Howard Dean made some interesting comments about McCain on AAR yesterday.

madfloridian

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Sun Nov-02-08 10:42 PM
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Howard Dean made some interesting comments about McCain on AAR yesterday.

Edited on Sun Nov-02-08 11:16 PM by madfloridian

I always miss that show, XM keeps changing times...and I don't listen a lot on Saturdays. It was on 7 Days in America, and I wish I would remember to listen.

The interview was with Mark Green, and the statements Dean made about John McCain were very interesting. I have heard many people locally say it about McCain.

From The Huffington Post:

7 Days in America, Interview with Howard Dean, November 1, 2008

Audio of the whole show is up at the link also.

GREEN: If McCain had run in 2008 more like the independent-moderate maverick of 2000, would he have been more competitive?

DEAN: Yes, I do, and I'll tell you why. First of all, I think someone running from the far right is not particularly attractive. But the real John McCain, I've concluded after watching him for all these years, is the John McCain of 2000, not the John McCain of 2008. I think an awful lot of supporters of John McCain in 2000 will not vote for him in 2008. And I don't even think he's comfortable doing what he's doing, and that comes out in the campaign appearances: he just doesn't appear to be comfortable, because it's not who he is. I think it was a terrible mistake that was made because the disciples of Karl Rove and George Bush are running the campaign. What they've done is to poison the American political well, and unfortunately I think that John McCain has been the victim of that poisoning.

The Rove people took over the McCain campaign in July of this year, and the whole mood of the campaign changed for the worse.

There were also some other interesting comments made in the interview.

GREEN: After all the kvetching about Jews and Obama, what do you think of polls now predicting that while Kerry won 77% of the Jewish vote in 2004, Obama is on track to get 75%?

DEAN: That is not the least bit surprising. You know, I'll tell you, as someone who has "married into the tribe," as they say...the reason that American Jews vote for Democrats has nothing to do with Israel. It has everything to do with what makes a Jew in America. These are folks who emigrated from lands where most of the time they were persecuted - I'm not talking just about the people who came over because of Hitler, I'm talking about the people who came over before that because of pogroms in the Ukraine, or Russia. They have such a community-based view of what we owe each other as people; this is a very community-minded group, and that's why they vote Democratic. And the Republicans, always, every year, "Oh my God, the Democrats aren't going to get the Jewish vote because of Israel!" First of all, the Democrats are just as pro-Israel as the Republicans are. But secondly, the Democratic values are core values in the Jewish community, and that is why we always end up with between 70% and 80% of the Jewish vote.

He also made some statements on the one-party rule fear mongering the GOP has been doing. He has said the same thing in other interviews.

GREEN: McCain/Palin at this 11th hour are warning against one-party control of the federal government, using Obama-Reid-Pelosi as a kind of Holloween hobgoblin. Can this work?

DEAN: What you've got here is a party that did have one-party government for six years, and they were a disaster. They didn't do anything right: they couldn't balance the budget, they messed up Katrina, they got us into a war.... So then, you had two years of divided government, when we took back the House and the Senate, and what did the Republicans do? They used their blocking minority in the Senate - and they said this - to make the Democrats look bad. Well, if that's what you're going to do with divided party rule, then you shouldn't have it. So what my pitch is, look, give us a chance. We've had one-party rule on the Republican side and it was awful. And now, give us a chance. You know, there's an election with a third of the Senate up for election two years from now, so if we don't do what you want, you can get rid of us. But give us a chance to rebuild America.

Good way to put it...give us a chance to fix things. Vote us out if we don't do it.

I agree with Dean that John McCain looks uncomfortable. I am more inclined to think he really has changed that much, though. If he had not become such a man of the party, he would have had the courage to resist choosing Sarah Palin. There must have been some other choice, but he caved in.