Senator John McCain said Monday that he needed to convince the American people that the troop escalation in Iraq was working and that American casualties there would continue to decline. If he did not, he said, “I lose” the election.
“Is there any doubt?” Mr. McCain said to reporters on his campaign bus.
I believe the term you're looking for is 'blowback'
Pity poor David Horowitz as he attempts to stuff the escaped "Soros ♥ McCain" genies back into his Pandora's Box:
The Internet and cable TV have been rife with allegations that George Soros funds John McCain. One of the sources for this claim is a book I co-authored last year called The Shadow Party: How George Soros, Hillary Clinton and Sixties Radicals Seized Control of the Democratic Party. What we reported was that Soros made a contribution to McCain's political organization when McCain was devising the McCain-Feingold bill. If you oppose that bill as I did and do, that's the end of the story.
Ah yes, the end of a story that started in 2004 like this:
By pushing McCain-Feingold through Congress, Soros cut off the Democrats’ soft-money supply. By forming the Shadow Party, Soros offered the Democrats an alternate money spigot – one which he personally controlled. As a result the Democrats are heavily – perhaps even irretrievably – dependent on Soros. It seems reasonable to consider the possibility that McCain-Feingold, from its very inception, was a Soros power play to gain control of the Democratic Party.
People who take Soros money are co-opted liberal drones. Got it. In 2005, David Horowitz's Shadow Party co-author chimed in with some alarming news:
Founded on June 26, 2001, McCain's Reform Institute for Campaign and Election Issues has long served as a nerve center for the so-called "campaign finance reform" movement – a movement which has done nothing to clean up campaign finance, but has done a great deal to empower federal judges and government bureaucrats to regulate political speech, in defiance of the Bill of Rights.
Now here's the kicker. The list of donors published on the Reform Institute's Web site reads like a veritable Who's Who of radical, leftwing foundations, including the Tides Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Proteus Fund and George Soros' Open Society Institute (hat tip, Winfield Myers).
Not surprisingly, in view of the above associations, Arianna Huffington serves on the Reform Institute's Advisory Board. Huffington has long acted as a front for George Soros' "campaign finance reform" efforts. In 2000, she organized the so-called Shadow Conventions which provided John McCain with a bully pulpit to stump for his now-infamous McCain-Feingold Act. George Soros shouldered about one third of the cost of the Shadow Conventions.
What's this? Some liberal people with some communist puppet-master's money are somehow in cahoots with John McCain? You don't think John McCain could... nah!
As Sen. John McCain assumes the GOP front-runner mantle, his long-standing, but little-noticed association with donors such as George Soros and Teresa Heinz Kerry is receiving new attention among his Republican critics.
In 2001, McCain founded the Alexandria, Va.-based Reform Institute as a vehicle to receive funding from George Soros' Open Society Institute and Teresa Heinz Kerry's Tides Foundation and several other prominent non-profit organizations.
McCain used the institute to promote his political agenda and provide compensation to key campaign operatives between elections.
OMFG! McCain is totally pwned by Soros! Yikes, DHo! All that shit-stirring about Soros came to bite McCain in the ass when it came to convincing some of your nuttier comrades (OMFG, there's people nuttier than Horowitz!). How are you going to walk that one back into the barn?
Soros is an anti-American radical, who thinks George Bush is responsible for the war on terror and that Israel is the aggressor and genocidal armies like Hamas the victims.
In case that wasn't clear enough, Horowitz is saying that Soros is a Nazi.
On these critical issues of our time, John McCain has absolutely nothing in common with George Soros
John McCain is decidedly not a Nazi.
For Soros "American supremacy" is the greatest threat for world peace. For McCain, American military supremacy is the greatest guarantor of world peace. That's quite a difference.
McCain is, in fact, the anti-Nazi who will smite all the brown-skinned Nazis in the Middle East - or wherever they might reside. And McCain is such a savvy anti-Nazi, he's actually taking Soros' Nazi money and then using it to kick his ass. And that's pretty sweet.
I dunno. Given DHos red-diaper background, we have every reason to suspect his endorsement of McCain:
Presently, I am engaged in a nationwide campaign to get the Republican Party to champion the cause of poor people and minorities.
