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Politico on GOP rage

This Politico piece by Jonathan Martin, who's been covering the Republicans during the presidential campaign, is an absolute must-read. First off, his description of the anger he's been seeing on the trail is chilling:

With McCain passing up the opportunity to level any tough personal shots in his first two debates and the very real prospect of an Obama presidency setting in, the sort of hard-core partisan activists who turn out for campaign events are venting in unusually personal terms.

"Terrorist!” one man screamed Monday at a New Mexico rally after McCain voiced the campaign’s new rhetorical staple aimed at raising doubts about the Illinois senator: “Who is the real Barack Obama?”

"He's a damn liar!” yelled a woman Wednesday in Pennsylvania. "Get him. He's bad for our country." 

Martin also gets a remarkable quote from former McCain consigliere John Weaver:

John Weaver, McCain’s former top strategist, said top Republicans have a responsibility to temper this behavior.

“People need to understand, for moral reasons and the protection of our civil society, the differences with Sen. Obama are ideological, based on clear differences on policy and a lack of experience compared to Sen. McCain,” Weaver said. “And from a purely practical political vantage point, please find me a swing voter, an undecided independent, or a torn female voter that finds an angry mob mentality attractive.” 

“Sen. Obama is a classic liberal with an outdated economic agenda. We should take that agenda on in a robust manner. As a party we should not and must not stand by as the small amount of haters in our society question whether he is as American as the rest of us. Shame on them and shame on us if we allow this to take hold.”

Slate's John Dickerson weighs in on the subject as well, and makes an interesting point about the relationship between McCain and the angry Republican id:

There was a time when John McCain would give it right back to the hecklers at a John McCain town-hall meeting. It was part of his charm: He would confront these hecklers and argue with them about his supposed Republican apostasies on judicial appointments or immigration.

No longer. Now hecklers help stir the room. The candidate and his audience are in agreement about the grave national danger posed by Barack Obama and the media.

We're in for an ugly few weeks.

 

  • Peter Porcupine said:

    Adam - if McCain is personally responsible for random shouts by a crowd, why isn't Obama personally responsible for something like the repugnant melanoma commercial made by Howard Dean's brother?

    To engage in debate with a shrieker like that is to forego the chance to speak to the OTHER 1,000 people who came to hear you - no amount of conversation will suffice with them.  They aren't like the people from Slate's town meetings of yore.

    His campaign repudiated the ranters in VERY strong terms.  To date, Obama hasn't commented on the Atlantic Monthly commissioned photographs portraying McCain with blood flowing from his mouth, or the melanoma ad, or any of the other 527 and volunteer slime directed against McCain with anything other than short staements indicating that it's not his job.

    How low IS the man's pay grade, I wonder.

    October 10, 2008 1:12 PM
  • Adam Reilly said:

    PP: engaging with "a shrieker like that" is actually a *perfect* opportunity to engage with the other 1000 people--some of whom, judging from Martin's account, actually may agree with the shrieker in question.

    It's simple: all McCain needs to do is take a few seconds to make the same point that Weaver--his former chief strategist, for God's sake!--makes.

    Also, your comparison with the Atlantic, etc. doesn't hold up. C'mon--I'm not asking McCain to condemn Jay Severin here. I'm saying he shouldn't be silent when, in response to a question McCain himself poses, someone calls Obama a "terrorist." At the very least, that silence suggests a lack of disapproval.

    October 10, 2008 1:37 PM

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