McCain Beats Obama Bloody Without Even Having To Lift A (North Vietnamese Torturer Broken) Hand -- Will Obama Save Himself From Himself?

[Obama spokesman Dan] Pfeiffer said. "It's extraordinary that someone who wants to be our president and our commander in chief doesn't know how to send an e-mail."
Well, I guess it depends on what you mean by "extraordinary." The reason he doesn't send email is that he can't use a keyboard because of the relentless beatings he received from the Viet Cong in service to our country. From the Boston Globe (March 4, 2000):

McCain gets emotional at the mention of military families needing food stamps or veterans lacking health care. The outrage comes from inside: McCain's severe war injuries prevent him from combing his hair, typing on a keyboard, or tying his shoes. Friends marvel at McCain's encyclopedic knowledge of sports. He's an avid fan - Ted Williams is his hero - but he can't raise his arm above his shoulder to throw a baseball.

Jonah Goldberg at The Corner on National Review discussing this foolish advertisement by Barack Obama.



There is plenty of evidence in the Goldberg post that McCain does use the internet but because of his injuries his wife does the typing for him.  He uses the internet with the mouse.

What makes it really bad is that when you attack a man for not using the internet or being able to send an Email because of injuries he sustained in the service of the country couldn't you at least spend 5 minutes on Google for the real story like many bloggers have done?  Who looks the fool now, Barack!

I hate to do this, but alas, not all is lost for team Obama.  Today is a perfect time for Obama’s own Sister Soulja moment. He could order that computer ad pulled, apologize directly for having placed it.

Considering how foolish and hateful it makes him seem and how much it distracts from the message in the second half it was a tactical mistake as well as a strategic mistake.

Reclaim the mantle of change and ‘new politics’ and only put ads on that proclaim what he will do. If he does it now he may be early enough to make McCains ads look petty if Obama never responds with anything but positive, “I will,” messages.

He would be locked in though — no negative replies at all.

That would be as bold a move as Palin was for McCain — for that reason he wont do it. He can’t face the screaming of the left and media.  The critters at Kos, DU, and the other fever swamps of the left have been demanding that Obama hit back and hit hard.


The flailing by team Obama is really beginning to show.  It's time a grown up stepped in to run that thing.  Remember, this is what he considers executive experience that qualifies him to be President.
DKK

Update: Ace notes that Forbes Magazine noted McCain’s disability in 2000, too:

In certain ways, McCain was a natural Web candidate. Chairman of the Senate Telecommunications Subcommittee and regarded as the U.S. Senate’s savviest technologist, McCain is an inveterate devotee of email. His nightly ritual is to read his email together with his wife, Cindy. The injuries he incurred as a Vietnam POW make it painful for McCain to type. Instead, he dictates responses that his wife types on a laptop. “She’s a whiz on the keyboard, and I’m so laborious,” McCain admits.

Confidence In Palin Pick -- Update Confirmation From McCain Camp

Many of the talking heads in Washington are not thrilled with Senator John McCain's choice of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin for his VP, but I have to say I think it is a very good move.

Some grouse that this removes the experience issue from McCain's quiver and that may in fact be true -- although this comparison by Red State of the Governor's record next to Obama's is somewhat devastating to the Senator.

 But here is the key;  In 2008 change trumps experience hands down.

The adds practically write themselves:

Open with the Hillary statement of McCain being qualified on day one and "Obama has a speech he gave in 2002"

Voice over -- that hot lady's voice (that hasn't been Palin all along has it?)
"One team has a record of "-- fill in the issues,  or "One Candidate picked a VP from outside The Washington system and she has a record of,"

• "Confronting and defeating corrupt political machines regardless of party affiliation."   -- Show some of the many headlines of Governor Palin addressing the corruption in her own party in Alaska and McCain addressing spending and corruption in Washington (Republicans spending like drunken sailers anyone)
  

Hillary's Voice over in the background slightly echo/muted  --
"And Senator Obama has a speech he gave in 2002" while showing headlines of his ties to Rezko and the corrupt Chicago Machine and his admission to the boneheaded move that he profited from, and his picking Biden who has been in the Senate since Palin was 9.

End with the, "don't hope for change, vote for it!" line or an even stronger line about one team with a proven track record of change.

Pick an issue -- you want change, one team has a record of accomplishing real meaningful change.  Hit the Maverick line hard, after all the press gave him the label, rub their noses in it!