The five stages of half-hearted, hackneyed political prose
So, you're an operative looking for a chit to gain access to the next imperial court, but you're tepid, at best, on your prospective choice. Why not pen a half-hearted plea to "unite the base" in the WaPo? Here, in a nutshell, are the five stages of coming to grips with having to endorse John McCain in an editorial:
Denial: "Endorse John McCain in the WaPo? Sure, that shouldn't be a problem." Anger: "How many words do they want? I can't get past fucking 'He's not Hillary!'" Bargaining: "Can't I just get my Aunt Helen and Uncle Leonard in Evansville on board and ditch the whole writing thing?" Despair: "One hour until deadline?!? My consulting firm is fucked!" Acceptance: "Here's what I got - a shitty adaptation of five stages of how to deal with shit that really sucks. God I fucking hate John McCain!"
On the Republican side, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee delivered a humiliating defeat to Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) in the Kansas Republican presidential caucuses, and this evening he was leading McCain in the Louisiana contest and running neck and neck with him in Washington state.
Given John McCain's re-emergence as a front-runner, I decided to actually look at the campaign mail sent in his name and at his website to determine what kind of man he is. It's kind of like looking into his eye and thinking to one's self, "this is a _____ man."
And if there's one thing he is - it's a man. A manly man, one of vigor. Dare I say it, a frosty man.
And I can divine this with one line from one campaign e-mail:
John McCain's momentum is now unstoppable. [emphasis added to make it extra badass]
I can only hear that line being delivered by a professional wrestler:
He's also got some great push-polling. I love this little gimmick at the bottom-left corner of his web landing page:
Right here is the reason why some people can look you in the face and tell you that certain facts are merely "your opinion." It's pretty brilliant. Being that I was interested in how much the the Democrat's tax resolution would raise the American tax bill, I decided to put the question to someone I trust - John McCain:
John McCain will make the Bush income and investment tax cuts permanent, keeping income tax rates at their current level and fighting the Democrats' plans for a crippling tax increase in 2011. Left to their devices, Democrats will impose a massive $100 billion tax hike, almost $700 per taxpayer every year.
I go back to the poll.
Huh. $100 billion's not even an option for an opinion.
Jackass.
But of course, your average spender may not have the time nor the inclination to actually find out what John McCain might have to say about the issue. You too want to know how much the Democrat's tax bill is going to be, and you figure the answer must be in the poll options. Being the smart, politically savvy conservative that you are, you use your powers of deduction to eliminate the obvious non-answers and figure out the correct option from what remains, just like they taught you in those damn SAT tutorials.
So let's do this. $0? BWAHAHA! Even the Democrat Party doesn't believe you can get something for nothing! Very droll!
$500 million? Chump change to Democrats. They'll spend that on teenage abortions alone *mild chuckle*.
$200 billion? That sounds more like the Democrat Party I know *knowing chortle*.
$500 billion!?! Not even the Democrats could be that crazy! But with a San Francisco tax-and-spender as the Speaker and a parochial influence peddler leading the Senate majority waiting to be steamrolled by... dear god, a big-city minority president, those tax bills could get crazy out of control! The only question is, would they stop at $500 billion *outrage*!
By golly, we need a Republican to keep those rascally Democrats under control! $200-500 billion tax bills! If Ronald Reagan knew, he'd be spinning in his grave!
Dip me in cowshit and roll me around in grass blades
Huh.
So, what's our takeaway from two completely non-representative state electoral contests? On the D side, both Obama and Clinton can run formidable campaigns, and most pundits (including yours truly, although I don't think I exactly qualify as a pundit, per se - just as a know-nothing loudmouth) are full of shit. I have no idea where this heads down the road, and the time lag between now and the next few contests (and the big February 5 electoral burrito supreme) makes a magic 8-ball more reliable than any prognosticator. I do think it's a two person race now - Edwards will stay in (and I hope he stays in through February 5, just to keep the social democracy rhetoric in play), but he's got no chance and will be under pressure to bow out.
On the R side, Mittens' star is fading fast. After getting walloped after dumping buckets of money into Iowa, and then getting creamed in a state where he practically lived (oh, and winning Wyoming... whatever the hell that means...), he's going to have the sickly gangrene stench of loserdom following him from here on out. I don't necessarily think it bodes well for McCain, I think outside of its theocon wing, the GOP is terrified of Huckabee, and Giuliani hasn't begun to seriously invoke 9/11 to win yet. Who the fuck knows?
