The Whack Jobs Holding Out for a Palin/McCain Ticket

Posted by Steven Reynolds, The All Spin Zone at 2:12 AM on October 13, 2008.

The latest Washington Post/ABC poll has Barack Obama with 53% of the voters and a ten point lead. No, polls are not the final word, but 53% is a big number in Presidential politics, and with three weeks to go the trend line is strongly in Barack Obama’s favor. Here’s a little of the Washington Post reporting about this big number:

McCain has made little headway in his attempts to convince voters that Obama is too “risky” or too “liberal.” Rather, recent strategic shifts may have hurt the Republican nominee, who now has higher negative ratings than his rival and is seen as mostly attacking his opponent rather than addressing the issues that voters care about. Even McCain’s supporters are now less enthusiastic about his candidacy, returning to levels not seen since before the Republican National Convention.

Conversely, Obama’s pitch to the middle class on taxes is beginning to sink in; nearly as many said they think their taxes would go up under a McCain administration as under an Obama presidency, and more see their burdens easing with the Democrat in the White House.

OK, there are some amazing numbers underlying this poll, as there are amazing numbers underlying other polls. Newsweek investigates those numbers, like trying to find out just who the whack jobs are in their poll who are satisfied with the economy. In this poll, 8% of the people had worse opinions of Barack Obama. Those are the ones shouting “terrorist” and “traitor,” I’m betting. Yeah, whack jobs. Newsweek may think it has the answer, but it is just as easy to conclude there are whack jobs out there, and Republicans seem proud to have them on board and voting.

McCain is being warned about those whack jobs, even by former supporters like Frank Schaeffer. One wonders how low McCain’s numbers would go if his whack job support were suddenly and magically not allowed to vote. Heck, who are these whack jobs? Are they likely to be fooled by the notion of McCain bringing out a whole new economic policy every day, throwing them out there until one sticks? Hell, yeah! Are they the ones to be fooled by the latest conspiracy theory, such as the one that insists that William Ayers wrote Barack Obama’s best selling books? (Evidently a black man hasn’t the brains to write a bestseller, according to this whackjobiness published by the National Review.)

I’ll throw out some free advice for the McCain campaign, yet again. Distance yourselves from the whack jobs at every turn, and as publicly as possible. Let the cameras see you throw these folks out of your events. HAve your candidate boast that his policy is to boot ugliness out of his party because he wants the Republican Party to win with honor just as he served with honor. There are few ways for McCain to win this thing, what with the odds going down at fivethirtyeight.com. I feel sorry for the McCain people who have to deal with both a failing economy and failing strategies leading to utterly failing prospects. OK, I ALMOST feel sorry for them. It is imposible to feel sorry for the McCain campaign when their own candidate shows he’s a whack job. From Sam Stein at the Huffington Post:

Around the same time as the Virginia interview aired, the Spanish-language Univision published its own sit down with McCain, in which the Arizonan suggested that there was a direct connection between the September 11 terrorist attacks and the war in Iraq.

Asked by the host whether he agreed with Barack Obama that “the Iraq war had nothing to do with the terrorist attacks of 9/11,” McCain replied:

“No. We invaded a country that every intelligence agency said was developing weapons of mass destruction. Think of Saddam Hussein in power with oil at 100 dollars a barrel, and all that entails with his commitment which when after he was captured, he stated categorically that he would acquire weapons of mass destruction, and he would use them wherever he could. Now, Iraq–”

“But he had nothing to do with 9/11,” the hosted interjected.

“He had a lot to do with invading his neighbor Kuwait, and we had to go to war and fight there,” McCain replied. “He had a lot to do with using weapons of mass destruction, he used them previously, so there’s no doubt about his commitment to get them.”

Needless to say, such a statement seems like to be met with resistance both within intelligence communities and among McCain’s opposition. Trailing in the polls, and determined to “whip” Obama’s “you-know-what,” the Republican nominee for president can ill afford such controversy at this stage of the election.

Oh my, but that’s going to hit the news tonight, the repetition of falsehoods even the CIA and the Bush Administration no longer believes in. McCain himself is becoming a whack job.

Palin Bonus of the day: a reader of the Philadelphia Inquirer has coined a new word, the “Palindrone.” Here’s the definition according to Robert Gordon of Lansdale, PA:

It is a noun defined as a seemingly interminable, practically insufferable, desultory, ideological philippic laboriously memorized and regurgitated with revolting perkiness that haphazardly strings together a mixed-up, grammatically confusing jumble of words, near-words, thoughts, near-thoughts and incomplete thoughts that when recited backward vainly spouts the same tried and tired platitudes as when read forward: nothing.

OK, we may not be able to define exactly who the whack jobs are who are shouting “terrorist” at the Palin rallies, or who the ones are who think the economy is satisfactory, but we know one thing — they will find no humor in Robert Gordon’s neologism.

Tagged as: mccain, palin

Steven Reynolds is a regular blogger for the All Spin Zone