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Born at the Crest of the Empire

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

John McCain's bad day continues.

In no order at all, McCain unintentionally all but declares Spanish PM Zapatero an enemy of America to the Spanish press. (TPM 1, 2, 3)

NBC Nightly News (video) tears apart the Palin lies.

ABCNews (video) tears McCain apart over his flip flop on AIG.

Newsweek blasts McCain over "the fundamentals of our economy are strong."

The AP's Glenn Johnson hits McCain with an extremely harsh lede blasting him on his insider/outsider claims.

At the UAW plant today, McCain exited to small but audible chants of Obama, and at his campaign stop in Grand Rapids with Palin, the crowd chanted "Sarah, Sarah," but "haven't once screamed for McCain, even after Palin introduced him."

And, if you believe the NYTimes poll (just one poll and all of that) he might be losing his convention bubble, and Sarah Palin is fading. (DKos has a very stilted look at some of the findings.)

It's getting ugly out there for John. Palin was a "game changer" for a week or two. Has he got anything else left up his sleeve?

7 Comments:

  • On the Spanish press story....

    It seems to me that for all the bellicosity that Bush displayed, there was still a touch of measured realism in his outlook. Take Russia as a case in point (or Saudi Arabia for that matter). There is a bit of the 12 step serenity prayer in his policy ("God, grant me the strength to change the things I can, the serenity to accept the things I can't, and the WISDOM TO KNOW THE DIFFERENCE").

    Clearly, Bush didn't always get it right, and the pressure he put on Russia later demonstrates that.

    But McCain.... McCain is going to go out and say, "look, you either play ball or I'm not even going to give you the time of day."

    I'm with the first group. I think he is trying to send a message, but opaquely.

    By Blogger Praguetwin, at 1:28 AM  

  • That's a very interesting point. Bush played Napolean, but only with the smaller countries.

    McCain on the other hand, is playing the same unilateral policy against those that can really hurt us.

    (Maybe Bush's limits were shaped by the early mistakes when the US spy plane got shot down in China in mid 2001.)

    By Blogger mikevotes, at 8:15 AM  

  • Occam's Razor leads me to believe that McCain simply had no clue who Zapatero was. His repeated references to Latin America indicate to me that he thought he was being asked about some South American dictator.

    Playing some kind of "hard ball" with our NATO allies is not only very dangerous, but also counter-productive. Most of them are looking for an excuse to bail out of Afghanistan or distance themselves from the neo-con vision. If Russia puts pressure on Europe, the first thing to change will be to drop the expensive participation in Afghanistan, and then circle the European wagons.

    But really, this is just McCain being ignorant.

    By Blogger Todd Dugdale , at 9:11 AM  

  • Todd, I agree. I definitely think the Zapatero thing was simply a mistake, BUT, if you're doing an interview with the Spanish press, shouldn't you take a moment to review Spain? Doesn't that seem an expected thing?

    And, I don't think the Spanish are really offended, just kind of bemused.

    (After all, nobody on the world stage really expects McCain to win. It's like how the Russians have responded to McCain.)

    By Blogger mikevotes, at 9:18 AM  

  • Given a recent BBC survey of 22 countries, I think the entire Wester world is bemused by McCain... and the Americans who seem to support him so strongly in the polls.

    By Blogger -epm, at 9:42 AM  

  • Well it looks as though the Europeans are blissfully ignorant as usual. McCain may very well win, and then what?

    By Blogger Praguetwin, at 4:52 PM  

  • In theory, he may win, but I still think the odds are pretty low barring something big.

    Palin appears to have bought him two weeks, but now it looks like we're right back where we were.


    (And to preemptively answer the question. State polls usually lag about a week, so let's see where the state polls are in a week. Right now they're still in the post convention bounce.)

    By Blogger mikevotes, at 5:54 PM  

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