October 13, 2008

10/13: When Supporters Become The Story

Last week we observed that liberal bloggers were buzzing about the hostile tone of recent John McCain events, in which angry GOPers were denouncing Barack Obama as a "terrorist" and a "traitor." Now conservative bloggers are pushing back, arguing that the media is focusing on a few over-the-top McCain supporters in order to make the GOP look bad. Michelle Malkin complains: "The Obamedia is attempting to set yet another false narrative: The narrative of the McCain 'mob'."

Liberal bloggers, on the other hand, are appalled by what they perceive to be the ugly sentiments being expressed at McCain events. They're accusing the McCain camp of encouraging their supporters to fear Obama by portraying him as a terrorist sympathizer (e.g., by comparing him to Osama bin Laden). They're arguing that it's natural for GOP voters to view Obama as dangerous figure when McCain surrogates portray him in such a scary light.

Liberal bloggers were also decidedly unimpressed by McCain's efforts to tamp down the fury of his supporters. They believe that McCain only spoke out because he was afraid that the visceral anger of some of his supporters was turning off swing voters.

MCCAIN: Fear And Loathing On The Right

Liberal bloggers are denouncing the hostile tone of McCain's recent events:

• Firedoglake's Eli: "This is getting really disturbing. Every day, John McCain and Sarah Palin stir up more and more violent hatred at their public appearances. As they hammer relentlessly at Obama's supposed connection with William Ayers, their audiences shout 'Socialist!', 'Kill him!', 'Traitor!', 'Treason!', 'Terrorist!', 'Off with his head!', and 'Bomb Obama!' [...] For the most part, both candidates have completely ignored these yawps from the Republican id, with McCain making pleas for decency only in response to direct questions...and getting booed by his own supporters when he does. The Republican base is getting bolder and meaner, and McCain and Palin are either deliberately inflaming the situation, or have lost control of it, afraid to antagonize their own mob."
• AMERICAblog's John Aravosis: "John McCain and Sarah Palin should be very proud of the modern Republican party they've helped to create. The GOP has for years been a party far too cozy with hate and intolerance -- with racists, anti-Semites, gay-bashers, and religious extremists -- that's why many of us left the Republican party years ago. And now John McCain and Sarah Palin, in a last-ditch effort to win at any cost, have whipped up calls for violence against their opponent that we've never seen in an election season that I can recall. Repeated calls at Palin/McCain rallies, and at election events around the country, for Obama to be assassinated. That'll go over well with women and independents. And the Republicans wonder why more and more people are fleeing their party."
• Mother Jones' Kevin Drum: "The danger here is not mobs of violent Republicans marching through the streets. The danger is that John McCain is setting us up for a repeat of the 90s, an era that conservatives to this day have never been willing to come to grips with. If the looney-bin right decides to treat President Obama as not just an opposition leader, but as a virtual enemy of the state, as they did with Bill Clinton, it's going to be a very, very long eight years. Whatever grownups are left in conservative-land really need to step up to the plate soon before their movement goes even further off the rails than it already is."

Liberal bloggers are also accusing McCain and Palin of encouraging their supporters to fear Obama by portraying him as a terrorist sympathizer:

• The Atlantic's Ta-Nehisi Coates: "I don't think pushing the Ayers line is so bad, as in, arguing that Ayers is a despicable guy who Obama didn't distance himself from. I don't buy that line, but I'm not supposed to, I'm an Obama supporter. But when you start accusing homeboy of 'palling around with terrorists,' you've gone too far. Think about it logically -- terrorists caused 9/11. And we basically believe that they are worthy of death. From that perspective, what do we think should happen to people who are friends with them? From that perspective, what do we think should happen to Barack Obama? Think there aren't some crazies out there who are connecting those same dots? These guys need to watch what they say."
• Mark Kleiman: "The country has been told that we're at war with terrorists. Identifying a political opponent -- especially one likely to be President soon -- with the national enemy amounts to an accusation of treason. The penalty for treason is death. Are there people out there crazy enough to act on that line of reasoning? Of course there are."

MCCAIN II: A Media Creation?

