John Mccain, Sarah Palin still on 'Joe the Plumber' message + footage of Obama-Joe meeting

The conservative movement was driven by the single unifying idea that government is the problem, not the solution. It attained and kept power through the highly successful political strategy of dividing the country into the hard-working, America-loving, God-fearing majority and the minority of élitist liberals who wanted to tell the majority what to do. Whats happened to that idea and that strategy over the past few weeks?

When Obama told an Ohio plumber on camera that his tax plan would take some money from the rich and give some back to the middle- and working-class, the McCain-Palin campaign got very excited—they finally had the key to turning the race around. Since then, the Republicans have been talking about Joe, socialism, and spreading the wealth around at every turn. Did Obama begin to sink in the polls, as pundits predicted? Was Dick Morris finally going to get something about this election right? No, Obama rose—and even on taxes hes preferred over McCain. Like Democrats running against Herbert Hoover well into the 1970s, the Republican campaign still thinks its 1980. But it turns out that in 2008 voters can actually imagine worse things than tax rates on upper incomes returning to their Clinton-era level.

What about Republican strategy, which still wakes Democrats up in the middle of the night—the devastating invocation of Bill Ayers, terrorists, real Americans, small-town values, Hollywood, and (on the fringes of the McCain-Palin campaign and Fox News) the spectre of a Muslim President destroying the country from within? Even right-wing commentators have been begging the campaign to drop this line of attack—not because they disapprove, but because it isnt working. If anything, its dragging McCains numbers down and driving moderate Republicans and Independents toward Obama. A Republican congresswoman from Minnesota deployed the strategy at its most unvarnished on national television, and the Party has had to desert her. Who can blame Michele Bachmann for being dumbfounded? It was always O.K. when it was successful.

As for Palin, the incarnation of red-meat, know-nothing Christian nationalism, she turns out to be McCains single biggest mistake. The Republican Partys immediate post-election future will be a bloody struggle over Palinism. Its already started at National Review online, where the growing hysteria of the posts signals that the roof is falling in on conservatism. Everything that worked for forty years has suddenly not just stopped working, it has become self-defeating. Republican candidates, strategists, and pundits are like witchdoctors who keep repeating the old incantations over and over, their voices rising in furious shock, to no effect. Thats the sound of an era ending.
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/georgepacker/2008/10/step-back-a-mom.html
Republicans these days seem to have a rather tenuous grip on reality. That's clear not just in mendacity of their robocalls and the dark aspersions that decorate their "he's not who you think he is" junk mail assault. The McCain campaign is out to define the GOP version of reality.

Real Virginia, I take to be, this part of the state that's more Southern in nature, if you will.

We believe that the best of America is in these small towns that we get to visit, and in these wonderful little pockets of what I call the real America, being here with all of you hard working very patriotic, um, very, um, pro-America areas of this great nation.

Liberals hate real Americans that work, and accomplish, and achieve, and believe in God.

Reality seems to be a place populated only by plumbers with poor math skills who alternate between hunting moose and liberals. And of course, reality is defined by hockey moms.
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/10/23/95822/087/75/639628
Indeed, the story could not come at a more inopportune time for the McCain campaign. During a week in which the Republican ticket is trying to highlight its connection to the working class -- and, by extension, promoting its newest campaign tool, Joe the Plumber -- it was revealed that Palin's fashion budget for several weeks was more than four times the median salary of an American plumber ($37,514). To put it another way: Palin received more valuable clothes in one month than the average American household spends on clothes in 80 years. A Democrat put it in even blunter terms: her clothes were the cost of health care for 15 or so people.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/22/palin-clothes-spending-ha_n_136740.html

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• Keith
• olbermann
• Joe
• the
• plumber
• john
• Mccain
• Sarah
• palin
• Barack
• Obama
• elitist
• Biden
• economy
• speech
• interview
• debate
• tax

[bendertl31]

Yeah, I've been seeing a lot more idiotic comments from the Obama haters lately--saying things like, "Stop drinking the kool aid." or saying that Obama's tax plan is a form of "welfare"... C'mon man gimme a break, jeez! All this camouflaged racism is starting to get old. And don't sit there and tell me that I'm "just another Obama supporter playing the race card", because that would be the biggest pile of horse shit ever!! You know EXACTLY what your intent is when you use phrases like that!

[Fogslifted]

Oh God! Let me guess, your a FOX News fan?! lmao Your a racist, uneducated, idiot. If memory serves me, it was Bush, a republican who was in office when we were attacked on 9-11. And then went to war over a lie, in the wrong country, for the wrong reason. Meanwhile, the guy that headed the attacks was never caught. And the group that attacked us, is now again stronger than ever. And McCain Stood with Bush 90% of the time. Yeah we need McCain, another 4 years of hell. No Thanks...Obama/Biden 08!!

[10469]

and thats why they lost...

[JoeyBieg]

Wow I forgot about how inspiring Obama was. He was on the attack during his campaign. Now look at him, lax as anything; catering to the right. It was expected, but I don't think anyone thought he'd be this far to the right.

[TheLiberalsSuck]

Olbermann probably called Palin after the election to borrow her dresses & pumps...

[nsa5015]

Republicans DO suck

[DarkLordCallMeDickC]

Long proposed a new progressive tax code designed to limit the size of personal fortunes. The new tax code would tax the first million dollars of wealth at zero. The second million dollars of wealth would be taxed at 1%. The third million at 2%; the fourth million at 4%; the fifth million at 8%; the sixth million at 16%; the seventh million at 32%; the eighth million at 64%; and the remainder at 100%. Income tax rates would be at 100% for all incomes over $1 million

[DarkLordCallMeDickC]

Republicans are speed bumbs on the way to a more englightened society.

[DarkLordCallMeDickC]

Well that is what all religions boil down to. Read a book. And you don't think the government in a capitialistic system takes your money under the threat of prison? How can you say that is why socialism/communism is wrong and yet it has been going on for centuries and continues to do so in America?? Conservatives goe to chariets at tripe the rate??? DId you just see that charity George Clooney but on for Haiti? Over 95% of the people in Hollywood are Democrats.

[flyboymd82]

@DarkLordCallMeDickC

I didn't know religion was themed on 'self sacrifice for the good of others'?? Hmm. Even if it were, you compare that to the Gov't forcefully taking my money under the threat of prison & giving it to you? Thats no less than legal robbery & its why socialism/communism is wrong. Its a PROVEN FACT that Conservatives give to charities at triple the rate Liberals do & give much more! Ever heard "give the man a fish & he eats for a day, TEACH him to fish & he eats for life"?