a worthy cause: spreading some dirt on mccain

[sophiaserpentia]

John McCain's cash-strapped campaign borrowed $1 million from a Bethesda bank two weeks before the New Hampshire primary by pledging to enter the public financing system if his bid for the presidency faltered, newly disclosed records show.

McCain had already taken a $3 million bank loan in November to keep his campaign afloat, and he sought from the same bank $1 million more shortly before this month's Super Tuesday contests, this time pledging incoming but unprocessed contributions as collateral. He never used the funds of the most recent loan, because his win in the South Carolina primary helped him raise enough money to compete in Florida, his campaign aides said last night.

So, wait, what does this mean? When John McCain's campaign was financially faltering in November-December, they went to a bank from whom they'd already borrowed money, and offered up as collateral for a second loan, public money that would come to his campaign if he entered the public campaign financing system. This way, he got to benefit from public campaign funds without actually taking them and in the process subscribing to the campaign restrictions that go along.

Gee, you'd expect someone who's one and only actual legislative accomplishment in 25 years in office was a modest campaign finance reform, to maybe treat the system in a less cynical and selfish way.

The Christian rightwing has been going out of their way to demonize John McCain, but i wonder if this isn't actually a calculated move on their part. They know that centrists and liberals will never actually vote for McCain if things like his solid anti-choice voting record became widely known. So they criticize him, hinting that he is pro-choice in order to help to perpetuate the perception that he is somehow "less socially conservative" than other Republicans. I don't know, maybe decades of watching these cretins actively harm the people i love has made me a bit unrealistically cynical, you tell me.

Comments

[hai-kah-uhk.livejournal.com]

I read an article that accused Edwards of doing something similar.

[liminalia.livejournal.com]

I think your reasoning is too Byzantine. I think the Xtian Right sincerely dislikes and mistrusts McCain because among other things, he accused them of spreading intolerance (deservedly).

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

Okay, yes, you're right that my last paragraph is a bit too Byzantine. But i really, truly, would not put any level of debased scheming beyond them. They can't lose by endorsing the most conservative in the race because they know that a lot of people would vote for McCain anyway, and he's not really enough unlike them to warrant quite the degree of lambasting they've given him.

For example, what do you think is up with Ann Coulter saying she would vote for Hillary Clinton over John McCain? Do you honestly think she would? Or is she saying that because she knows liberals hate her so much they would vote for someone just to spite her?

[liminalia.livejournal.com]

Ann Coulter just says the most outrageous thing she can think of because she's an attention-monger. She's the media equivalent of an LJ drama llama imo.

[perlmonger.livejournal.com]

I assumed that Coulter's comment was squarely aimed at GOP primary voters, in some sort of (failing) attempt to persuade them to support somebody even viler than McCain; Clinton being handily right-wing enough to make the whole thing marginally less implausible than it otherwise would've been.

IMO

[orb2069.livejournal.com]

I think McCain's a sacrificial goat.

The RNC has let all the not-a-chancers (two moderates, a REAL fundie and LaRouche light? Really?) run this time around as a sop to their fringe because whoever goes up on the republican ticket in this election is going to fail.
They'll spend four years using their party organs (Fox, Rush, et al) to blame the country's economic crash on the democrats, mitigate their losses and lay the groundwork for 2012.
If it's anything like post Bush Sr, the democrats will pass the unpopular legislation (Taxes!) necessary to start unfucking the economy, and the republicans will make spaghetti attacks ("Fling it against the wall and see what sticks") and undermine as much as possible.

Re: IMO

[nationelectric.livejournal.com]

I think McCain's the best chance the GOP has. And not just in the snowflake-in-hell sense, he's got a real chance of winning. Particularly against Hillary.

Polls (that I am too lazy to dig up links for at the moment) demonstrate this, but that was what I expected before I saw the polls. During the Bush years, particularly during some of the worst (read: most public) excesses, I heard McCain appealed to as a voice of conservative sanity and decency. I heard this from across the mainstream political spectrum, from liberal to conservative. If you scratch the surface at all, it becomes apparent that this is largely baseless, or, framed positively, highly relative... but as the 2004 election demonstrated (again), a whole lotta people don't bother to scratch the surface. And McCain's image has *huge* moderate appeal.

I'm not sure why the right is hazing him. I suspect because he's not their dream candidate, and they got spoiled on bush in '00 and '04. And it seems like both the left and (particularly) the right see moderate appeal as some kind of treacherous poison. But whatever the reason, as soon as he gets the nomination, they'll fall into lockstep behind him, and he *will* be a force to be reckoned with.

It saddened me to watch Romney drop out of the race. I had truly hoped to watch him run. God, it would've been hilarious.

Against Hillary?

[orb2069.livejournal.com]

I'm betting a bucket of fresh horse manure would have a fighting chance against Hillary: After all, the fringe media hasn't convinced 20% of the country that electing manure would bring about the {economic crash, {NWO,ZOG,NATO} domination, moral collapse} of our country, or that it personally strangled Vince Foster with it's bare hands while eating fetuses...

You're probably right about the whole lockstep thing, though. Once he's got the nomination, the naysayers will probably Shut The Hell Up and start rowing. Expect the side-channel barrage on the democratic candidate to start revving up as soon as the nomination is settled.

Personally, after watching the last eight years of "reaching across the aisle" by the republicans translating into basically ignoring the minority party, ramming through everything they could get away with and playing dirty tricks when they couldn't, I tend to see 'Moderate appeal' as somewhere between 'Treacherous poison' and the capitulation you see from a bully when you pull out a weapon.

IMO, The only moderation the party wants is what is being forced on them.

Re: Against Hillary?

[nationelectric.livejournal.com]

Based on the polls I've seen (which are about a month old, IIRC) he's got a fighting chance against *Obama*. He utterly trounces Hillary.

I'm talking about appeal to moderate voters less than I am about "bipartisanship", and my point is less about the left than the right. Look at the Bush years: the harder right Bush went, the more fervent his supporters became. When he did something that fell short of that, though (such as illegal immigration) the right went berserk. They acted like they were betrayed.

Same deal with McCain. If the right wing commentators are to be believed (which, in this case, I dunno) the big problem they have with him is that he's not rabidly insane balls-to-the-wall conservative enough. This about an anti-abortion war veteran who's never spoken out again Bush, has backed domestic spying and torture, and who jokes about nuking Iran.

But he's not an outspoken xtian zealot and hasn't *raved* about torture, so he's a pariah.

That poll I mentioned...

[nationelectric.livejournal.com]

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/national.html

Looks like it's been updated. It currently predicts McCain winning by 2.4% over Hillary, but Obama beating him by 4.1%. Huckabee, on the other hand, is pure comedy gold: losing to Obama by 16.6%, losing to Clinton by 9.9%.

So I should revise my earlier statement a little: McCain's got a real shot against Hillary, and he's the only GOP candidate with a chance against Obama. Of course, they're just polls, the election is months away, etc., so anything could happen.

Regardless, McCain's not sacrificial at all. He's a serious threat.