Colin Powell's endorsement of Barack Obama today underscores how clearly and irreparably John McCain has split open the fault line in the GOP.
In going against McCain, whom he has known and admired for two decades, the party's keynote speaker in 2000 and former Bush Secretary of State cited Sarah Palin and the William Ayers tone of the Republican campaign and praised the "inclusive nature" of Obama's as key reasons for his decision.
If, against all odds, McCain wins, traditional Republicans like Powell and those pillars of the GOP before the rise of the Religious Right and Karl Rove's divisive tactics will be all but shut out.
If McCain loses, the struggle for the soul of a battered minority party will be ideologically fierce. The signs are already emerging:
*"In the end," Peggy Noonan writes in the Wall Street Journal, "the Palin candidacy is a symptom and expression of a new vulgarization in American politics. It's no good, not for conservatism and not for the country. And yes, it is a mark against John McCain, against his judgment and idealism."
*The son of the National Review's founding father, William F. Buckley, is forced out for supporting Obama. “But to paraphrase Ronald Reagan," Christopher Buckley explains, "I didn’t leave the Republican Party, the Republican Party left me.”
*Traditional Republican voices, such as those of columnists George Will and David Brooks, have been lamenting the direction of the party and the tone of the campaign.
For decades to come, political analysts will be debating John McCain's decision to move rightward rather than appeal to centrists as the maverick he once was but is now just the basis for an empty slogan.
But win or lose, he will have shaken up the Republican Party for years to come.
Showing posts with label William Ayers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label William Ayers. Show all posts
Sunday, October 19, 2008
Sunday, October 05, 2008
A Month of Mud
From now until November 4th, the spatter of little feet running in all directions to throw muck at Barack Obama will be the end game of McCain '08 with a reprise of the golden oldies of guilt-by-association--William Ayers, Jeremiah Wright and Tony Rezko.
Desperate to deflect attention from the economic abyss at the feet of voters, Republicans from Sarah Palin down (if that's the right word) will be out swiftboating away but, unlike John Kerry in 2004, Obama is taking them on openly.
"Sen. McCain and his operatives," he told a North Carolina rally today, "are gambling that they can distract you with smears rather than talk to you about substance. They'd rather try to tear our campaign down than lift this country up.
"That's what you do when you're out of touch, out of ideas, and running out of time."
Palin is racing down the low road in high heels and Fargo twang, accusing Obama of "palling around with terrorists" on the basis of a passing association with William Ayers, whose Vietnam protests took place when the candidate was in grade school.
An analyst for AP, hardly a liberal bastion, notes: "Palin's words avoid repulsing voters with overt racism. But is there another subtext for creating the false image of a black presidential nominee 'palling around' with terrorists while assuring a predominantly white audience that he doesn't see their America?
"In a post-Sept. 11 America, terrorists are envisioned as dark-skinned radical Muslims, not the homegrown anarchists of Ayers' day 40 years ago...(P)ortraying Obama as 'not like us' is another potential appeal to racism. It suggests that the Hawaiian-born Christian is, at heart, un-American."
McCain himself is not doing the dirty work, although this week's debate will surely put him in the position of having to approve or disown these despicable tactics. He won't be able to hide behind the skirts of his transgendered Dick Cheney.
Someone must have put up a sign in every McCain campaign office, "It's the economy, stupid, but don't tell Palin."
Desperate to deflect attention from the economic abyss at the feet of voters, Republicans from Sarah Palin down (if that's the right word) will be out swiftboating away but, unlike John Kerry in 2004, Obama is taking them on openly.
"Sen. McCain and his operatives," he told a North Carolina rally today, "are gambling that they can distract you with smears rather than talk to you about substance. They'd rather try to tear our campaign down than lift this country up.
"That's what you do when you're out of touch, out of ideas, and running out of time."
Palin is racing down the low road in high heels and Fargo twang, accusing Obama of "palling around with terrorists" on the basis of a passing association with William Ayers, whose Vietnam protests took place when the candidate was in grade school.
An analyst for AP, hardly a liberal bastion, notes: "Palin's words avoid repulsing voters with overt racism. But is there another subtext for creating the false image of a black presidential nominee 'palling around' with terrorists while assuring a predominantly white audience that he doesn't see their America?
"In a post-Sept. 11 America, terrorists are envisioned as dark-skinned radical Muslims, not the homegrown anarchists of Ayers' day 40 years ago...(P)ortraying Obama as 'not like us' is another potential appeal to racism. It suggests that the Hawaiian-born Christian is, at heart, un-American."
McCain himself is not doing the dirty work, although this week's debate will surely put him in the position of having to approve or disown these despicable tactics. He won't be able to hide behind the skirts of his transgendered Dick Cheney.
Someone must have put up a sign in every McCain campaign office, "It's the economy, stupid, but don't tell Palin."
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