Do an entire series hitting hard on energy policy,  foreign policy, and the economy, but throw in education, Obama's death of aborted babies argument, you  name it they can dig it up.

Gee' didn't Bill Clinton just propose this in his candidate X candidate Y scenario last week:

Suppose, for example, you’re a voter, and you have candidate X and you have candidate Y. Candidate X agrees with you on everything but you don’t think that person can deliver on anything. Candidate Y disagrees with you on half the issues, but you believe that, on the other half, the candidate will be able to deliver.

This is the kind of question that I predict - and this has nothing to do with what’s going on now - but I am just saying if you look at five, 10, 15 years from now, you may actually see this delivery issue become a serious issue in Democratic debates because it is so hard to figure out how to turn good intentions into real changes in the lives of the people we represent.

This type of attack would again put Obama on the defense and reduce the impact of the McCain/Bush talking point that Obama camp has been pushing so very hard.

As a matter of fact, here is another really good one that would put a huge dent in that meme:

Open with the Hillary statement of McCain being qualified on day one and "Obama has a speech he gave in 2002"

Voice over -- that hot lady's voice,

"One team has a proven record of fighting for the surge that was necessary for victory in Iraq," -- clippings or video of McCain's repeated calls for a surge.

Hillary's Voice over in the background slightly echo/muted  --
"And Senator Obama has a speech he gave in 2002" then show the interview of Obama saying his policies in Iraq were not much different then the Bush administration!


"Don't hope for change, vote for it -- McCain/Palin!" 

DKK

Update --

Last Sunday, 24 hours after Mr. Obama announced his running mate, Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, Mr. McCain met with his senior campaign team at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Phoenix. By then, campaign advisers said, the group had long decided that Mr. McCain’s “experience versus change” argument against Mr. Obama had run its course, to the extent that it had worked at all…
In any case, one campaign adviser said, Mr. McCain hated running as the wizened old hand of experience. Despite his embrace this year of President Bush and many of the administration’s policies, Mr. McCain, a campaign adviser said, still saw himself as the maverick who delighted in occasionally throwing political grenades at his own Party.

NYTimes via Hot Air
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McCain Picks Palin

Instapundit has a rundown on the early reactions.

It is quite interesting to me that I have yet to hear a Republican say the dreaded line I heard over and over for the last week about Biden, "I think Hillary would have been a better choice but Biden is ...."
DKK

Obama Spent As Much Just In Ads As McCain Spent Total For July -- Yet Poll Numbers Dropping -- The More You Know Him...

Barack Obama spent more on advertising last month than Republican rival John McCain spent on his campaign, new Federal Election Commission filings show.

Obama spent $57.2 million in July, including $33 million on advertising. McCain spent $32.4 million, with $18.7 million going for ads.

McCain entered August with slightly more money than Obama when funds in the bank accounts of the Republican and Democratic party committees are included.

DKK
Bloomberg

McCain Practices The Art Of War -- Obama Arrogance Opens Up Death By A Thousand Cuts

McCain is old!

We know he is old, he has admitted he is old, and he has even joked about it!   The comedians have told us how old he is, even the media has slipped it into their stories as sly comments when they don't outright state it.

McCain embraces his joke line!  It is a smart strategy similar to using the honey pot theory (understanding the Honey Pot Theory), sucking the comedians, media, and his opponent into a known flaw that most Americans don't consider a game ender.

Obama, either out of fear or out of arrogance, has gone out of his way to deny every single perceived error or flaw he may have.  Doing so makes it appear that he really thinks he is a perfect and flawless god.

He lost the ability to pick the laugh line -- how he was defined!  Democratic president candidates always make this same error, either out of fear of appearing less then perfect or, as it looks more and more every year, out of arrogance of actually believing their own press.  They refuse to allow any area open for attack by the Republicans thus opening all areas for attack.  Eventually some of the game changers actually do stick.

The comedians were short on material for jokes (while they had tons of old people jokes for McCain) leaving them struggling for something -- McCain gave it to them, Obama is an arrogant, empty 'celebrity'.

Because Obama is unable to laugh at himself, and because he was unwilling to embrace a benign flaw early, he set himself up for a death by a thousand cuts as everyone struggles for a way of describing him. 

He has appeared arrogant and has demonstrated that he has a glass jaw and in a weakened candidate who can't laugh at himself that often leads to unforced errors.

