The words are "Adlai Stevenson." Intelligent, qualified, courageous, and a loser to a simple military man. What is needed is a comfort with jokes, an emotional capacity for outrage, and a willingness to use punch lines and sound bites, rather than nuance. Be a fighter, don't say you are a fighter. People want a personal connection, beyond eloquence.
Attack radical Republicanism, rather than Bush, since McCain is running against Bush, too.
Radical Republicanism squandered a budget surplus, and created huge new debts, passing on the costs of war and tax cuts to our children.
Radical Republicanism shredded the Constitution, tortured people, spied on Americans, claimed executive privilege to hide its misbehavior, cancelled treaties and waged illegal wars.
Radical Republicanism stomped on state rights, whenever states tried to do more than the federal level on business regulation and the environment.
Radical Republicanism wants to regulate the bedroom, but not the boardroom.
Radical Republicanism strives to make the world safe for business, while making it more dangerous for Americans.
Radical Republicanism deregulates, then bails out big businesses as too big to let fail. OK, let's go back to another time, and break up the oligopolies. Then, they won't be too big to fail. The public has paid for the risks, while the private has pocketed the profits. This has to stop.
Radical Republicanism favors the super rich over everyone else, forgetting the American Dream of egalitarianism.
McCain has contradicted his maverick positions to satisfy his base. McCain is a radical Republican. Palin is even more radical, and out of step with main street America.
This election IS about change. Change from Radical Republicanism back to main street values. Back to common purpose. Back to shared sacrifice. Back to the democratic ideal. Back to a government that serves the people. This is what Mr. Obama should be shouting about!
2 comments:
You note that "...McCain is running against Bush, too." Actually, in order to try to win this election, McCain is running against himself and his own record. This attempt at transformation may not be persuasive for most of those who did not see McCain as even close to a palatable presidential candidate; it may, though, bring McCain votes from the uncommitted and those unwilling to compare the sound bites of the "old" McCain (eh, 2007 and earlier) with those of the "new" McCain. (Oh, and Dick Armey now has assured McCain that he can rely on the "Bubba" vote. A 9/3/08 article in USA Today quoted Armey as saying: "The Bubba vote is there, and it's very real, and it is everywhere...There's an awful lot of people in America, bless their heart, who simply are not emotionally prepared to vote for a black man." [Despite the outrageous "bless their heart" remark, Armey did say that he was just remarking on an element of reality that he found "deplorable".])
Adding to my comment above, I see that there already has been some good work done comparing McCain's conflicting statements. See the videos at http://bravenewfilms.org/blog/468-the-real-mccain -- where the following explanatory text is found: "We at Brave New Films are becoming increasingly concerned that the real John McCain story is not being told. Many in the media are in love with the 'maverick' despite his changing positions, and obvious political pandering. We HAVE to do something about this! So we did some extensive research on his flip-flopping, and can now proudly present: John McCain vs. John McCain."
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