The Ashford Zone Blog

Floating around the Intertubes.  Its authenticity is unconfirmed.  But it certainly looks accurate.  425 verbal?  C in "Social Studies"?  Yup.  Sounds like our girl.

I think Dave Gergen is absolutely right when he says:

"There is this free floating sort of whipping around anger that could really lead to some violence… I think we're not far from that."

The McCain campaign has been whipping the angry, far-right Republican base into a frenzy. We're hearing "Hussein" references, and campaign supporters shouting "treason!," "terrorist!," and "kill him!" during official rallies.

On Wednesday, during a McCain harangue against Obama, one man could be heard yelling, "Off with his head!" On Thursday, Republicans erupted when an unhinged McCain supporter ranted about "socialists taking over our country."

What is disturbing is the encouragement from the GOP candidates themselves.  They don't calm the crowd down.  In fact, in respose to screaming idiot, McCain said he was "right."

The Republicans want an angry mob, they need hysterical supporters, and so they've stoked the fires of hate, fear, and ignorance.

The Washington Post and the Politico have good items today on the explosive, enraged emotions at this week's Republican rallies. Slate's John Dickerson described the participants' "bloodthirsty" tone.

Not all GOP strategists enjoy this.  John Weaver, McCain's former top strategist said:

…top Republicans have a responsibility to temper this behavior.

"People need to understand, for moral reasons and the protection of our civil society, the differences with Senator Obama are ideological, based on clear differences on policy and a lack of experience compared to Senator McCain," Weaver said. "And from a purely practical political vantage point, please find me a swing voter, an undecided independent, or a torn female voter that finds an angry mob mentality attractive."

Weaver added that the Republican Party should be "ashamed" if it allows this to continue.

As well they should.  With assassination plots against Obama being in the news, the last thing we need is fuel on the fire.

It is also, I might add, bad campaign strategy.  Sure, it's red meat for the already-converted.  But reasonable undecideds, who are worried about their homes and jobs, are going to be turned off by the hysterics of McCain supporters calling (literally, in some cases) for Obama's head.

UPDATE:  Recommended reading: This Has To Stop

RELATED:  He takes a while to get there, but David Brooks makes an interesting point about the GOP.  He writes that over the decades, Republicans have turned anti-intellectualism into a mantra.  The result?  They lost educated people: doctors, lawyers, even bankers.  That may have been smart, creating a lower and middle class populism (you know, the people who listen to Rush).  Sarah Palin, Brooks writes, in the master of exploiting that divide, i.e. catering to the "Joe Six Pack"s while scoffing at the intellectual elite.

But then, in terms of policy, Republicans did nothing for those common people:

And so, politically, the G.O.P. is squeezed at both ends. The party is losing the working class by sins of omission — because it has not developed policies to address economic anxiety. It has lost the educated class by sins of commission — by telling members of that class to go away.

I think that's quite right.

LATE UPDATE:  Message received.  McCain is telling his crowds to cool it and respect Obama.  But note how some of them "boo".

And there's this late report:

Indeed, he just snatched the microphone out the hands of a woman who began her question with, "I'm scared of Barack Obama… he's an Arab terrorist…"

"No, no ma'am," he interrupted. "He's a decent family man with whom I happen to have some disagreements."

NYT Letter To The Editor:

Re “Politics of Attack” (editorial, Oct. 8) and “Obama and ’60s Bomber: A Look Into Crossed Paths” (front page, Oct. 4):

As the lead federal prosecutor of the Weathermen in the 1970s (I was then chief of the criminal division in the Eastern District of Michigan and took over the Weathermen prosecution in 1972), I am amazed and outraged that Senator Barack Obama is being linked to William Ayers’s terrorist activities 40 years ago when Mr. Obama was, as he has noted, just a child.

Although I dearly wanted to obtain convictions against all the Weathermen, including Bill Ayers, I am very pleased to learn that he has become a responsible citizen.

Because Senator Obama recently served on a board of a charitable organization with Mr. Ayers cannot possibly link the senator to acts perpetrated by Mr. Ayers so many years ago.

I do take issue with the statement in your news article that the Weathermen indictment was dismissed because of “prosecutorial misconduct.” It was dismissed because of illegal activities, including wiretaps, break-ins and mail interceptions, initiated by John N. Mitchell, attorney general at that time, and W. Mark Felt, an F.B.I. assistant director.

William C. Ibershof

Emphasis mine.

This graphic from a news site shows a world in serious trouble.  But notably, look what McCain decides to talk about:

Why would McCain put out an ad featuring Obama, in which Obama claims that McCain is lying?  Note that it doesn't refute Obama; it just shows Obama saying that McCain is lying.  Which is what Obama believes and says.

Does this really help McCain?

A lot of people are annoyed by McCain referring to "my friends".  He said it 22 times in the debate last night.

About McCain's resurgence plan to buy bad mortgages, which he mentioned for the first time in the debate last night:

The proposal certainly seemed to have caught even McCain's surrogates off guard; they had not been prepped to answer questions about it.

It was probably unintentional, but the front and back covers of the latest Nature magazine probably should have been rethought:

8:50 pm  Going to watch on MSNBC, I think

9:00 pm  McCain shook Obama's hand.

9:02 pm  I must say, I don't like it when Obama goes "aaaaaand".

9:04 pm  McCain thinks economic crisis can be solved by energy independence.  No.  That fixes a different problem.  That said, I think McCain answered the first question better.

9:07 pm  Meg Whitman – Ms. Ebay – for Treasury Secretary?  Seriously?

9:09 pm  Answer the question, Barry.

9:10 pm  "Senator Obama and his cronies"?  McCain doesn't realize that Fannie and Freddie Mac were not the catalysts that startefd this economic problem.