This has made him vulnerable to a knock out punch.  A punch at a time when he is vulnerable and lacking the ability to laugh it off because by that time doing so would be so out of his carefully crafted character that the general public won't believe a word of it.
DKK

Was Blair The First Obama Supporter In 1975 Or Are Obama-maniacs Saying 'Suck It'?

(I)f a Los Angeles creative agency gets its way, Sen. Barack Obama will see fans meet him with his own salute like the one above. "Our goal is to see a crowd of 75,000 people at Obama's nomination speech holding their hands above their heads, fingers laced together in support of a new direction for this country, a renewed hope, and acceptance of responsibility for our future," says Rick Husong,

Isn't that is just cult creepy and reminiscent of bad things in history?

That was a nasty gesture when I was in high school -- saying to the person it was aimed at to suck it! (As it is shown it would be as if someone up front were telling someone behind them to suck it).

However, I did find what could be one of the first photo's of Obama's O' sign from way back in 1975!  Former Prime Minister Tony Blair at college! 

Okay, maybe both Blair and Obama are just saying "Suck It," but I believe it is all for Obama man!
DKK
US News
Just One Minute -- Working for the big "O" 

Move On And The Far Left Really Are Ideologically Suicidal!

A series of new MoveOn.org radio advertisements looks like they could backfire, big-time.

The liberal group is up with ads against six House Republicans attacking them for their support of offshore drilling. Problem is: most of the targets represent energy-rich districts where drilling is viewed favorably, to put it mildly.

One target, Rep. Mike Conaway (R-Texas), represents a west Texas district where the discovery of oil in the 1940s created wealth throughout the region, and the energy industry has since dominated the region’s economy.
...
“We wholeheartedly endorse this colossal waste of funds,” said NRCC spokesman Ken Spain. “Not only is MoveOn.org’s anti-drilling position out of step with 70 percent of Americans, but a member like Mike Conaway who represents the Texas oil patch will probably see his approval rating surge upward as a result of these ads."

DKK
Politico -- The Scorecard

What McCain Needs To Do Next -- Rove Offers His Two Cents!

But to win, Mr. McCain must also make a compelling case for electing John McCain. Voters trust him on terrorism and Iraq and they see him as a patriot who puts country first. But they want to know for what purpose?

In the coming weeks, he needs to lay out a bold domestic reform program. He gave a taste on energy, but with a few missteps. He should appear in front of manufacturing plants where jobs depend on affordable energy, small businesses affected by fuel prices, and farms hurt by skyrocketing fertilizer costs -- and not in front of oil rigs. He needs to describe the consequences of specific domestic policy decisions. He must explain how his proposals on energy, health care, jobs and education will make a difference for ordinary families.

Mr. McCain also needs to elevate his arguments. It's not only that he opposes tax increases and Mr. Obama favors them. Mr. McCain must also make the principled case that there should be a limit to what government can take from its citizens. This argument will appeal to a large majority of voters. The top income tax rate is 35% and, according to the Tax Foundation, 89% of Americans believe that government should take no more than 30% from anyone's paycheck.

Go read the whole thing!
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WSJ -- Rove -- What McCain Should Do Next!

McCain Trusted More Then Obama On 9 Of 14 Key Issues, Gains On Obama On The Other 5

John McCain is now trusted more than Barack Obama on nine out of 14 electoral issues tracked by Rasmussen Reports. The latest national telephone surveys find that McCain has the biggest advantage on the war in Iraq, by a 51% to 39% margin.

Perhaps the most interesting finding of these polls is that McCain has expanded his leads on nearly every issue he had previously had the advantage on, while Obama’s leads have diminished over the past two weeks.

Iraq war, energy, immigration, national security, social security, federal budget,

The economy is the top issue for the majority of voters this election season. Voters have consistently trusted the Democratic Party more on this issue, but the two presidential candidates are tied at 45% as to who voters trust more. A week prior, Obama had a statistically insignificant one percentage point lead on the issue.

DKK
Rasmussen Reports

Obama's McCain/Oil Ad Bogus Says Factcheck.org

In his new TV ad in which he accuses Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., of being "in the pocket of big oil," Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, said that McCain's campaign took $2 million from "Big Oil."

"The truth is that McCain's campaign has received $1.33 million from individuals employed in the oil and gas industry, not $2 million," rules Factcheck.org. "We find the $2 million figure is based on a mistaken calculation."
Strange thing is that, as everyone might remember from the last time Obama tired to pull this stunt, oil companies can't legally donate money.  However that doesn't stop their employees from doing so and that is where this money is from.

