Really folks, does this even require comment? No? But it is fun, isn't it?What McCain needs to do is junk the whole thing and start over. Shut down the rapid responses, end the frantic e-mails, bench the spinning surrogates, stop putting up new TV and Internet ads every minute. In fact, pull all the ads -- they're doing no good anyway. Use that money for televised town halls and half-hour addresses in prime time.
And let McCain go back to what he's been good at in the past -- running as a cheerful, open and accessible candidate. Palin should follow suit. The two of them are attractive and competent politicians. They're happy warriors and good campaigners. Set them free.
Provide total media accessibility on their campaign planes and buses. Kick most of the aides off and send them out to swing states to work for the state coordinators on getting voters to the polls. Keep just a minimal staff to help organize the press conferences McCain and Palin should have at every stop and the TV interviews they should do at every location. Do town halls, do the Sunday TV shows, do talk radio -- and invite Obama and Biden to join them in some of these venues, on the ground that more joint appearances might restore civility and substance to the contest.
« Thug-Life Chronicles Continued... | Main | Same old race-baiters » If I were a conservative, I'd hate the media too...13 Oct 2008 11:05 am
...mostly because Bill Kristol is repping for me. Let's get this straight. Two weeks ago, Kristol argued that McCain's campaign suspension was a great move. Last week. Kristol endorsed Sarah Palin and the McCain people's strategy of taking the gloves off. After it failed miserably, Kristol concludes that McCain "should fire his campaign'
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Kristol is a McCain surrogate. You can tell by his erratic arguments.
The best part about this is surely that any significant change McCain makes will be painted as "erratic" by Obama. What a masterstroke that characterization has proven to be. Barack has got to be inside McCain's head at this point.
Is it too obvious to make a 'deck chairs on the Titanic' joke?
I am preparing for the bloodbath between the:
1) National Greatness Conservatives
2) Social Conservatives
3) Fiscal Conservatives
after the election.
Groups 1 and 2 had a pretty handy alliance there from 2002-2006, telling the 3s to shut up, don't you understand there's a war on, etc... but, in 2006, the 3s forgot to vote.
I suspect that they'll forget to vote again.
And we'll get to watch the 1s and 2s blame the loss on the 3s not showing up, and watch the 3s explain how they had no reason to show up and that's due to how the 1s and 2s treated the economy...
It makes me wonder what will happen, honestly. My musings, when typed out, read crazy so I won't bother you with them. But it does make me wonder about the future of Liberty. There ain't a party out there that seems to believe that any amendments exist, after the first one.
Hey, what does one expect from "Dan Quayle's Brain?"
The Kristol family exemplifies that "First time as tragedy, second time as farce" line. Little Billy is the biggest hack in the world. He's the kind of shameless political apologist and faux-intellectual who would have been totally comfortable as editor of Pravda.
The McCain campaign: Crazy like a fox. A rabid fox. Caught in a trap. Flailing uncontrollably.
Bill Kristol is hilarious all around. If you're ever bored and need a laugh, try reading his book about Iraq. Seriously. Dude's been a joke.
First off, McCain will NEVER fire Steve Schmidt: that would piss off the Dobson-Limbaugh-Palin base.
Bill Kristol says McCain should--now!--campaign on a "broadly centrist conservatism." Really?
Er, wasn't that what "compassionate conservatism" supposed to be before that bs slogan was dropped in favor of Christianist, fundamentalist government?
Who the hell is Kristol kidding?
What is he smoking?
Conservatives (whatever that word means), and Republicans will learn the hard way that they are on the wrong side of history in this election.
If Palin gets anywhere near the White House, the American experiment in "self-government" is over.
Both H.L. Mencken and George Orwell warned us about glib charlatan demagogues like Palin -- but in America, studying history is too much of a chore.
Hilarious.
It is apparently all a part of the rebranding effort they are pulling together this week- essentially they want to paint McCain as the underdog- since Americans love an underdog- and pul one off with him as the comeback kid instead of as angry old man.
We will see how that works. It could- stranger things have happened, although not usually this close to the election.
This is the biggest, most overt CYA move I've seen from a pundit this election. Hilarious. He's a joke. Just like Palin.
"do the Sunday TV shows, do talk radio -- and invite Obama and Biden to join them in some of these venues"
Is Krystol Meth back on the crack, or what? The Palin press conferences, Sunday TV shows, etc would keep SNL, Daily Show, Letterman in business for months!