Conservative bloggers are disputing the notion that McCain supporters are excessively angry. They're accusing the media of holding McCain to a different standard than Obama:

• Malkin: "The Obamedia is attempting to set yet another false narrative: The narrative of the McCain 'mob.' McCain-Palin rallies are out of control, they wheedle. Conservatives are mad! They're yelling mean things about Obama and calling him names! It's scaaaaary!"
• Power Line's John Hinderaker: "You have to hand it to the mainstream media: they are utterly shameless in their effort to hand this year's election to Barack Obama. The latest MSM theme is 'Republican rage.' Supposedly, Republicans have become dangerously angry; the evidence is mostly that at McCain/Palin rallies, Barack Obama is sometimes booed! Wow. How deranged can you get? Of course, John McCain gets booed at Obama rallies, too. But that's different: McCain deserves to be booed. When Republicans boo the reporters' beloved Barack, that's an entirely different phenomenon."
• Glenn Reynolds: "So we've had nearly 8 years of lefty assassination fantasies about George W. Bush, and Bill Ayers' bombing campaign is explained away as a consequence of him having just felt so strongly about social justice, but a few people yell things at McCain rallies and suddenly it's a sign that anger is out of control in American politics? It's nice of McCain to try to tamp that down, and James Taranto sounds a proper cautionary note -- but, please, can we also note the staggering level of hypocrisy here? [...] The Angry Left has gotten away with all sorts of beyond-the-pale behavior throughout the Bush Administration. The double standards involved -- particularly on the part of the press -- are what are feeding this anger."
• AmSpec Blog's Philip Klein: "Without any sense of irony, the media has created a new narrative that the McCain campaign's sharp attacks on Obama are to blame for inciting every angry and misinformed crank at their rallies. So let's just get this straight. When Louis Farrakhan praised Obama as the Messiah and Hamas endorsed Obama as the second coming of JFK, the argument was that he can't be responsible for all of his supporters. When questions are raised about Obama's close 20-year relationship with racist pastor Jeremiah Wright, his personal friendship with former PLO spokesman and leading anti-Israel professor Rashid Khalidi, business dealings with convicted felon Tony Rezko, and ties to unrepentant terrorist Bill Ayers, we're told it's an unfair attempt to establish 'guilt by association.' With Obama, all that matters is whatever he is currently saying. Yet when an angry dude grabs a microphone at a McCain town hall and says he's scared of Obama, and [an] old woman says Obama's an Arab, it tells you all you need to know about McCain -- even though McCain himself immediately condemns them and defends Obama."
• NRO's Mark Levin: "So, a couple of idiots at a McCain-Palin rally apparently called Obama an Arab or a terrorist, and the entire McCain campaign, Republican base, or whatever, are said to be fomenting racism. And McCain and his advisers are so easily intimidated that they waste 48 precious campaign hours defending themselves against something they have not done. I received a call on my radio show last week from an Obama supporter accusing President Bush and John McCain of being terrorists and mass murderers. And these kind of calls have actually been going on since the beginning of the Iraq war. And in this regard my show is not unique. Yet, where is the outrage? There is none. And are Obama and his campaign responsible for the latest of these outbursts? Come on! What a crock."

MCCAIN III: Stay Classy, VA GOP!

Liberal bloggers were appalled after VA GOP Chairman Jeffrey Frederick compared Obama to Osama bin Laden:

"[Frederick] climbed atop a folding chair to give 30 campaign volunteers who were about to go canvassing door to door their talking points -- for instance, the connection between Barack Obama and Osama bin Laden: 'Both have friends that bombed the Pentagon,' he said. 'That is scary.' It is also not exactly true -- though that distorted reference to Obama's controversial association with William Ayers, a former 60s radical, was enough to get the volunteers stoked. 'And he won't salute the flag,' one woman added, repeating another myth about Obama. She was quickly topped by a man who called out, 'We don't even know where Senator Obama was really born.' Actually, we do; it's Hawaii."

Frederick stood by his remarks, even though the McCain camp called them "not appropriate." Liberal bloggers are disgusted:

• Salon's Glenn Greenwald: "Here is the top Republican official for the State of Virginia comparing Obama to Osama bin Laden and provoking claims that he hates the flag and isn't really even American. The raw tribalism and resentments that are being stoked here, and the pure hatred against Obama based on his Terroristic Foreignness, is unprecedentedly ugly and dangerous, and reporters who dismiss and minimize it all through false equivalencies and other justifications are doing nothing less than aiding and abetting it."
• Firedoglake's Teddy Partridge: "Senator McCain, if you'd still like to keep up the fiction that yours is a respectful campaign and that you believe Senator Obama is a decent family man and citizen, you'd better stop TIME's Karen Tumulty from writing down what Virginia state GOP chairman Jeffrey M Frederick says as he briefs your volunteer canvassers -- and what the volunteers say to each other."
• Raising Kaine's Lowell Feld: "This wasn't some offhand remark by Frederick; he said it knowing that a reporter from TIME MAGAZINE was in the room taking notes for a story! Imagine what he says when the media isn't present?!?"

