The Anger at McCain/Palin Rallies

I’m appalled (and quite concerned) at the level of anger and vitriol that is coming from the crowds at McCain/Palin campaign rallies. 

From a Politico story:

The unmistakable momentum behind Barack Obama’s campaign, combined with worry that John McCain is not doing enough to stop it, is ratcheting up fears and frustrations among conservatives.

And nowhere is this emotion on plainer display than at Republican rallies, where voters this week have shouted out insults at the mention of Obama, pleaded with McCain to get more aggressive with the Democrat and generally demonstrated the sort of visceral anger and unease that reflects a party on the precipice of panic.

The calendar is closing and the polls, at least right now, are not.

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.”

At both stops, there were cries of, “Nobama,” picking up on a phrase that has appeared on yard signs, T-shirts and bumper stickers.

And Thursday, at a campaign town hall in Wisconsin, one Republican brought the crowd to its feet when he used his turn at the microphone to offer a soliloquy so impassioned it made the network news and earned extended play on Rush Limbaugh’s program.

“I’m mad; I’m really mad!” the voter bellowed. “And what’s going to surprise ya, is it’s not the economy — it’s the socialists taking over our country.”

After the crowd settled down he was back at it. “When you have an Obama, Pelosi and the rest of the hooligans up there gonna run this country, we gotta have our head examined!”

The Washington Post had a story on this today as well:

There were shouts of “Nobama” and “Socialist” at the mention of the Democratic presidential nominee. There were boos, middle fingers turned up and thumbs turned down as a media caravan moved through the crowd Thursday for a midday town hall gathering featuring John McCain and Sarah Palin.

“It is absolutely vital that you take it to Obama, that you hit him where it hits, there’s a soft spot,” said James T. Harris, a local radio talk show host, who urged the Republican nominee to use Barack Obama’s controversial former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., and others against him.

“We have the good Reverend Wright. We have [the Rev. Michael L.] Pfleger. We have all of these shady characters that have surrounded him,” Harris bellowed. “We have corruption here in Wisconsin and voting across the nation. I am begging you, sir. I am begging you. Take it to him.”

The crowd of thousands roared its approval.

In recent days, a campaign that embraced the mantra of “Country First” but is flagging in the polls and scrambling for a way to close the gap as the nation’s economy slides into shambles has found itself at the center of an outpouring of raw emotion rare in a presidential race.

“There’s 26 days and people are looking at the very serious possibility that there’s a chance that Obama might get in, and they don’t like that,” said Ian Eltrich, 28, as he filed out of the crowded sports complex.

 ”I’m mad! I’m really mad!” another man said, taking the microphone and refusing to surrender it easily, even when McCain tried to agree with him.

“I’m not done. Lemme finish, please,” he said after a standing ovation. “When you have Obama, [House Speaker Nancy] Pelosi and the rest of the hooligans up there going to run the country, we have to have our head examined.

“It’s time that you two represent the rest of us. So go get ‘em.”

The crowd burst into loud chants of “U-S-A! U-S-A!”

Standing at the center of the crowd, McCain and Palin drew on the crowd’s energy as they repeatedly trained their fire on Obama.

They booed again when he mentioned William Ayers, who bombed U.S. facilities to protest the Vietnam War as part of the domestic terrorist group the Weather Underground. They booed again at the mention of Rep. Barney Frank, a liberal from Massachusetts.

McCain spends most of his time at his rallies and town hall meetings lambasting his rival, often calling him a “co-conspirator” with congressional Democrats in what he argues are the seeds of the financial crisis at mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

[...]

At the town hall gathering here, McCain praised Harris for his “courage” in speaking his mind. But, heedful of the economic chaos gripping the country, McCain sought to steer away, at least briefly, from attacks on Obama’s character and integrity.

“Yes, I’ll do that,” he said of the request to “take it to” Obama. “But I also, my friends, want to address the greatest financial challenge of our lifetime with a positive plan for action that Senator Obama and I have. We need to restore hope and trust and confidence in America and have Americans know that our best days are ahead of us. That’s the future and strength and beauty of America.”

[...]

As the crowd filed out, several said they agreed with the man who said he was mad. Others went further.

“No, I’m not mad, I’m pissed,” said Joan Schmitz, who owns a plumbing company here. She said she was frustrated with polls showing Obama surging, McCain’s performance in a Tuesday night debate, Obama himself, the media, and the liberal group ACORN, which she said was registering voters fraudulently.

[...]

“I can’t stand to look at him, I don’t trust him. I don’t like the circle of friends he keeps, I don’t like his policies,” Schmitz said of Obama. “I’m pissed off by it. I’m beyond mad. How is he climbing up in the polls?”

[...]

McCain advisers dismissed the crowd’s angry tone as an exception and not representative of most of the campaign’s events. And they noted that those gathered seemed most upset by the media’s handling of the contest, and simply wanted McCain to be more aggressive.

I don’t have any problem at all with passion for one’s candidate.  But some of the shouts quoted above, as well as the “Kill him!” quote from earlier this week are over the top.  So is the unfortunate racism that’s been apparent at these rallies, hurling racial epithets against members of the media (as well as unbridled anger at the media itself, culminating in yelling at reporters present).

