Wise words for Republicans: Don’t get cocky

It’s been a great week for Republicans. Palin hit it out of the park with her convention speech, McCain’s speech got more viewers than Obama’s in spite of airing on fewer networks, the MSM made a joke of themselves in their quest to demonize Palin, Olbermann and Matthews were booted as anchors from PMSNBC, and polls everywhere are bringing in good news for the Republican ticket: white women are trending towards McCain (hell yeah we are!), McCain has a 10-point lead on Obama among likely voters, and polling places from all over are showing McCain as having tied or pulled ahead of Obama.

I know I’m not the most-read blogger out there, but to all two of my readers, I have to say: be careful. We’ve had a great week, but this race is far from over and could still go either way. We have to be vigilant in fighting the desperate smears being pushed against Palin, so keep blogging the truth. If you live in a battleground state, get involved in your local campaign. Hell, I don’t think Washington state has a chance of going to McCain, but I’m still getting involved. Don’t start acting like we’ve got a Reagan landslide coming and don’t let up. We still have a hard fight ahead of us.

Here’s what Scott Elliot of Election Projection had to say on the issue:

While this conservative is encouraged by the newly-minted GOP nominee’s improving outlook, I understand that a marginal lead in early September is hardly a guarantee of victory in November. So, to my Republican friends I say, let’s not get too excited. And to my Democratic friends, you have no cause for despair – this is still a great political environment for Obama to run in, and the electoral vote playing field remains his advantage.

Election Projection correctly called 48 out of 50 states in 2004, and was within 3 electoral votes of correctly predicting the final election tallies. This guy knows what he’s talking about. I’ve believed from the start that this race is Obama’s to lose, and that’s only going to happen if we keep pushing like we’re the ones coming from behind. Make no mistake, we are the ones coming from behind, but we can do it.

Comments

Wise words for Republicans: Don’t get cocky — 3 Comments

Laura on September 9, 2008 at 7:47 AM said:

If Sarah Palin hadn’t been his running mate choice, do you believe you would have still voted for John McCain? If not, then who would you have voted for?

I guess the whole hype about how beautiful she is has me jaded as a woman, especially one who isn’t beautiful! It’s like the 1960 Great Debateshttp://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/K/htmlK/kennedy-nixon/kennedy-nixon.htm (Since I don’t think I can hyperlink in my comments) where voters were influenced by Kennedy’s appearance versus Nixon’s. I remember reading you deducted from Palin’s speech because you didn’t like her hair and blouse. Judging a candidate by their physical appearance has no place in politics. If someone with elephantiasis ran on a great platform, I’d be all kinds of lining up behind them. I do understand most of your physical appearance critiquing (my VP is hotter than your VP) is more facetious than an actual argument based on looks, though detracting from her speech because of an appearance issue because you are a woman and allowed to notice such things has a bad ring to me. One of the key arguments against giving women the right to vote is because it was believed they would judge candidates by looks.

This is shaping up almost EXACTLY as badly as the Bush/Kerry election of 2004. I remember hearing both of those candidates spend a lot of time talking about unity and solidarity while they both spend all their time and campaign money working on pissing all over those exact same ideas. After this election, there’s going to be a lot of butt-ass hurt feelings because people are becoming doggedly devoted to their candidates while, at least from what I have seen, not giving the other candidate a lick of respect. Now as far as I’m concerned, BOTH of these men and their multi-gendered VP candidates have come a long way and are both men that I think would not fail us as president.

http://www.observer.com/2008/politics/kerry-and-mccain-enemies-friends-and-enemies-again This little piece brought up some interesting points about McCain/Kerry that are worth noting. It was always something I had admired about McCain and Kerry alike, which they have BOTH thoroughly stomped to death in the name of partisan politics. Just like when Bush said he would bring the nation together when he won in 2004, I remember feeling since then that all he’s given me is an uncomfortable feeling that America is doomed. The voting machine scandals were disturbing proof that not even votes matter anymore. Public television has yet to lie to me, and showed an extensive documentary on the Diebold voting systems were, in fact, very easy to tamper with. MANY pieces of voting information were thrown into the garbage long before the point the law required them to be kept, and it was conclusively proven that the machines were improperly tallying the votes. The machines were even geographically distributed to disfavor the poor, with wealthier areas having several of the machines and poorer ones receiving sometimes only one. People had to stand in the rain for hours just to cast their vote, and even then the machines they did it on might have just been dumped. This wasn’t just a Republican thing, and I’m not going to open the kettle of fish saying that it was responsible for tipping the presidential elections. Democrats too were shown to have fraudulently used this exploitation as well.