Several liberal bloggers are arguing that Frederick's comments undermine McCain adviser Mark Salter's complaint that the media is holding the McCain camp "responsible for the occasional nut who shows up and yells something about Barack Obama":

• Think Progress' Matthew Yglesias: "Jeffrey M. Frederick isn't some random yahoo or blog commenter. He's the Chairman of the Virginia Republican Party. [...] Occasional nut, head of the state party, whatever."
• The Washington Monthly's Steve Benen: "Let's be absolutely clear: the 'occasional nuts' are running the Republican Party."

MCCAIN IV: You Reap What You Sow

Liberal bloggers were unimpressed by McCain's efforts to tamp down the anger of his supporters:

• TPM's Josh Marshall: "This afternoon on the campaign trail, John McCain began dialing back (or began trying to appear to be dialing back) the rising tide of hatred and verbal violence he and his running mate have been whipping up over recent weeks. After all we've seen over recent months, I think it would naive to conclude that McCain did this for any other reason but that the attacks appeared to be backfiring. [...] McCain has really gotten himself into a hole because the campaign he's been running has almost entirely been premised on the claim that you should be scared of an Obama presidency. Not that McCain, if he'd run a very different campaign, couldn't have run on issue disagreements with Obama. But right now if you take away fear of Obama becoming president, there's almost no reason not to vote for him since McCain has basically conceded the issue agenda to Obama."
• Benen: "Obviously, I'm not going to criticize McCain for having done the right thing. It was overdue, but welcome nevertheless. But under the circumstances, it's not unreasonable to wonder what brought about this rather dramatic change of heart. Some might be inclined to think McCain reflected on what his campaign has become, and felt regret. [...] Then there's the other possible explanation: inciting rage was a political loser. McCain set this fire deliberately, but discovered that he was the one getting burned as observers from across the spectrum were repulsed by the campaign's tactics. More and more news outlets were focusing less on McCain and more on his tolerance for unhinged and hysterical and attacks."
• Ezra Klein: "McCain deserves real credit for staging a public intervention against the partisanship of his own base. But it's not an easy position he's in. If his vice president is going to continue telling audiences that Obama sees 'America as imperfect enough to pal around with terrorists who would bomb their own country,' and if McCain is going to continue funding ads that say 'Obama worked with [a] domestic terrorist,' then the occasional calming word during a townhall is a tinny counterweight. When McCain's supporters call Obama a danger, they're drawing the only logical conclusion from their candidate's rhetoric. A president who supports terrorist attacks against this country would indeed be a danger. That McCain makes that case, then tries to calm the firestorm by saying Obama is a 'decent man' is unlikely to change their minds. They'll just believe him to be bowing to the pressures of the liberal media. McCain should either end the rhetoric producing these fears or accept his role as the instigator. But he cannot be both the cause of, and solution to, the problem."
• MyDD's Todd Beeton: "John McCain seems to be realizing the monster he has created and appears to be trying to undo some of the damage. [...Now] McCain keeps getting booed at his own events for defending Obama. Reap what you sow, my friend."

MCCAIN V: You Can't Win A War With One Hand Tied Behind Your Back!

