain, flip-flopping to engage in baseless character attacks! No one could have foreseen....
ACORN to McCain: Have You Lost That Loving Feeling?
Senator Allied with ACORN as Recently as 2006, Now Turns Cold Shoulder
October 13, 2008, Miami, FL - U.S. Senator John McCain's recent attacks on the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), are puzzling given his historic support for the organization and its efforts on behalf of immigrant Americans. As recently as February 20, 2006, Senator McCain was the keynote speaker at an ACORN-sponsored Immigration Rally in Miami, Florida at Miami Dade College - Wolfson Campus....
Bertha Lewis, Chief Organizer of ACORN, said, "It has deeply saddened us to see Senator McCain abandon his historic support for ACORN and our efforts to support the goals of low-income Americans. Maybe it is out of desperation that Senator McCain has forgotten that he was for ACORN before he was against ACORN; he was for immigration reform before he was against immigration reform; and he was a maverick before he became erratic. We were thrilled to partner with him to help reform the outdated immigration laws in this country, and were pleased to work closely with him on this issue." [Emphasis added.]
The beauty part here, of course, is letting all the wingnuts know how close McCain has been to ACORN in the past.
We now have additional information about the McCain supporter at the McCain forum in Lakeville, MN who said "Obama is an Arab" ["terrorist" cut off], which McCain quickly corrected. Her name is Gayle Quinnel. Here's the video:
And on the flip is the transcript of a post-event interview from Noah Kunin, Senior Political Correspondent from The Uptake. Also participating are Adam Aigner of NBC News and Dana Bash of CNN. You can view the inverview here.
In the last three weeks, John McCain's temperament has become an issue. The reason for this is simple: the media just can't bring itself to recognize that temperament is only the tip of the iceberg: It's his character, stupid!
After all, this three-week slide for John McCain began when he once again pronounced the economy sound--a profound error in judgment. It was exacerbated by repeated flip-flopping--a profound lack of resolve--repeated lying and deception--a profound lack of integrity--and utter irrelevance--a profound lack leadership. Blaming his temperament alone was simply giving him the easiest possible out. Sure he's an unstable hot-head. But reducing that to a matter of mere temperament, rather than character is a gross trivialization, a way of trapping and containing the growing negative narratives about McCain that simply won't hold water, particularly as he tries to go deeply negative against Obama, and Obama is ready for him.
One of my very best friends has hated Obama from the very beginning, especially since the Rev Wright controversy erupted. He's not a far rightie, I would describe him as a moderate conservative that frequently will vote for the Dems on a state and local level. We've been having a fairly friendly debate on the presidential race. Finally, I sent him a list of 10 reasons why he shouldn't vote for McCain, issues that I know he doesn't agree with McCain on. Including anti-abortion, anti-SCHIP, tax cuts for rich, privatize Social Security, and a few more. Here was his answer:
I do not vote for policies. No one implements their campaign promises, neither those you fear, nor those you cannot wait for to arrive.
I vote for character; I see little of it w/ BO and a lot of it w/ JM.
How do I answer something like that? He sees little character in Obama? I think it's because of Rev Wright, he's brought that issue up several times.
I'd rather not do it the Rove way, by mentioning McCain's adultery, flip-flops, ambition, lobbyists, etc. And I don't want to screw up our friendship, it is only 1 vote. And the rest of his family will be voting for Obama to more than offset his vote. But I can't stand to think that my friend is voting against his own best interests like so many Americans continue to do because of personality, not issues. He's very smart, very well informed (although he does get too much information from the right wing noise machine). I feel like if I can't convince him, there isn't much hope of convincing many other intelligent voters in this country either.
Any suggestions? Or should we just agree to disagree and move on?
Pure and simple all the policy ideas in the world don't matter if I don't trust you to do what you say, don't think you have the leadership abilities to do what you plan, or think that you have the backbone to follow through when you are challenged. I know that many people here will choose their candidate based purely on positions, but I don't think that is true of most of the electorate nor do I think it should be.
We are electing candidates based on what we think they will do in the future, and how they will affect the future of our nation. Past performance is usually a good indicator of how they will perform in the future, but so is our own judgement of what they really plan to do and why they plan to do it. We also need to be confident that they have the intelligence and judgement to make good decisions about problems that have yet to arise. For all of these reasons we need to choose a candidate who has both integrity and ability.
STATE BLOGS
