GOP heavyweights bailing on McCain campaign

[dhpgetsit]

Source: SFGate (San Fancisco Chronicle)

(10-24) 17:22 PDT (10-24) 17:22 PDT Washington - -- Republican nominee John McCain heads into the final week of a historic presidential election beset by a wave of high-profile GOP defections and the second-guessing and recriminations from ostensibly friendly quarters that losing campaigns attract like flies.

McCain still could pull out an upset on a last-minute wave of voter hesitation about Obama, much like Hillary Clinton came back in New Hampshire after the polls counted her out, but political professionals are putting their bets on McCain going back to Phoenix, not rising like one.

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell's broadside on Sunday was only the first of the recent GOP defections. The latest arrived Friday from former Republican Gov. William Weld of Massachusetts, who had endorsed Gov. Mitt Romney over McCain in the GOP primary. Now Weld endorses Obama, calling the Democrat "a once-in-a-lifetime candidate who will transform our politics and restore America's standing in the world."

On Thursday, former Republican Gov. Arne Carlson of Minnesota endorsed Obama and ripped McCain in an essay for the Minneapolis Star Tribune. Carlson said he saw in the Democrat "a remarkably disciplined and focused leader who has the potential to become a truly great president."


Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/10/24/MNU113NN0A.DTL&tsp=1

[sellitman]

1. To the greatest page with ya!

Bail baby, bail!!!!!!

[Trajan]

2. Barack Obama

"a remarkably disciplined and focused leader who has the potential to become a truly great president."

I could not have said it better .... THANKS Arne ....

[Phred42]

3. The RATS are leaving the Ship

Don't be think for a moment that they are not still rats

[Voice for Peace]

6. They're all realizing it can't be stolen? Or, Barack has inspired them to become better human beings

or both?

[greyghost]

8. Both... The bottom line is it will be to large a margin to steal and they

know it.

[Wabbajack_]

14. The aformentioned guys aren't exactly wingnuts

RINOs the freeps would call them. It's not really shocking.

[OrwellwasRight]

22. We should never think the margin will be too big for theft to happen.

Even machines that have a paper trail can go back and change your vote and also change the paper trail to prove it.

http://www.cs.ucsb.edu/%7Eseclab/projects/voting/#video

We just have to be committed to not sitting on our butts if theft does happen. And not believe any bullsh*t explanations like "oh, it was the Bradley effect."

[Honeycombe8]

17. They are not. That is old, partisan thinking.

You know, *-think. If the other side sees your side as individuals, and worthy of voting for, they are not the enemy. They are reasonable people who have a different philosophy.

To think the other side is anti-American, not "real" Americans, or evil, is the McSame/FailinPailin-thought.

[Kaleko]

4. At long last

this cognitive dissonance subsides and even Republicans are starting to make sense.

Jeez, what took y'all so long?

[tjwash]

5. HAH! I was a weak lily livered liberal BEFORE it was cool.

So there! Take that band wagon jumping conservatives.

[HughBeaumont]

7. "McCain still could pull out an upset on a last-minute wave of voter hesitation about Obama,"

Yeah. Just TRY it, fuckers. You want riots and shutdowns, just TRY it. You might have gotten away with it in your paper-slim Bewsh "elections", but a McCain win is beyond plausible and defies explanation at this point. A candidate with a consistent 8-10 point lead in most national polls doesn't lose in 24 hours unless theft is involved. NO WAY ON EARTH.

[greyghost]

9. There will be riots in the streets if they attempt to steal it. I

really believe that the margin will to to large for them to even try.

[Laelth]

10. Some Republicans still put country ahead of party. n/t

The United States is a LIBERAL Country.

:dem:

-Laelth

[NightOwwl]

11. This

"a once-in-a-lifetime candidate who will transform our politics and restore America's standing in the world."

[DeSwiss]

12. It's the "Palin Effect".....

...these are the kinds of Republicans who just can't bring themselves pull a lever that's puts Sarah Palin anywhere close to the WH.