Several conservative bloggers are criticizing McCain for not being sufficiently willing to attack Obama's character and personal associations:

• Malkin: "As I said on Fox and Friends this morning, [McCain] needs to embrace his own advice and ditch the Hello Kitty mittens. How are we supposed to take his call to arms seriously when he continues to shush conservatives (reminder that this is Mr. 'Calm Down' we're talking about) and tell his supporters that we have nothing to fear from an Obama presidency? [...] It's a hell of a lot easier to 'Fight for what's right for America' when your candidate leaves the toddler leashes at home."
• Hot Air's Allahpundit: "McCain wants to win the election but doesn't seem to have the stomach to get truly nasty, so he compromises by bringing up Ayers but not pressing the issue too much. Gotta commit one way or another, champ."
• Townhall's Matt Lewis: "After the second presidential debate passed without John McCain mentioning the name of Bill Ayers, Barack Obama noted that McCain, 'wasn't willing to say it to my face.' Of course, the Townhall format was not particularly conducive to such controversy. Still, McCain's omission felt odd -- inasmuch as the McCain campaign had frequently referenced Ayers during the runup to the debate. Presidential candidates typically delegate such attacks to surrogates -- while they stay safely above the fray. In 2004, it was outside groups who performed this function for both sides. Unfortunately for McCain, though, Obama has more money -- and there is no 'Swift Boat' cavalry to rescue Republicans this cycle. And time is dwindling. And the economy is the big news. And the media isn't helping him. [...] And so, it seems reasonable he should put all the cards on the table for this one last debate. Wednesday night is huge. Of course, going after Obama personally is risky -- and could backfire. In the short-term, voters could punish him for 'going negative.' But candidates who are down in the polls don't have the luxury of playing it safe."
• NRO's Jim Geraghty: "In the end, we may conclude that for a Republican candidate to overcome this tough campaigning environment, he or she has to be A) extremely comfortable talking about complicated problems in the credit markets and how to fix them, in ways that will resonate with Americans who don't follow the markets and B) simultaneously comfortable making criticisms of his opponent that the MSM will scream are completely out of bounds. We've seen some movements in this direction, but it is not yet clear that John McCain has this in him."

The Next Right's Soren Dayton disagrees, arguing that McCain should maintain a positive message while leaving the character attacks to surrogates: "Once McCain has articulated a credible position on the economy, outside groups need to attack on Ayers, Wright, and all the other cultural symbols that will alienate voters from Obama. [...] Outsiders are necessary as surrogates to provide either defense or attack. McCain needs to be articulating his positive message for America and other people need to providing defense of that and attack on Obama's policies. At the same time, outside groups need to be dismantling Obama's personal image and narrative."

ACORN: The Latest Right-Wing Boogeyman?

Liberal bloggers are aggressively pushing back against GOP attacks on the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN. Many are arguing that the GOP has ugly motives for attacking ACORN:

• Marshall: "The Republican party is grasping on to the ACORN story as a way to delegitimize what now looks like the probable outcome of the November election. It is also a way to stoke the paranoia of their base, lay the groundwork for legal challenges of close outcomes in various states and promote new legal restrictions on legitimate voting by lower income voters and minorities. The big picture is that these claims of 'voter fraud' are themselves a fraud, a tool to aid in suppressing Democratic voter turnout. [...] Vote registration fraud is a limited and relatively minor problem in the US today. But it is principally an administrative and efficiency issue. It is has little or nothing to do with people casting illegitimate votes to affect an actual election. That's the key. What you're hearing right now from Fox News, the New York Post, John Fund and the rest of the right-wing bamboozlement chorus is a just another effort to exploit, confuse and lie in an effort to put more severe restrictions on legitimate voting and lay the groundwork to steal elections. It's that simple."
• Firedoglake's Ari: "The rightwing echo chamber's ability to turnout boogiemen always astounds me. In 2004 it was George Soros, now its ACORN. If any conservative tells you this campaign against ACORN is about 'voter fraud', they are either lying, ill informed, or just plain stupid. [...] This campaign is about race, plane and simple. ACORN is helping minorities to vote -- and guess what, that scares Republicans. Politically they fear losing elections, but this is about something much deeper."
• Yglesias: "To repeat what I wrote before, what's always missing from these allegations of voter fraud is instances of fraudulent votes being cast. But if conservatives are really concerned about the integrity of the registration process, the thing to do would be to make registration much simpler and easier. With same-day voter registration, for example, there's little need to mount registration drives at all. Everything just becomes standard get-out-the-vote."