The McCain/Palin campaign has a responsibility to discourage this extreme behavior.  If they don’t, there could be blood on their hands.  The McCain campaign — and their surrogates and crowd warm-up speakers — know full well what they’re doing.  They’re trying to associate Obama with terrorism, by painting him as a close associate with William Ayres, someone Obama barely knows.  They’re also calling him Barack Hussein Obama.  (That’s fine.  That IS his name, after all.  But they’re using Hussein as an epithet.)  They’re also rhyming his name with Osama, trying again to make him seem un-American, to make him seem like he’s a terrorist. 

Even some Republicans think McCain is going too far.  From the Politico piece, linked above:

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.” 

From John Kerry’s Truth Fights Back site (h/t Ben Smith):

The reports are piling up of ugliness at the campaign rallies of John McCain and Sarah Palin. Audience members hurl insults and racial epithets, call out “Kill Him!” and “Off With His Head,” and yell “treason” when Senator Obama’s name is mentioned. I strongly condemn language like this which can only be described as hate-filled.

Kerry is right.  The language is hate-filled.  It’s frightening. 

That the McCain campaign isn’t discouraging this is tantamount to inciting a riot, or inciting something far worse.  It’s reprehensible on the part of McCain’s team.  It’s apparent that for the McCain campaign the “Country First” slogan that’s on their podiums is just a trite saying.  It’s also apparent that the McCain campaign needs to collectively take a breath and really take a look at what they’re doing.  It’s time for McCain to stop this disgrace, assuming he really does put his country first, and not his quest for power.

***

Slinging mud is part of campaigning.  It’s fine to throw some mud.  Everyone does it.  But this is going far, far beyond that.  Attack Obama on the issues, or on his philosophy.  Go negative if the issues aren’t winners for you.  (McCain’s already been doing that, of course.)  But if McCain doesn’t rein it in a little, something terrible may happen.  And that would be the end of the Republican Party.

I’m genuinely concerned.  I sincerely hope that the Secret Service is watching this and is working behind the scenes to make sure that nothing happens.  Beyond my concern for Obama, I’m concerned for the country.  A nation with this much hatred for a candidate is unhealthy.  I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised after 16 years of hyper partisanship.  But it’s time for healing.  Does anyone believe — I mean REALLY believe — that McCain is the guy to start some of that healing?

 

 

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“The Obama Nation”

I’ve hesitated to write about Jerome Corsi’s new book, The Obama Nation, because I don’t want to help him spread his vitriol.  Any publicity is good publicity, after all.  I decided, however, that my little blog was unlikely to cause him too much amplification beyond what’s already out there (I won’t link to the book or its author, however).

Jerome Corsi is the author who wrote the book Unfit for Command, which really did the damage to Kerry and helped with the Swift Boating of Kerry in 2004 — the ultimate dirty trick.  So that’s the kind of author we’re talking about here.  So he’s at it again, with his stated goal of “keeping Obama from being elected.”  And, of course, his views are being amplified over and over by right wing talk radio, and will — if Corsi has his way — become truth in the way that the Swift Boating of Kerry became truth.

From Eugene Robinson’s op-ed this morning:

Corsi’s new volume of vitriol, “The Obama Nation,” seeks to smear Obama as a “leftist” and add fuel to the false and discredited rumor that he is secretly a radical Muslim, or at least has “extensive connections to Islam.” The liberal Web site Media Matters has already demonstrated that the book is riddled with factual errors — for example, Corsi repeats the charge, thoroughly disproved, that Obama was in church for one of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s most incendiary sermons. But the point isn’t to tell the truth. The point is to repeat the lie and thus give it new life.

Corsi’s dirty work is more difficult this time because Obama has already written his life story in the autobiographical “Dreams From My Father.” Since he can’t reveal anything about Obama’s past, Corsi is reduced to reinterpretation — or, at times, invention.

Unfit for Publication - Obama Fights Back

Barack Obama is fighting back (Obama’s response — in .pdf — is linked in the photo to the left).  He can’t let this kind of garbage become truth in the voters’ minds.  That’s what happened to Kerry, who also is fighting back, on his site Truth Fights Back.

Kerry’s mistake in 2004 was that he didn’t fight back until it was too late.  By the time Kerry started to respond, it was too late and a decorated (for valor) Navy officer had his honorable service turned into a vulnerability against an opponent who hid in the Texas Air National Guard.  Kerry has learned from that error, as has the Obama campaign.

We have a fundamental right to free speech in this country.  It’s what allows for a free press, the right for bloggers to post about anything they want, the right to go make a speech someplace and say what you want.  The line, however, is crossed when someone yells, “Fire!” in a crowded theater, or if they are slanderous or libelous.  Smearing someone because you hope they’re not elected reeks of libel. 

I’m not saying Obama has suffered a tort and has a cause of action in court.  Political candidates have to expect some lies and some mud.  I think this kind of book is wrong, though.  It was wrong in 2004 when it was done to Kerry.  I’m not saying that Democrats’ hands are totally clean, but there’s a reason these kinds of smears are called Rovian politics.  It’s because they come from the right of the political spectrum — the Republicans.  What does that say about how they feel about their chances to win cleanly and honorably, despite their candidates assurances that it would be a clean campaign?

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