I don’t think McCain is Bush Jr. Jr.. This is because I don’t think McCain could possibly be as stupid as I believe President Bush to be. I believe McCain is a reasonable, intelligent person. I think Obama is a reasonable, intelligent person, too. I think both sides of the spectrum have become so cocky that they’ve cocked things up. All the respect has been thrown out the window, replaced instead with a steady, innocuous diet of mush mixed with shards of glass. Politics is now the mutant child of the back-alley romance of tabloid magazines and statistics. There’s so many polls going on so many places for so many reasons that the conservative Disraeli classified the three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies, and statistics. All this hype over polls and drama is obscuring and ultimately hindering peoples’ abilities to make the best decision about where they want America to go.

Oh, and if you actually read through all this Jack, I want to ask for your help! I have an assignment for my political science class where I need to interview someone who is on the opposite side of my political beliefs. My first choice is you!
Bridget Jack Meyers on September 9, 2008 at 10:27 AM said:

Laura, I’ve gotta run to take care of my mother right now (she’s not doing well), but just two things. If Palin weren’t McCain’s running mate, if it were Romney or Pawlenty or Jindal or Lieberman, I’d either be grudgingly voting for McCain (but not blogging about the election, volunteering for the campaign or in any way supporting him) or I’d cast a protest vote for Bob Barr. I have said for months that I’d only vote for McCain if Palin were the pick, and no one believed that would happen until it happened.

Two, I actually said in my blog post on Palin’s speech that I did not take points from the speech for hair or clothes; I just mentioned those things for fun. Yeah, she’s good-looking and yeah, people talk about it. But they’d be talking about it if she were ugly too. The pro-Clinton people were absolutely ruthless in mocking the appearances of Paula Jones and Linda Tripp when they dared to give Clinton trouble, to the extent that both women eventually had plastic surgery. It’s a sad fact that as soon as a woman becomes a controversial political figure, people on one side or the other think her looks are fair game.

The last thing I would point out is that Obama is pretty handsome himself, and many of his supporters have fawned on what a good-looking guy he is. People shouldn’t cast votes based on a candidate’s looks, but sadly, some people will.
Bridget Jack Meyers on September 9, 2008 at 8:28 PM said:

Okay, having had more time to read your post more carefully and think about what you said:

Yes, I’d love to have you interview me. Do you need to call me on the phone or is e-mail okay?

Next, holy crap you are NOT ugly. It’s actually one of the things that pisses me off about this country. Who the hell decides certain face and body types are pretty v. ugly? I can’t get you to change the way you see yourself, and I already know firsthand that even the most beautiful woman is often the harshest critic of her own looks, but just know that I think you are beautiful, Laura. It pisses me off that all kinds of women in politics (Chelsea Clinton, Bridget McCain, Linda Tripp, Paula Jones, etc.) have had their looks ridiculed just because they didn’t fit what certain people have decided is “pretty.” The mockery of Chelsea Clinton and Bridget McCain is particularly appalling because the people who called them ugly were making fun of underage teenage girls. And yes, I’m aware that McCain is one of the people who called Chelsea ugly.

On Obama, I just want to point out that I don’t say a lot of negative things about him. I don’t want him to win, but I don’t think the world is going to end with him as President. I’ve started writing a new article here on why I support McCain-Palin, and I’ve already said I won’t be throwing a fit if Obama wins. UPDATE: The article was lame so I removed it.

I agree that Bush has not done a lot to reach across partisan lines as promised (one of the reasons I don’t like how he’s handled things since being elected). The thing about McCain and Palin is that they actually have a genuine record of opposing their own party on corruption; it’s one of the reasons folks like me were never wild about McCain, but his eight years of stabbing his own party in the back might just be what appeals across the line and gets him elected. Obama has voted with the Democrat-led Congress 97%; IIRC, Biden’s a little bit better but not by much, and certainly hasn’t earned a reputation as a reformer in 35 years in Congress. I don’t think either candidate is going to be extremely bi-partisan, but if that’s what you want, McCain and Palin are the better choice. I haven’t heard anything about Obama and Biden pissing off their own party on any issues, if you don’t count Obama attacking Hillary to get the nomination.

That’s about all I got. I love you Laura and I love that you continue to read and post your opinion on my blog. <3

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