- Whatever their other motives, I'll have to give them that much...




K&R!!!

[davsand]

33. I think there is a very real split in the GOP--the Fundies -v-Conservatives.

There has been a change in both the Dem party and in the GOP over the last few decades, and I think maybe this election cycle is highlighting it for the GOP. The Republican party used to be more about fiscal conservatism, and less about the whole "morality" of the nation.

Right now, there is a segment of the GOP that has been left completely horrified by the unabashed spending spree that we've seen for the last 8 years. They feel like The Asswipe and his cronies absolutely blew their party's opportunity to prove the merits of fiscal prudence. There is a fairly large group of disenfranchised GOP members out there, and I think THOSE are who a lot of these folks are that we are hearing from these days. McCain supported these spending policies and the fiscal conservatives did NOT want to see him as the Republican nominee.

Palin's choice as running mate was an added insult to the true conservatives. This woman had ZERO ability to discuss fiscal policy, and was, in fact, insulting to most of the honest to gosh conservatives who are less worried about social policies than they are about economics. McCain's running mate was nothing more than a suck up to the religious fundies in the GOP, and the real conservatives knew it and THAT pissed them off even more.

Obama scares hell out of the fiscal conservatives, but if you actually LOOK at what these recent bailouts have done to our nation, we have, essentially, socialized Wall Street already--and it happened on the GOP watch. Conservatives KNOW that, and they figure at least Obama is out front on a lot of this stuff--unlike some of their own party members. In many ways he is gonna be easier to fight against than their own party members--and the conservatives recognize that. they may not agree with him but they CAN sit down and talk to him--and they haven't even had that ability with their "own" guy.

YMMV, but I honestly think that Obama will be able to work with some of the more traditional conservatives once he assumes office. I've seen him do it here in Illinois--and he accomplished a lot--and I think he's bringing a lot more to the table than even some of the Dems here at DU realize.



Laura

[Torn_Scorned_Ignored]

13. a once-in-a-lifetime candidate

:kick:

[LiberalLovinLug]

15. How could he still be as close?

...with the past 8 years of the Bush years and its long list of crimes against the people and the Constitution. Starting with being asleep at the wheel on 9/11, lying us into war, and now the second Great Depression. And many other crimes in between those.

With McCain's blatant flip-flops on major issues like taxes, torture, and going so grossly negative in his campaign.

With his judgment about picking a corrupt, ignorant and mean-spirited rookie politician as his VP

How can he still be even within 10 points?

I think it is Rove, Cheney and all the rest and their plan early on to push for de-regulation and monopolizing in the media. Which they knew would lead to dominance for their extremist views on the daily air waves and push more moderate networks to the right. And after so many years of it, beginning in the 90's, Rove's plan, at least that part of it, is working just fine. It has created a mindset in most Americans cementing myths, the first being the myth of the "liberal media" even while networks turn right, of Big Government Liberals, when Bush has increased the size of Government more than any other Prez. , or that Republicans are the only ones that have God on their side, even though they cut programs to the poor at home and mass murdered millions of innocent people abroad. Or the myth that Conservatives are better at financial matters even though it was Clinton that left a huge surplus and Reagan, and the Bushes that increased the debt.

It is an uphill climb for Obama and the Dems, because now as the press is finally running at least SOME of the truth about McCain/Palin, they then are naturally seen as heading left by such a conditioned audience. And so because they have been brainwashed to distrust anything "left wing", they distrust the news media proportionately to the amount of unintentional or intentional damage done, that is simply reported, to the McCain camp.

It's frustrating but if any President can re-establish a yearning for the truth and deprogram Americans it is Obama. So I have hope. But it will take years. The first thing he should do is re-introduce the Fairness Doctrine.

