TheCenterLane.com

© 2008 – 2024 John T. Burke, Jr.

The High Road To Nowhere

Comments Off on The High Road To Nowhere

August 21, 2008

He’s blowing it.  With each passing day, the opinion polls show increasing momentum by the McCain campaign.  For their part, the Democrats have put together a lineup of really uninspiring orators for next week’s Convention.  The schedule for this event will include such former stars as Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and John Kerry.  (At least they had the sense to leave Mike Dukakis and Walter Mondale off the program.)  What is Jimmy Carter going to discuss?  … “How to Facilitate Runaway Inflation”?  Is Bill Clinton going to explain “How to Beat a DNA Test”?  (John Edwards will be listening to that one with abated breath.)  We can count on John Kerry to present a coma – inducing diatribe about “How to Snatch Defeat from the Jaws of Victory”.  Meanwhile, Obama appears to be writing his own handbook on that subject.  After folding on the FISA (wiretap) bill and capitulating to the public’s ignorance on the offshore oil drilling controversy, he now appears ready to undermine his campaign theme of Change, by selecting a running mate, who has spent nearly his entire adult life in the Senate:  Joe Biden.

Obama would be better off running with his best choice: Virginia Governor Tim Kane.  Does Barack really believe that some chucklehead, watching “reality TV”, is going to be concerned about whether Kane has the adequate foreign policy acumen to attend the funerals of foreign dignitaries on behalf of the United States?  The people of Virginia will support the team that includes a fellow Virginian.   Southern voters will not vote for a ticket consisting of two individuals who put sugar on their grits.  Catholics will vote for the candidate with a Catholic running mate, despite McCain’s anti-abortion pander.

At this point in the campaign, the often – repeated mantra of the commentators is that “negative campaigning works”.  Obama has expressed his belief that by taking the “high road”, he will somehow be immune to any negative attacks.  If he wants to win this election, he must face up to the need to launch his own negative character attack against McCain.  For starters, he must restrain himself from saying nice things about his opponent.  He should then draw some attention to the following issues:

1.)  McCain’s divorce from his first wife, Carol, and Ross Perot’s feelings about that.  In the June 8 issue of Britain’s Daily Mail, Sharon Churcher discussed Perot’s reaction to how McCain ditched Carol upon his return from Viet Nam, when he first learned of her crippling injuries:

But Ross Perot, who paid her medical bills all those years ago, now believes that both Carol McCain and the American people have been taken in by a man who is unusually slick and cruel – even by the standards of modern politics.

“McCain is the classic opportunist.  He’s always reaching for attention and glory,” he said.

“After he came home, Carol walked with a limp.  So he threw her over for a poster girl with big money from Arizona. And the rest is history.”

2.)  McCain’s involvement in the “Keating Five” scandal.  In 1991, McCain was criticized by the Senate Ethics Committee as having exercised “poor judgment” in connection with the Federal Home Loan Bank Board’s investigation of Lincoln Savings and Loan.

3.)  Obama’s staffers should contact McCain’s fellow inmates from the Hanoi Hilton, to obtain a little more information than “no comment” as to their feelings concerning McCain’s candidacy.

4.)   Get in touch with McCain’s Vietnamese captors to find out whether he provided them with any worthwhile information, justifying  the reason for their offer of early repatriation, which he declined.

There’s a dirt in them there hills.  Obama’s camp has to go dig for it.  If they find it  . . .  they damned – well better use it.

It’s a dirty world out there, with such dirty players as: Vladimir Putin, Hugo Chavez and the Chinese baseball team.  Unless he really can perform a miracle, the guy with the halo over his head won’t be moving into 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.  Of course, he could always trade in the halo for a nice set of darts.