The Republicans would have used these attacks with or without the help of the Clinton supporters. The difference is that the attacks from Clinton/Clinton surrogates/Clinton supporters significantly broaden the receptive audience for McCain’s virtually identical attacks.

Mr. Bush, a Karl Rove construct, was elected in ‘04 by the American people – an event that may go down in history as a case of a total screw-up, a miscreant, a delusional thinker – all information available to voters – being re-seated by the same ‘informed’ voters to apparently be given the opportunity to ‘finish’ the job of taking the country from the brink of ruin to total ruin?

Mr. Rove’s surrogates are now running the McCain campagne. If Obama doesn’t come up with some extremely powerful defense/offense to combat the poison they’re feeding the electorate on an almost daily basis, McCain will probably be sitting in the Oval Office come ‘09.

Meant to say:

“They are lying about (name the current attack issue) because they have nothing useful to say about (name a real issue important to Americans). Our position on this real issue is (state reasonable position). Why not ask McCain to take time out from politics as usual and tell you what HE thinks we should do?”

So do we lower ourselves to their level, make up lies about McCain and then attack him for it? The campaign would devolve into a mud fight, where the guys with the most mud win. And the Repugs can make an awful lot of mud.

I don’t think you take on the school-yard bully by becoming one. Something Bush should have thought of before he tossed out half our laws to go after “the terrorists.”

I’m more a fan of this model for an “attack” campaign:

“They are lying about because they have nothing useful to say about . Our position on this real issue is . Why not ask McCain to take time out from politics as usual and tell you what HE thinks we should do?”

Keep pushing them to talk about their policies, where they are weak. Maybe the electorate will pick up the fact that they have no program other than “Obama bad, McCain good” while our side is addressing issues important to Americans. It appears that some of the MSM is starting to figure this out. We can only hope.

My thoughts are why expend the energy trying to do what McCain is doing to himself. His “Maverick” veneer has eroded to the point where he’s now viewed by many as a befuddled old man in need of direction.His straight talking express has bottomed out as a meaningless marketing ploy. And now he’s scraping the bottom of the barrel with negative ads because his substance is depleted( if he ever had any).

The more exposure McCain gets the worse he looks, and people are seeing it. I’m surprised that McCain didn’t try to distance himself from the celebrity ads..McCain tried to cover his smear of Obama under the guise of humor when it’s obvious to thinking people that desperation has engulfed his campaign.

I also think that the McCain =Bush equation has so permeated the minds of the voting public to such a degree that it won’t be overcome. It’s the equivalent of being bitten by a gila monster..it’s the infection that it conveys that brings you down, and not the bite itself. That equation doesn’t even need elaboration..it’s self evident.

I guess the bottom line is that McCain is stale, crusty, brittle, dried-up old man who’s running on the fumes of his glory days. And no amount of marketing is gonna put him in the White House, so why try to alter the inevitable?

Republicans, since Nixon at least, have always always always always attacked the Democratic nominee’s character. He is weak, he is disloyal, he is not ‘one of us,’ he is an elitist, he is not a ‘real’ American, he ’snubbed the troops,’ he is dangerous, and so on and so on and so on and so on.

In every election, including Clinton vs. Bush, the patriotism and character of the Democratic nominee were attacked. The difference in Clinton vs. Bush is that, if I recall correctly, Clinton called out Bush on it during a debate. He addressed the point head on.

I do not know why the Democrats do not attack the character and fitness to serve of the Republican candidates. They just don’t.

Not to bring up an old worn chestnut, but if he had been a Democratic candidate, Bush’s failure to complete his National Guard service would have eliminated him very early in the nomination process. It would have been blanket coverage and the lack of documents to back up his version of events would have been taken as proof of his guilt. Cf. Kerry and the Swift-Boaters.

Obama and the Democrats are in a position to dramatically alter the make-up of the national government. They have many advantages in their favor and the Republicans have many weaknesses.

But for some reason they are not exploiting these with the vigor necessary to punch the message through the haze of the corporate press/media’s flacking for McCain, and into the minds of the voters.

I do not understand it and I know I am not alone in this. If there is an explanation that makes sense, I’d sure like to hear it.

Saying that out loud, on television no less, took guts.

It was also Clinton supporters who embraced the Republican meme that any accusation of appealing to racism, made about any white person, is presumptively bogus–that, in fact, raising the issue of racism at all is far worse than racism itself. Thank you Lambert, Riverdaughter, Taylor Marsh, Jeralyn Merritt, and all the other special people who helped to broaden acceptance of the talking points McCain is using today.

Kathy Hilton, however, was unpersuaded, calling the ad “a complete waste of the money John McCain’s contributors have donated to his campaign.”

Kathy Hilton and her husband donated a total of $4,600 to McCain’s campaign earlier this year.

I love the taste of schadenfreude pie in the morning. I’ve always suspected the Hiltons to be the sort of assholes that votes Republican, but its always nice to see them piss on their own base.