Take this Washington Post article. The majority of the article is spent discussing what we already know - she's got way more charisma than McCain. However, her quirkiness has absolutely crossed the line, here:
Worse, Palin's routine attacks on the media have begun to spill into ugliness. In Clearwater, arriving reporters were greeted with shouts and taunts by the crowd of about 3,000. Palin then went on to blame Katie Couric's questions for her "less-than-successful interview with kinda mainstream media." At that, Palin supporters turned on reporters in the press area, waving thunder sticks and shouting abuse. Others hurled obscenities at a camera crew. One Palin supporter shouted a racial epithet at an African American sound man for a network and told him, "Sit down, boy."
It absolutely disgusts me that her idea of campaigning for the vice presidency is to take a dump on our country's free media, and to encourage other citizens to do the same. As a people, we may have been historically divided right down the middle as far as our views and beliefs, but the free media is uniquely able to hold up a mirror and help us see ourselves, and also serves as a window into how other people think and express their beliefs. If you don't like what you see, change the channel. That's one of our freedoms, and we need to protect it.
Here's another truly disgusting snippet:
The reception had been better in Clearwater, where Palin, speaking to a sea of "Palin Power" and "Sarahcuda" T-shirts, tried to link Obama to the 1960s Weather Underground. "One of his earliest supporters is a man named Bill Ayers," she said. ("Boooo!" said the crowd.) "And, according to the New York Times, he was a domestic terrorist and part of a group that, quote, 'launched a campaign of bombings that would target the Pentagon and our U.S. Capitol,' " she continued. ("Boooo!" the crowd repeated.)
"Kill him!" proposed one man in the audience.
How painful is it to imagine a potential Vice President of the United States taking part in riling a crowd to the point where someone feels comfortable shouting death threats? It's absolutely disgusting. I may not agree with you or your politics, but I don't think anyone needs to check their humanity at the door to win an election.
As for me, I'm anxiously awaiting all of my Obama gear that I ordered from his campaign website. I'm not usually one to openly discuss my political views, but I feel that a line has been drawn, and I'm sick and tired of the ugliness the Republican campaign is perpetuating.
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In the 2000 Primary George Bush employed a tactic called "Push Polling" in North Carolina. His political campaign conducted fake polls that called voters in North Carolina asking, "If you knew that John McCain had adopted a black child, would that make you more likely or less likely to vote for him?"
It wasn't a real poll. It didn't matter what they responded. It was a devious way of spreading a smear rumor about John McCain. The truth, that McCain's wife had adopted a baby from Bangladesh, is commendable. But the Bush campaign knew that phrasing a fake poll question this way and mass-calling it out the North Carolina would do more harm to McCain's campaign than if they just tried to run on their own ideas and positive message.
It worked. McCain lost North Carolina and the attacks continued from the Bush campaign, costing McCain the election.
That sort of campaigning is the lowest form of disgustingness.
But here's the kicker. McCain hired the people who did that to him. He hired those exact people... to run his campaign this time around.
There can be no stronger indication to me that McCain has decided to surrender any honor or dignity he had in a win-at-all-costs campaign.
He sold his soul for one last shot at the Presidency and I only hope that he gets exactly what he deserves, which is a reputation as a sleaze. Because there's no other way to spin who he is in the final weeks of this campaign.
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