ABC News Political Punch

But, as was also noted earlier, Obama has himself gotten funds from oil company employees:

Obama has taken $213,884 from the oil and gas industry as of Feb. 29th, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Sen. Hillary Clinton has taken $306,813 in that same period.

Two of Obama's campaign bundlers are also CEOs for oil and gas companies, per a list released on his campaign Web site.

Robert Cavnar, listed as a bundler who has raised between $50,000 to $100,000 for the campaign, is the chairman and CEO of Mission Resources Corp., a Houston-based firm. George Kaiser, also listed in the same $50,000 to $100,000 category, is the CEO of Tulsa-based Kaiser-Francis Oil Company."It's unfortunate that Senator Obama is using false advertising to explain why he can be trusted to do something about energy prices," Clinton spokesman Phil Singer said. "Senator Obama says he doesn't take campaign contributions from oil companies but the reality is that Exxon, Shell, and others are among his donors.

MSNBC -- Fact Check: Obama and Oil

As I have said before, he has the one strategy and it worked on Clinton -- hopefully McCain's team watched as Obama neutered the Clintons with racial charges, attacks on attacks (with attacks thrown in for good measure), and the systematic removal of all tools from the Clinton tool belt.
DKK

Executed Murderer's Last Words -- Vote Obama!

I'm not kidding:

Before he died Wednesday evening, death row inmate Dale Leo Bishop apologized to his victim’s family, thanked America and urged people to vote for Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.

This is the best endorsement he’s gotten since he picked up the William “Dollar Bill” Jefferson endorsement.

DKK
Patterico's Pontifications

Bloomberg To Endorse McCain?

Fox is reporting that NY City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is having a press conference later today where he will, "if not endorse John McCain he will strongly support him."

Nothing online yet.
DKK

Don't Hope For It, Vote For It

That is the tag line McCain is using on his ads and I like it.

Examples:

Don't hope for energy independence, vote for it!

Don't hope for change, vote for it!

DKK

McCain Pump Ad

I thought it was well thought out and powerful imagery.

Econopundit thought it was dumb to use a vintage gas pump, "suggesting McCain hasn't himself been physically present at a gas station in thirty years."

I disagree, from a marketing stand the gas pump used in the McCain ad conveys a message directly to the target audience, let's face it, McCain has little chance of getting the under 30 vote no matter what pump he uses.

However Americans in the heartland over 30 will recognize, and many will, as I did, flash back to when those pumps were used and recall the gas lines, shortages, and price increases that helped stagnate the country in the 70's.

Even if you weren't old enough to drive back then, I wasn't, those images were on the news and in documentaries and history books and they are a part of the imagery of the American collective conscience.

The chosen imagery works for it's intended purpose. I saw the ad this morning and can still visualize the pump in the water, alone, numbers rising and I still see the images of the 70's gas lines.
DKK

A Sign Of Durbin's Times!

In June I commuted for an hour and a half each way and learned what the radical increase in gas prices means. One day while stopped at a busy intersection, two demonstrators came out with signboards strapped to them. One said something like: Al Gore fell on his head at birth. Drill for oil now! The appearance of such demonstrators is a sign of the times.

John McCain for President and Steve Sauerberg for U.S. Senator from Illinois are calling for nuclear power as well as more domestic oil drilling. Meanwhile, Democrats Obama and Dick Durbin do nothing on drilling. Recently Obama appeared with Al Gore in a show of Democratic unity. It unites him with the excess environmentalism of the past, which has been a stumbling block of Democratic candidates.

Durbin has been in Washington for decades and had ample time to fix the oil crisis. Obama is backed by a lot of western state environmentalists, as opposed to the blue collar people who backed Hillary and who need gas for their jobs. The Democrats continue to have a disdain for the average voters who need gas for their jobs.

We need to get new leadership now. For a change, see www.johnmccain.com, and www.sauerberg2008.com.

James Thompson

Crystal Lake

DKK
Daily Herald Letters To The Editor

Via Steve Sauerberg for US Senate

How Was Don Manzullo's Telephone Town Hall On Gas Prices?

I don't know!

The machine that called my house must have thought I was a machine as it apologized for missing me and taunted me with a telephone town hall that I really would have loved to participate in.  Clearly a technological glich as Don's own voice was teasing and tempting me!