And I guess bringing Obama/Biden along on their "tour of desperation" will prevent their loony supporters from showing up in their white hoods?
I read a blogpost on Bill Kristol's suggested change in strategy for the McCain campaign that described it as "pushing the 'reset' button on the campaign"
I guess the GOP really aren't that tech-savvy: someone forgot to remind them that you usually don't get the "reset" button until AFTER you see "GAME OVER" !
Is it at all possible that conservatives will finally stop listening to Bill Kristol after this election?
A quick highlight-reel of Bill Kristol's brilliant creations:
-Iraq War
-Sarah Palin
-Joe Lieberman
He did, however, accurately predict that Obama would win the dem primary. Way to go Bill!
Going through JMart's blog this morning, the timeline seems to be something like this:
1) Produce new dynamic policies to rally campaign around.
2) Produce new, less negative stump speech.
3) Policies are hard. No policies.
4) Ladies and gentlemen, it's a neeeeeew Stump Speech! Yay!
It's a pretty good speech, though it would be better if there was some sort of call for sacrifice in it rather than just a Churchillesque fight-fight-fight. But with no policies, we're back to changing the subject and hoping it goes away as economic policies, and I can't believe they think that will cut it. Yes, the buying mortgages at face value thing was rightly called stupid, but that should have spurred them to create non-stupid policies, not no policies.
I contend that hiring Bill Kristol is actually NYT evil plan to further diminish the relevance of conservative ideology in the public mind.
Why else would they choose someone who is so obviously a crap writer and a shrill political hack to represent conservatives on the pages of NYT?
It's the Brooks effect, I'm telling you. David Brooks made conservative ideology seems, if not acceptable, at least rational and sane. (He had his insane moments such as that brief flirtation with Sarah Palin, but otherwise he's usually ok for a conservative). So to counter this, NYT chose the most disreputable political hack they could find, someone who's entire career has been spend as a Republican party operative, whose only ideology is win at all costs.
My God, it would be like if NYT hires Michael Moore or James Carville to represent the left on the NYT op-page. I don't understand why conservatives are not rebelling at the selection of this guy. Are they not ashamed that Bill Kristol is chosen to represent their ideology?
A bit off topic but did anyone else notice the Bradley effect theme being pushed on CNN all weekend? Really, a few months back it was can Obama close the deal. Then the talk was he should be ahead by more. Now that he is consistently up 8 to 10 points apparently 4 percent of it is false? I understand caution but the constant skepticism towards his support is getting absurd. McCain is never expected to justify his status. How tiresome.
I had the same cognitive dissonance when I read this latest "column" as well. Now, Mccain should pivot to the great centrist leader after last week's pivot to all Ayers attack. I hope Mccain actually listens to this guy because we can guarantee a landslide Obama victory if he follows this advice. You can tell how much of a hack Kristol is by how poorly his own thoughts appear when he is trying to come up with a new idea. Unless he is following the script, he sounds as confused as Sarah Palin. Oh wait, maybe this is the script in which case the Mccain is in deeper trouble than I ever thought.
BTW, who is running Mccain's policy shop? Does he even have a shop or is it one guy (Eakin) scribbling down notes on the back of napkins.
Kristol OWNS Palin. That's his gal. That the NYTimes gave this clown a column is a reason THEY need to be bitchslapped.
I lost respect for Bill Kristol years ago when he was evangelizing the Administration's bogus case for war in Iraq. He's been proven wrong on every issue. In fact, I can't think of anything Bill has been right about since then. Why anybody would listen to Bill Kristol's advice is beyond me...
But McCain has. McCain didn't have the courage to run a centrist campaign because he didn't think he'd win. Kristol and others argued the same---he would have lost the base.
Maybe so, but at least that campaign would have supported the larger maverick theme, which was one of his best selling points with swing voters. And I would argue that the majority of the base would have rallied behind him eventually.
Instead, McCain hires the Rovians, chooses an ultra conservative veep who doesn't know shit from shinola, and hops from gimmick to gimmick in hopes of appealing to I don't-know-who. It's the biggest cluster f--- of a campaign I've ever seen.