[tclambert]

16. I would like to see it go beyond a fairness doctrine

We need an independent press. We need news media NOT owned by larger corporate interests. Corporate ownership turns them into in-house newsletters. How many times have we heard of TV networks reluctant to run with a story that might embarrass their own corporate headquarters? The Russell Crowe movie The Insider told how "60 Minutes," a legend in the news business, chickened out on a story because it might hurt CBS's corporate masters.

And we need anti-trust action against media empires that grow too large. By which, of course, I mean Rupert Murdoch.

[Alcibiades]

28. So many on their side simply would never consider

voting for a Democrat, any Democrat. They have been brainwashed. That's why it's still close.

It could well be, though, that Obama may win by a 15-point margin. That wouldn't be too close.

[Festivito]

18. Bad side: Solidifies RW base, adds to meme of too many Dems.

Voters have a sensibility that will lead them to split their votes, voting for Obama and a Publican Congress-critter, or a Dem congress-critter and, God fobid, McNane.

A story like this also hurts us. As for one who sees the Publicans as thieves, I want their party GONE leaving us to fight with greens and such.

[MrModerate]

25. Disagree. While people buy into the concept of "divided government" . . .

When they get into the voting booth, they tend to vote one person/issue at a time. How can they tell how many reps and sens from other states are going to win/lose and hence be sure their vote contributes to "divided government?"

Naaah -- it they prefer the guy/gal, they'll vote for 'em. And let the chips fall where they may.

That's my take on human behavior, voting-booth-wise.

[Festivito]

27. They don't need to tell how many...

They can just take one of those races they do not know well and split their ticket there. With their logic they'll be more certain that they like that person better for that job as their reasoning includes dividing party's control.

And the perception that Dems are taking too much, that the GOP is waning to far, pushes that logical feeling.

[progressoid]

19. Add 'em to the list!

[crossroads]

20. You betcha... k&r

[crossroads]

21. You betcha they are... k&r

[HopeFor2006]

23. Couldn't happen to a "nicer" guy

[palmertracker]

24. I won't be voting for anybody resembling a Republican for years to come after what they've

done to this country. And the people who enabled them who are now jumping on the Obama bandwagon are looking for redemption (no doubt) but I'm struggling to understand what took them so long to come forward. Did they have to believe a Dem would get the white house with super-majorities in the senate and congress was the sure-shot power in the country before they could jump on and ride? To Powell and the others, I wish you had have redeemed yourselves when your first knew the error of your ways. That would have made these endorsements soar. That they waited this late only says they don't want to be left behind.

[RainDog]

26. I think these republicans realize the talibornagains have too much power

at a crucial, crucial time.

I also think that our nation and THE ENTIRE WORLD have catastrophic economic problems to deal with and we need someone who is not a brain dead ideologue to be able to create working solutions.

I think we're going to need something along the lines of the new deal because we need to rebuild infrastructure and create new energy industries.

No one with a sane brain in her/his body thinks that Palin and the talibornagains have the intelligence to deal with the current problems we face. We're fortunate that someone who appears to be so calm and circumspect offers us a way to envision a future.

It's too bad the right wing is so blind. They are outside of history, or rather, on the wrong side of history.

[Alcibiades]

29. That's true

I was thinking about Romney today, and how much better he would have been for them, but also how so many simply wrote him off for being the "wrong" religion.

Maybe he'll come out for Obama, too? Doubt it, b/c he wants to run in 4 years. It does raise the question, though, that if liberals, city dwellers, blacks, Hispanics, gays, Mormons, Catholics and educated people are all bad, whose votes do they think they will win elections with?

[Alcibiades]

30. I bet they have more

It's not that these folks are only now endorsing. They made up their minds a long time ago, and are now being rolled out by the Obama campaign, just as they did with the superdelegates in the primary.

[PatSeg]

31. So many people have just been waiting

for a leader who really inspired them. In that respect, Obama has truly crossed the aisle.

We are living in a historical moment! Pay attention, you don't want to miss anything.

[LatteLibertine]

32. This vid made me think of the Republican party

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8v3GYcs6n0