Me? I'll be taking advantage of this apparent lapse in the orderly succession of leadership to smuggle massive amounts of hallucinogens to 7th grade midwesterners. Or drink more booze, as has been the case this evening.
First things first: my political prognostications aren't worth shit. Now what do we draw from this completely unrepresentative, first-in-the-nation presidential wine-tasting?
On the D side: Iowa was a must-win for Edwards. I don't think there's any way for him to rebound. From what I understand, his field operation in NH is a shadow of what he invested in Iowa, and he's already far enough behind Obama and Clinton in NH that I don't think he'll be able to staunch the bleeding. Obama probably rides the big mo to a win in NH. But beyond that? Clearly, Edwards message resonates, and it's going to be interesting how his supporters shake out and who tries to make a play for them. Like Dave and a lot of others, I find Obama's "unity" message to be a little disconcerting, especially when accompanied by his recent policy sniping from the right. Likewise, I'm not enamored with Hillary and the whole idea of Clinton II. I'd gladly take either over anyone the Rs would have to offer up, though. Obama's clearly the "change" candidate, but his vision of change seems out-of-sync with the times.
Color me flummoxed as to how my own vote shakes out, but for now I'll say that Obama is my second choice after Edwards. After NH, we've got ourselves a Battle Royale on our hands.
On the R side: One thing I'm sure of: you can stick a fork in Mitt. He got shellacked by an underfunded, Bible-bangin' hillbilly, and now the GOP money guys are going to abandon him in droves. I had figured that McCain would get a third place nod that would give him some momentum going into NH to nip Romney there. But Grandpa Fred in third?
So NH looks like a mess to me on on the R side. McCain is ahead in the polls, but will be competing with Obama for independent voters in an open primary, and Obama clearly has more going on for him. Huckabee has been hanging around 10% in the polls and might get a little bounce, but doesn't have the fundamentalist core he needs so desperately. Mitt is going to hemorrhage supporters, but the question becomes how many. I think enough of Mitt's support goes to McCain to put him over the top in NH. Mitt might go on for awhile after that, but will diminish in significance. And South Carolina will be a hideously nasty affair as the GOP big boys try to stamp out Huckabee like they did McCain in 2000 (oh sweet irony). We'll be hearing whispers about Huckabee fucking goats any day now.
And somewhere out there, we have Rudy 9/11 waiting to use his "big state" strategy. I think Rudy fails miserably in this - his support is already cratering given his, erm... out and out douchebagginess, and being out of the media narrative for the first few states while others build momentum will only seal the deal.
But really, what the fuck do I know? Onward to New Hampshire!
From a fundraising e-mail, John McCain makes a ham-handed attempt at branding his candidacy as the agent of conservative reform. How legitimate are this 70 year-old, fourth-term senator's claims to the mantle of maverick outsider? You be the judge:
Whether it is fear about the threat of terrorism, frustration over gridlock in Iraq, anger about out of control government spending in Washington, or concern about the future of social security, Americans recognize that the status quo is not acceptable and the need for straight talk and reform has never been greater. Americans are right; but only together can we bring about the common sense conservative reforms our country so badly needs.
Candidate of conservative reform? I'll give him the conservative part (and getting more conservative by the day), but a reformer? You've got to be kidding.
George Will has an interesting take on the 2008 GOP presidential nominee sweepstakes. His line of thought goes like this: with George Felix Allen's rich, wannabe-redneck, racist, and thuggish act wearing very thin (to the point of potentially not winning re-election), his 2008 chances have nose-dived as well. Since the fundie wing of the party is looking for another reliable christianist wingnut to rally around in order to counter McCain's run as the prohibitive favorite, Allen's buffoonery benefits Mitt Romney as the social conservative of choice in '08.
Okay. Will's logic makes sense but for one thing. Romney is Mormon, and I'm not sure how the evangelical Bible brigades of the southland are going to respond to this little personal nugget in Mitt's biography. My gut tells me that Mormonism doesn't pass the evangelical heresy sniff test and Romney's candidacy will be a non-starter, but I could be wrong.