9:14 pm  I like this format in that looking at the camera and speaking directly to the American people isn't even an option.

9:16 pm  Hmmmm.  Some cross-section of America this audience is.  They're all bald.

9:21 pm $3 million for an overhead projector for a planetarium in Chicago?  I call "bullshit" on that.  I guess we'll find out from Factcheck.

9:25 pm  I like Obama's JFK/moon reference.

9:36 pm  McCain is just LYING about taxes. Obama is NOT going to raise taxes except on the uber-wealthy!

9:40 pm  The instapoll track lines of uncommitted Ohio voters really don't like McCain.  Even the rightwing pundits like Gergen are liking Obama more (or hating him less).

9:43 pm  McCain is kind of rambling.

9:47 pm Obama won the green question.  McCain apparently can't see all the red and green lights, so he wants Brokaw to wave.

9:55 pm  Boy, McCain's health care sucks.  Obama's rebuttal was good.  It's very hard for Obama to put his plans forward when he has to undo what McCain says first.

10:01 pm  Haha.  Obama: "yeah, I don't understand.  I don't understand why we went into Iraq".  Nice.

10:06 pm  Okay, if he says "my friends" one more time…..

10:08 pm  Cosovo.  We went in as peacemakers and ended up as peacekeepers?  Is there, strictly speaking, a difference?  Wow, is McCain rambling.  I guess that's the McCain doctrine: address genocide, but only if we can win.

10:12 pm  If I understand McCain correctly, he won't attack bin Laden in Pakistan. 

10:14 pm  Obama brings up "Bomb bomb bomb Iran". Nice.  McCain says he was joking with a veteran.  Uh, I don't think so.  Wasn't it in front of a group?

10:18 pm  This whole Afghan foreign policy exchange is enlightening.  I think Obama is killing McCain here.  McCain suggests the surge in Afghanistan.  Funny, the NATO commander and (I believe) even Petraeus says the "surge" won't work there.

10:22 pm  On the other hand, I don't think Obama is doing well on the Georgia/Russia question.

10:26 pm  Oh, lord.  Another talk about "preconditions" for negotiating with Iran.  I hate this.

10:30 pm  Amherst, NH asks a zen-like question.  I'm not sure Obama is answering the question, but then again, I'm not sure the question is answerable.  "What don't you know?"  McCain answers, in effect, that he doesn't know what he can't anticipate.  Well, yeah.

One things that strikes me about this, is thinking about Palin and how much she is a lightweight compared to even McCain.

10:34 pm It's over.  Well, they both did well, but I think Obama won.  McCain seemed doddering at times.

10:45 pm  The policy wonks at CNN seem to think Obama won.  Even partisan ones like Bill Bennett (who thought McCain was "fine" but didn't do enough).

UPDATE:  Well, some factchecks are coming out. From Politifact:

McCain said that 13 million people "make a living off eBay".  That's way off. We hate to nitpick apparent misstatements, but this one's a doozy — 1.3-million is the number of peopleworldwide who make some money off eBay, according to a 2006 A.C. Nielsen study

.
As of 2003, some 20,000 Americans made their living off eBay, company executive Jim Griffith told a Colorado newspaper at the time.

***

McCain's reference to Obama as "that one" rubbed some people the wrong way.  It didn't bother me that much.

Anyone watching CNN on a hi-def TV could see the dial focus group of a bunch of Ohio undecided voters. And throughout the night, it often seemed that Obama would break the darn meter, his ratings going through the roof. McCain, on the other hand, was the king of the flatline. I swear, you could see the downticks every time McCain said "my friends" — a tell to the audience that he was about to serve another heaping dish of b.s. It was painful.

***

I thought that Barack Obama won the “visuals” of tonight’s debate. He looked younger and more vigorous, of course, but, in addition, John McCain did too much moving around. He seemed focused on addressing a “town hall,” as he has done so well over the years. But in reality, as Obama seemed quicker to appreciate, the audience tonight was in the television land. To them, McCain’s movement must have seemed a bit aimless.

On substance, I thought the debate was fairly even. McCain came across better on economic issues than he has in the past, but still struggled at times for the fluency (or perhaps glibness) with which Obama is able to address these matters. In any event, I suspect that, whatever the quality of McCain's debate performance, he’s going to take the fall for the economy.

Obama was pretty much gaffe-free (though not lie-free). He was a little arrogant at times, including in his obvious disregard for the rules of the debate, but not to the point where it’s likely to cost him in this environment.

A win on the visuals and at least a draw on substance (if that’s a fair assessment) is a win for Obama at this point. So tonight he moves a little closer to the presidency. I continue to believe that voters will subject him to one more round of serious scrutiny when the debates are over. Tonight’s performance marginally enhances his chance of surviving that scrutiny, which was already pretty good.

And from the rightwing The Corner, Andy McCarthy speaks to his colleagues:

Memo to McCain Campaign:  Someone is either a terrorist sympathizer or he isn't; someone is either disqualified as a terrorist sympathizer or he's qualified for public office.  You helped portray Obama as a clealy qualified presidential candidate who would fight terrorists. If that's what the public thinks, good luck trying to win this thing. With due respect, I think tonight was a disaster for our side.  I'm dumbfounded that no one else seems to think so.  Obama did everything he needed to do, McCain did nothing he needed to do.  What am I missing?

A win for Obama according to CBS’ pollsters: Obama 39%, McCain 27%, Tie 35%.

I'm actually thinking that McCain might "win" this one.  He's not going to be grumpy and erratic.  He's not going to attack Obama, bring up Ayers or Wright, or any number of things which, in the end, will play into Obama's hands.

Hmmm.  You ever notice how Palin's accent comes and goes?  Check out this compilation: