John McCain's rally on Friday once again inspired furious reactions from his supporters, with one woman screaming "traitor!" as McCain criticized Barack Obama's tax record.
"He promised higher taxes on electricity," McCain charged at the event in La Crosse, Wisconsin.
"He voted for the Democratic budget resolution that promised to raise taxes on people making just $42,000 a year." At that point, the woman yelled "traitor," and both McCain and his wife Cindy appeared to look in her direction.
The Arizona Senator continued with his stump speech without referencing her.
As Talking Points Memo's Greg Sargent noted, GOP loathing for Obama seems to also be "spilling into down-ticket races," with one woman yelling "bomb Obama!" during a Thursday debate between Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss and his Democratic challenger.
During a Friday appearance on Fox News, Obama aide Stephanie Cutter said that McCain's crowds have become "mob-like" in their anger and argued that McCain cared "more about the state of his campaign than the economy."
"The thing that is most important right now is that we have got to instill confidence in people in our economy. We have got to calm people down," Cutter said. "We do not need to stoke fears on the campaign trail with these mob-like rallies that we have been seeing. We need to take a step back and provide steady leadership. This is a crisis. This is not what leaders do in crises. Barack Obama invoked FDR, 'the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.' Those are words to live by at this point."
Cutter had been asked to weigh in on McCain's newest proposal for the government to buy home mortgages at face value from the banks and renegotiate them at terms more favorable to the homeowner. Clearly, however, she was hoping to further a meme that the Obama campaign sees as a winner: that McCain is appealing to the worst of people's fears and prejudices in order to advance himself electorally. But in referring to the crowds as "mob-like" Cutter brings the argument further than anyone else from Obama's headquarters.
The Senator himself sounded a similar theme during his speech in Ohio Friday morning.
"It's easy to rile up a crowd by stoking anger and division. But that's not what we need right now in the United States. The times are too serious. The challenges are too great. The American people aren't looking for someone who can divide this country -- they're looking for someone who will lead it. We're in a serious crisis -- now, more than ever, it is time to put country ahead of politics. Now, more than ever, it is time to bring change to Washington so that it works for the people of this country that we love."
McCain hasn't seemed all too eager to tamp down the hate-filled rhetoric emanating from his crowds, beyond merely distancing himself from two introductory speakers that used Obama's middle name as an epithet.
h/t huffpost
5 comments:
You know, the only people showing up at McC's rallies are Rush limpball's deadenders. They have been feeding on a steady diet of hate for 20 years now. McCain was expecting the kind of response you would get from the larger party- and he wasn't ready for the bloodthirsty loonatic wing.
The McCain campaign is now broadening their attack on Obama's past association with William Ayers to include Michelle Obama -- even though McCain has repeatedly said spouses should be off limits during the campaign.
The attack? Bernardine Dohrn, Ayers' wife and fellow former Weatherman, went to work in 1984 for the major Chicago-based national law firm of Sidley & Austin, and three years later, Michelle joined the mega-firm as well.
That's the entire attack.
The GOP is the party of hate.
You know, after eight years of baseless, lying attacks, assasination fantasies, and reckless political speeches which emboldened our enemies and weakened our friends, it's amazingly audacious to see someone call the Republicans hateful.
Gordon said...
You know, after eight years of baseless, lying attacks,
I don't think it was baseless for most of the world and almost 70% of the American people to see George W. Bush's Excellent Adventure in Iraq as reckless and a diversion from fighting the real terrorists. I don't think it is baseless for the American people to have wanted to know exactly which energy companies were in on Cheney's secret meeting pre-9/11 and exactly what was discussed at that secret meeting. We now know that Iraq's oild fields were part of the discussion (pre 9/11) but no details.
You have the right to defend BushCo. and all the horrible, terrible, very bad things it has wrought on America and the world.
You can admire Bush and the Republican party for everything they've done--beginning with stealing the election of 2000 to seeing the worse economic crisis since the Great Depression.
assasination fantasies, and reckless political speeches which emboldened our enemies and weakened our friends,
Sorry, Gordon. Those are not the things that "emoldened our enemies and weakened our friends." What did that was Bush himself when he allowed the United States of America to participate in degrading itself by torturing its prisoners. George W. Bush brought this shame to America, not his critics.
This is exactly the same reaction I've seen again and again and again in parents who have an unruly child who disrupts a classroom and breaks all the rules, and then the parents blame the teacher and the school for their child's bad behavior.
That you continue to excuse the execrable BushCo. and its disasters over the last 8 years is a wonderment to 80% of the American people.
We are in awe of your cognizant dissonance.
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