ACORN II: You Can Register Mickey Mouse, But You Can't Make Him Vote

Lefty bloggers are also emphasizing the difference between registration fraud and voter fraud (the latter of which is rare):

• Daily Kos' georgia10: "What is occurring (and what isn't unique to this election) is isolated incidents of voter registration fraud. Fraud is also being committed on ACORN, an organization that is being tricked into paying volunteers for these fake registrations (clarification: ACORN pays its volunteers by the hour, not per registration). Voter fraud has not occurred. Mickey Mouse [will not] show up to vote, even if he did 'fill out' a registration form. And if someone registered more than once? They can only vote once at the polling booth once their name is checked off. But pesky facts like that mean little to certain Republicans who see McCain's plunging numbers and who are looking for any reason -- other than the failure of conservatism -- to blame for a possible crushing electoral defeat."
• Open Left's Paul Rosenberg: "(1) Registration fraud is not the same as voter fraud. Registration fraud, if not caught, produces phony names on voter roles, nothing more. Voter fraud produces illegal votes. Both are and should be illegal, but they are two entirely diffrent things. (2) The perpetrators of registration fraud are overwhelmingly -- if not exclusively -- the employees of organizations like ACORN. The primary victims of registration fraud are those same organizations, who are paying for honest work that is not being done. (3) There is virtually no evidence of any voter fraud in the US in recent years, despite the best efforts of the Bush Administration to dig up such evidence."
• MyDD's Josh Orton: "The voter registration issues involving ACORN are not the same as voter fraud itself. In Las Vegas, for example, reports surfaced that ACORN submitted voter registrations listing the names of the Dallas Cowboys. But that doesn't mean someone's going to voting fraudulently even if the right-wing media implies so. It just means there may be faulty registrations that are never touched. Contrary to the implication, the Dallas Cowboys will not be voting in Clark County."

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Is McCain Willing To Do What It Takes?

Geraghty criticizes McCain's strategy:

"...When a guy keeps reiterating that he would rather lose an election than lose a war, and that he wants to win in 'the best way, not the worst way', it's easy to conclude there are certain things he's just not willing to do to win. There are two problems with this approach. One, is that it seems McCain -- and notice I say the candidate, not the campaign -- is more or less assenting to the MSM's view of what is in bounds and what is out of bounds in terms of relevance and good taste in this campaign. The MSM thinks that Ayers, Wright, Rezko, the theme of the 'Celebrity' ad, ACORN voter fraud efforts, the Democrats' blind eye to the mismanagement of Fannie and Freddie, and basically any other story that might actually harm Obama's standing in the polls is out of bounds.

The second problem is that it's tough to dabble in the controversial topics. (And I understand the argument that many voters only pay attention in the final month, but when you bring up Ayers, etc. with four or five weeks to go, when you're behind, it is a near-guarantee that the strategy will be painted as a desperation move.) You either have to insist that the whole lot of Obama's associates -- Ayers, Dohrn, Wright, Meeks, Pfleger, Rezko, Nadhmi Auchi, Rashid Khalidi, Alexi Giannoulias -- are revealing about the candidate's character, judgment, and worthy of discussion, and defend that argument full-throatedly...or you can't go there. You certainly can't back down in the face of media criticism; that back-and-forth implicitly validates the media criticism.

The current circumstance -- where the bottom half of the ticket seems to have no hesitation, while the top of the ticket tells audiences his opponent is 'decent person and a person that you do not have to be scared of as president of the United States'... it creates the worst of both worlds. The press paints Palin as the ruthless smear artist, while the base concludes McCain is too addicted to Senate courtesy to really make the case against his opponent."

LEST WE FORGET: Much-Criticized Media Vows To Return To Softball Tactics

From The Onion:

"WASHINGTON -- Having endured weeks of pointed criticism over their aggressive questions, research-based analyses, and recent tendency to reference the candidates' actual records, America's political journalists vowed Monday to return to their long-standing tradition of lobbing meaningless questions and admiring remarks at this year's presidential and vice presidential nominees.

'On behalf of the entire American media, I would like to apologize to the free world for our unwelcome and inappropriate forays into public accountability and accurate reporting,' said Leonard Downie, Jr., executive editor of The Washington Post. 'We don't know what got into us. One minute we're printing Obama's iTunes playlist, but the next minute we're checking the veracity of McCain's negative campaign ads. That's not what political journalism is supposed to be about, and we are sorry.'

Further reports indicate that all television news outlets will immediately cease their unnecessary vetting of the vice presidential candidates, and plans have been announced to replace the upcoming debates with an optional, multiple-choice mail-in questionnaire."

Posted by Ian Faerstein at October 13, 2008 01:48 PM