by Deb Cupples | With just five days to go before THE ELECTION, things aren't looking good for John McCain. The New York Times reports:
"A growing number of voters have concluded that Senator John McCain's running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska, is not qualified to be vice president, weighing down the Republican ticket in the last days of the campaign, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll."
"All told, 59 percent of voters surveyed said Ms. Palin was not prepared for the job, up nine percentage points since the beginning of the month. Nearly a third of voters polled said the vice-presidential selection would be a major factor influencing their vote for president, and those voters broadly favor Senator Barack Obama, the Democratic nominee.
"And in a possible indication that the choice of Ms. Palin has hurt Mr. McCain’s image, voters said they had much more confidence in Mr. Obama to pick qualified people for his administration than they did in Mr. McCain." (NY Times)
I suspect that things aren't looking so good for down-ticket Republican candidates, either. And why would they?
Generally, the Republican party has relied on the old, Karl-Rove-style nonsense that played well for George Bush after 9/11 and before Hurricane Katrina: those frightening sound bites based on vague labels -- instead of based on real issues and practical consequences.
They told us that to even question our (questionable) President was unpatriotic. They told us that giving huge tax breaks to corporations and wealthy folks would result in massive job creation. They told us that we should shoot for an "ownership society," in which even those who didn't own bootstraps could somehow pull themselves up by the bootstraps.
Now, they're screaming about show the redistribution of wealth will ruin our nation -- though, over the last eight years, hundreds of billions of dollars of shareholder wealth already was successfully redistributed to a select few (while American jobs have continued to disappear and our nation's economy continued to perch on the cliff's edge).
That sort of stuff worked after 9/11, because our nation was (understandably) seized by fear. It continued to work for the four years that followed 9/11 -- until we ordinary folks saw some concrete results of the Bush Administration's questionable policies and competence: i.e., until we saw on TV all those people standing on New Orleans rooftops, desperate for rescue, while part of that city was immersed in 20 feet of feces-tainted water infested with alligators and human corpses.
Public-relations spin can do only so much to counter such horrifying realities.
It was at that point, back in August 2005, that the nation began questioning President Bush's (and Karl Rove's) egregiously specious talking points and sound bites. How could we not question? Evidence of failure and deception was staring us right in the face.
Despite facts of recent history and the corresponding changes in the public's mood, John McCain -- along with other Republican politicians and candidates -- have continued to try to frighten us ordinary folks with egregiously specious sound bites.
The problem: we American people can be fooled only so many times. And once we cotton onto the fact that we've been fooled, our trust is much harder to come by.
Memeorandum has commentary.
Other Buck Naked Politics Posts:
* Are Bailout Funds Being Misused, is Bank Consolidation a Good Thing?
* Cutting Executive Pay Would Save Jobs: Why Aren't They Doing it?
* Lehman Execs Redistribute Shareholder Wealth (to Themselves)
* AIG Execs Redistribute Shareholder Wealth (to Themselves)
* Execs Made Millions While Driving Companies into Ditch
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