Does Kristol actually run the McCain campaign? I feel as though they tend to do whatever he thinks they should do and when it turns out to be a really bad idea, Kristol criticizes it on Sunday. But by Monday, Kristol has a new idea for the next week and the McCain campaign seems to follow his lead, every time.
What Bill Kristol doesn't get (or else won't admit publicly, out of either McCain adoration or party loyalty) is that McCain's incompetent campaign is only a small piece of the problem. The more fundamental issue is that McCain himself is a very, very poor candidate. In certain ways, this is through no fault of his own (age or imprisonment are to blame), but the facts are: he's not particularly gifted intellectually; he doesn't speak well; he's not a vigorous presence; he looks his age and more. In short, he's fatally flawed, and always was, and this was bound to be laid bare over the course of an endless campaign (especially in contrast to Obama, who is, as Pat Buchanan would say, "a great political athlete).
I want to give William Kristol props for one thing: dude has the best shit-eating grin of anyone I've ever seen. It's amazing just how perfect that thing is. They ought to put his picture in Webster's next to "shit-eating grin."
Kristol is a tool...the times did not need to give him a Column...David Brooks I am sure ashamed of Kristol...talk about afirmative action...he got the job...because he is down with the editor...this may be the last election where Neo-Cons have a minor influence.
An honest question: Has Kristol ever been right about anything? Seriously, has he? It seems that every time he writes something it is either later proven to be false, or he has to write something else to change tack and suggest some other line of thinking which itself is later proven false. It's unbelieveable. Who takes this guy seriously?
Provide total media accessibility on their campaign planes and buses. Kick most of the aides off and send them out to swing states to work for the state coordinators on getting voters to the polls. Keep just a minimal staff to help organize the press conferences McCain and Palin should have at every stop and the TV interviews they should do at every location
I sort of agree with him on this point, though given McCain's mouth it is high risk. But doing nothing while you are down ten points is high risk as well. Also, I would imagine some of these aides have pretty big egos, not sure how much they would appreciate having to do grunt work.
For Kristol, if he gives enough advice, McCain can't possibly follow it all. Then the advice he didn't follow will become the reason McCain failed.
Six months ago, if you had told me that the Giuliani campaign would ever be surpassed in suckitude, I would have suggested that you'd lost your mind.
Agreed. Kristol is the biggest horse's ass on the planet. McCain should worry that the rats are deserting the ship at this point.
Now, having said that, I am going to ask that commenters try to excise the word "bitchslap" from their vocabularies. It is actually an offensive word, guys, appropriate only for the most egregiously misogynistic gangster rap.
Surely your vocabulary is larger than that.
TNC. I 'm hoping for your support here.
I'm afraid I have to agree with DougEFresh. On the face of it, there's actually nothing obviously wrong with Kristol's latest scheme. McRage is 10 points down, his last few gambles haven't paid off, and he needs to go all in to have a chance at the pot. What possible harm can it do to maximize his meager talents by going on tv and turn himself into the Happy Jokester, with a smokin' hot, snowbilly Minnie Pearl to amp up the folksy factor? What the hell, why not?
(That 'smokin' hot' business? That's for the hillbillies and rednecks that actually go in for that cleaned-up trailer trash look).
Here's the best part. According to a McCain surrogate, Kristol is now in the tank for Obama.
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/10/13/nancy-v-bill-kristol/
You are right lebecka. I've used it myself from time to time--but it's wrong, and I should drop it. I wouldn't delete anyone over it, but it should be dropped.
I call Kristol's plan the 13-Point Program to Destroy America since it seems like the sort of thing the Nation of Ulysses would propose. I break it down here:
http://wadcity.tumblr.com/post/54339770/bill-kristol-fire-the-campaign-mike-wad-fire-the
My favorite part is the line that McCain should offer a mea culpa about “the extent to which the presidential race has degenerated into a shouting match” because it fully captures McCain's tendency to apologize while refusing responsibility. McCain says he's sorry that things are ugly, but never acknowledges it's his fault. It's like calling someone's mom fat, then being told to apologize and answering, "I'm sorry your mom's fat."
Kristol sees the writing on the wall...it's over as far as the election is concerned. On November 5th Kristol can claim that..."if McCain had followed my advice and fired...he would be the President,etc." It's all Kristol has to try and salvage any credibility. The man is habitually wrong. When will the NYT give him the boot?