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Oct

7

Projecting “unknown quantity” meme from McCain/Palin campaign shows weakness


Does it strike anyone else as odd that the zingers being aimed at Barack Obama – specifically regarding what the McCain/Palin camp wants us to think we don’t know about him – are being shot by candidates who either can’t or won’t answer questions about issues like bankruptcy or the bailout at all themselves?  I’m not even going to go to the character questions of their medical records or religious affiliations that remain ignored.

First, from the Boston Globe, reporting on John McCain’s New Mexico stop yesterday:

“You need to know who you’re putting in the White House and where the candidate came from and what he or she believes,” McCain said at a rally yesterday in Albuquerque. “Who is the real Barack Obama?” he went on. “Ask such questions and all you get in response is another barrage of angry insults.”

Could you find a better example of projection?

McCain is running with a candidate whom many Americans never knew existed before August 29 and who has been cordoned off from us (read this report from TampaBay.com about how security wouldn’t let the press talk to supporters at a Palin Florida rally yesterday) for the last few weeks.  And although the litany of ways in which Governor Palin refuses to engage is too long to run through here, I’ll just offer some morning reading from the debate last week between Palin and Democratic ticket VP, Joe Biden.  In there, you can read the multiple times when Palin refuses to respond to moderator Gwen Ifill’s questions, particularly about bankruptcy and the dilemma of what promises the candidates might be unable to keep.

And yet the McCain/Palin campaign continues to wonder outloud to anyone who will listen, “Who is the real Barack Obama?”  Has it really never occurred that maybe they are the only ones who don’t get who he is?

Sigh. It’s one thing when a McCain aide tells to the New York Daily News that the candidates can’t talk about the economy for the next 28 days because otherwise they will lose.  But it’s another thing entirely when a campaign projects its abject inability and refusal to tell us what we need to know about their positions on the issues that most matter to us and then project that inability and refusal onto someone who has been campaigning openly for more than 19 months.

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By Jill Miller Zimon at 8:43 am October 7th, 2008 in Barack Obama, Debates, Economy, Joe Biden, John McCain, Media, Politics, Sarah Palin, Vice President, WH2008 

Comments

One Response to “Projecting “unknown quantity” meme from McCain/Palin campaign shows weakness”

  1. 1 Cynthia Samuels on October 7th, 2008 9:38 am

    I’m with you girl! And don’t forget the simply desperate guilt by association stuff about Ayers etc. When we were canvassing on Sunday a woman “undecided but leaning McCain” told us she was upset because Obama didn’t put his hand over his heart when he heard the national anthem. I know there’s something weird to that story and can’t remember what but to me it’s typical of the code word for “I need an excuse not to vote for a black guy” and it will continue. Scarborough called it “the Rovian tactic of pulling in every member of the base” by any means necessary and that’s what they will continue to do.

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