I called the Manzullo campaign office to see if I could join but no one answered there.

So, if you participated and have any new information that we would be interested in reading let us know.
DKK

Update:
By the way, this was the second time this has happened.  I think there is something with my phone or their system is tuned wrong.
DKK

Obama -- The Final Betrayal Of The Left? -- Iraq Policy Flip -- UPDATE, Obama Denies Any Change

 Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) on Thursday backed off his firm promise to withdraw combat forces from Iraq immediately and instead said he could “refine” his plan after his trip to Baghdad later this month.

Earlier, a top Obama adviser had said that the senator is not “wedded” to a specific timeline.

Obama told reporters in Fargo, N.D., that he is “going to do a thorough assessment." 

DKK
Politico -- Obama to 'refine' Iraq plan

Update -- The Obama camp denies this report and claims there has been no change in his policy, still set to withdraw within 16 months.

But that is not what his campaign said earlier in the day.  Patterico has the details of all 3 or 4 or 5 or... policy statements on this issue.  Is Obama's strategy to confuse the hell out of everyone then they can't attack anything?  He's still gonna get the votes, he figures.
DKK

Obama Approves Of Premptive Attacks -- On His Political Opponents That Is

Thus far, no one with any serious affiliation to John McCain’s campaign has resorted to the alleged “scare” tactics in which Republicans — and, apparently, only Republicans — have been perfecting since Richard Nixon was first elected. On the contrary, if the past few months have showed us anything, it’s that the Obama campaign is the one dealing in crude smears. … It’s curious how anyone could argue that a man with such visceral understanding of the capacity for what America’s enemies will do to our men and women in uniform doesn’t fully appreciate the cost of war. But even more troubling is the unmistakable pattern of these smears, all of them unsubtly alleging that McCain is an unhinged, mentally unstable warmonger who would deploy soldiers capriciously because he hasn’t truly experienced the horrors of ground battle. Indeed, the claims of these four men — and the short period of time in which they were all uttered — are so similar in tone that one would be foolish not to at least consider the possibility they were coordinated by the Obama campaign. Nevertheless, the fears of Obama supporters that their candidate lies eternally vulnerable to GOP smears exists only in their fevered imaginations. The evidence of dirty Republican tricks has been utterly absent this campaign season. And if anyone has tried to smear Barack Obama in the way that Thomas, Wolfe and other Democratic partisans allege, it was not the Republican National Committee, but rather Hillary Rodham Clinton and her surrogates. In February, the Drudge Report claimed that the Clinton campaign circulated photos of Obama in a traditional East African turban and robe, with the message that the images showed him “dressed.” Asked if there was any truth to the smear that Obama is a Muslim, she infamously replied, “As far as I know,” it wasn’t the case. After the Indiana and North Carolina primaries, she said the results showed that “Sen. Obama’s support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again.”

This is a part of the same overall strategy that beat Hillary. DKK Via Hot Air

Heh Indeed!

DEMOCRATIC ATTACKS ON MCCAIN'S MILITARY RECORD: "When Obama loses in November, these schmucks can look back at such tactics and pinpoint where it all started going downhill. These same people whine like little b---hes at the slightest criticism of Barack Obama. But they go right into the gutter when attacking John McCain."
UPDATE: With Wesley Clark, "we're a long way from George Marshall."
ANOTHER UPDATE: Heh:
The Saddest Thing About Barack Obama's Available Military Expertise...
...is that though he has Wes Clark in his corner, the only person he knows with the experience of getting a bomb on target is Bill Ayers.
Again, heh.

In 2004 the Democrats claimed Kerry's military experience mattered, in 1996 they claimed Dole's military experience didn't matter.  I sure wish they'd make up their minds.
DKK
Instapundit

Wow, That's A Responsive Campaign!

Just Monday I noted that Congressman Don Manzullo's campaign site was lacking even basic elements such as his bio as well as quickly accessible links to items such as Manzullo's energy plan.

Well, by Tuesday morning both of those items had been corrected. Now that is a responsive campaign! I'm sorry I wasn't able to mention it right when I noticed it Tuesday AM but I had to get to my specialist.

Having links to web based (non-pdf or word doc) information about policy and issues right on the front page and throughout campaign sites is a must for any campaign in 2008, pdf's and doc files are not web or mobile friendly as you are not always somewhere you can download the files.

Congressman Manzullo also has a presence on Youtube, here.
DKK