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Out of context: Reply #11

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  • TheBlueOne0

    This whole "label Obama a socialist" is just yet another misfire in the McCain strategy. First off McCain is running a secondhand pisspoor imitation of a Rovian type 2000/2004 campaign.

    Labeling your opponent a "liberal" worked then especially in '04 when you could actively control the definition of the word - could equate it to those "latte sipping, volvo driving, ny times reading limp-wristed cowardly elites". It worked for a while, and successfully at that. But it turns out the liberals were mostly correct on the things the Republicans were basing their cohesion and winning strategy on - the war and the economy. Iraq and Afghanistan are basically failed nation building excercises with no attainable victory conditions, al queda and osama are still out there, and the economy has just entered freefall which the Republican / Bush leadership attempts to address by nationalizing the banks - a move that would make Francois Mitterand blush. So the liberal critique of the main thrust of the Republican experiment was correct and then Bush uses tools of the left to address them. Meanwhile the endgame in Iraq is turning out exactly as Barrack Obama was stating would be his policy.

    And Obama is running as a "liberal" and isn't trying to run away from the label like Gore and Kerry did. And it's working - meaning it's resonating with a majority of Americans.

    So the McCain dusts off the old "socialist" meme. Problem is that it comes across as more quaint than anything else. No one even knows how to relate to it anymore. Like the episode of Seinfeld when Elaine gets romantically intrigued by the communist guy just because he's well an anachronism . Heck, even at that time in the mid 90's it was funny. Now, labeling a run-of-the-mill Clintonian Keynsian economic approach "socialist" just rings hollow, especially when it comes from the party who has a vice presidential candidate from a state where every resident this year will get a $3,200 payout. Since 1982, the Alaska Permanent Fund, which invests oil revenues from state lands, has paid out a dividend on invested oil loot to everyone who has been in the state for a year. Sounds like socialism to me.

    And that's just one thing - the McCain campaign hasn't been able to get any single anti-obama smear to stick, so you end up with some diluted mess that has no central narrative. Meanwhile, all the Democrats have to do is tie McCain to Bush (not a historically difficult thing to do) and point out that McCain is old and out of touch and that Palin is not prepared for the office. That's it. Meanwhile McCain flails about trying to find some traction and in the meantime while trying to keep the base (the same last 20% that think Bush has done a bang up job) is alienating all the independents and middle road voters who are repelled by the gutter attacks and borderline hate rhetoric it inspires in the hardcore McCain supporters. Especially when, to most Average Joe's who aren't unlicensed plumbers and aren't related to Republican Congressmen, the smear attacks are hard to be believed. Seriously, it's hard to call anyone willing to be one of the major party nominee's for President "Un-American". It's just silly on it's face.

    If Obama pulls this off, the Republicans are going to have one hell of a post-mortem.

    TheBlueOne 0Permalink
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