I know most of you have been enjoying reading these articles about how the McCain campaign and the GOP are in disarray so I think you'll like this one too, I know I did.

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Blame game: GOP forms circular firing squad

With despair rising even among many of John McCain’s own advisors, influential Republicans inside and outside his campaign are engaged in an intense round of blame-casting and rear-covering—-much of it virtually conceding that an Election Day rout is likely.

A McCain interview published Thursday in the Washington Times sparked the latest and most nasty round of Washington finger-pointing, with senior GOP hands close to President Bush and top congressional aides denouncing the candidate for what they said was an unfocused message and poorly executed campaign.

McCain told the Times that the administration “let things get completely out of hand” through eight years of bad decisions about Iraq, global warming, and big spending.

The candidate’s strategists in recent days have become increasingly vocal in interviews and conference calls about what they call unfair news media coverage and Barack Obama’s wide financial advantage — both complaints laying down a post-election storyline for why their own efforts proved ineffectual.

These public comments offer a whiff of an increasingly acrid behind-the-scenes GOP meltdown—a blame game played out through not-for-attribution comments to reporters that operatives know will find their way into circulation.

Top Republican officials have let it be known they are distressed about McCain’s organization. Coordination between the McCain campaign and Republican National Committee, always uneven, is now nearly dysfunctional, with little high-level contact and intelligence-sharing between the two.

“There is no communication,” lamented one top Republican. “It drives you crazy.”

At his Northern Virginia headquarters, some McCain aides are already speaking of the campaign in the past tense. Morale, even among some of the heartiest and most loyal staffers, has plummeted. And many past and current McCain advisors are warring with each other over who led the candidate astray.

One well-connected Republican in the private sector was shocked to get calls and resumes in the past few days from what he said were senior McCain aides – a breach of custom for even the worst-off campaigns.

“It’s not an extraordinarily happy place to be right now,” said one senior McCain aide. “I’m not gonna lie. It’s just unfortunate.”

“If you really want to see what ‘going negative’ is in politics, just watch the back-stabbing and blame game that we’re starting to see,” said Mark McKinnon, the ad man who left the campaign after McCain wrapped up the GOP primary. “And there’s one common theme: Everyone who wasn’t part of the campaign could have done better.”

“The cake is baked,” agreed a former McCain strategist. “We’re entering the finger-pointing and positioning-for-history part of the campaign. It’s every man for himself now.”

A circular firing squad is among the most familiar political rituals of a campaign when things aren’t going well. But it is rare for campaign aides to be so openly participating in it well before Election Day.

One current senior campaign official gave voice to this “Law of the Jungle” ethic, defending the campaign against second-guessers who say it was a mistake to throw away his experience message in an attempt to match Obama’s “change” mantra.

“Everybody agreed with the strategy,” said this official. “We were unlikely to be successful without being aggressive and taking risks.”

Running as a steady hand and basing a campaign on Obama’s sparse resume was a political loser, it was decided.

“The pollsters and the entire senior leadership of campaign believe that experience versus change was not a winning message and formulation, the same way it was no winning formula with Hillary Clinton.”

Beyond the obvious reputation-burnishing—much of it by professional operatives whose financial livelihoods depend on ensuring that they are not blamed for a bad campaign—there is a more substantive dimension. Barring a big McCain comeback, and a turnabout in numerous congressional races where the party is in trouble, the GOP is on the brink of a soul-searching debate about what to do to reclaim power. Much of that debate will hinge on appraisals of what McCain could have done differently.

That is why his criticisms of Bush hit such an exposed nerve Thursday. Was McCain hobbled by party label at a time when the incumbent president is so unpopular? Or did his uneven response to the financial rescue—and endorsement of such non-conservative ideas as a massive government purchase of homeowner mortgages—seal his fate?

Dan Schnur, a McCain communications advisor during his 2000 run and now a political analyst at the University of Southern California, said McCain should step in to halt the defeatism and self-serving leaks—an epidemic of incontinence—on his own team.

“It’s a natural and human reaction when you’re struggling to make up ground, but that doesn’t make it right,” Schnur said. “As long as the campaign is still potentially winnable, these are an unnecessary distraction. This looks like it’s reached a point where the candidate has to step in himself and crack some heads to remind everyone why they came to work for him in the first place.”

Offered a chance to respond to the suggestion that the McCain campaign is awash in defeatism, a McCain official delivered a decidedly measured appraisal: “We have a real chance in Pennsylvania. We are in trouble in Colorado, Nevada and Virginia. We have lost Iowa and New Mexico. We are OK in Missouri, Ohio and Florida. Our voter intensity is good and we can match their buy dollar for dollar starting today till the election. It’s a long shot but it’s worth fighting for.”

Earlier this week, campaign manager Rick Davis complained to reporters in a conference call that reporters refuse to call out Obama for alleged shady fund-raising tactics, but in the process revealed no small amount of envy about the Democratic financial advantage. "Now, I'd love to have that $4 million right now to put into Pennsylvania,” he said. “It'd be a good thing for our campaign. I think it's a game-changer if I can slap all of that right on Philadelphia media market. It's an expensive place. And, yet, Barack Obama gets away with raising illegitimate money and spending it.”

A New York Times Sunday magazine piece chronicling McCain’s campaign featured numerous not-for-attribution McCain staffers participating in what amounted to a campaign autopsy. One aide told writer Robert Draper, “For better or worse our campaign has been fought from tactic to tactic,” and one criticized McCain’s debate performance.

Long-time McCain alter ego Mark Salter gave an interview to Atlantic writer Jeffrey Goldberg criticizing everything from the news media to the vagaries of fate: “Iraq was supposed to be the issue of the campaign. We assumed it was our biggest challenge. Funny how things work.”

Many conservative commentators likewise have been writing of McCain’s campaign in a valedictory tone. Among this group there is an emerging debate—one with the potential to last for a long time about the role of vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin.

One school—including syndicated columnist Kathleen Parker and Peggy Noonan of the Wall Street Journal—called her a drag on the ticket and implicitly rebuked McCain’s judgment in picking her. Another school believes she is the future of the party, a view backed by Fred Barnes of the Weekly Standard: “Whether they know it or not, Republicans have a huge stake in Palin. If, after the election, they let her slip into political obscurity, they’ll be making a huge mistake.”

In The Week, former Bush speechwriter David Frum wrote of McCain’s travails in a way that seemed to take defeat for granted and warned the GOP faces a long road back. “That’s not a failure of campaign tactics. It’s not even a failure of strategy. It’s a failure of the Republican Party and conservative movement to adapt to the times.”

While Frum was focused on the long view of history, many Republicans in Washington are much more in the moment—and much harsher in their denunciation of McCain and his team.

A senior Republican strategist, speaking with authority about the view of the party’s establishment, issued a wide-ranging critique of the McCain high command: “Lashing out at past Republican Congresses, … echoing your opponent's attacks on you instead of attacking your opponent, and spending 150,000 hard dollars on designer clothes when congressional Republicans are struggling for money, and when your senior campaign staff are blaming each other for the loss in The New York Times [Magazine] 10 days before the election, you’re not doing much to energize your supporters.

“The fact is, when you’re the party standard-bearer, you have an obligation to fight to the finish,” this strategist continued. “I think they can still win. But if they don’t think that, they need to look at how Bob Dole finished out his campaign in 1996 and not try to take down as many Republicans with them as they can. Instead of campaigning in Electoral College states, Dole was campaigning in places he knew he didn’t have a chance to beat Clinton, but where he could energize key House and Senate races.”

A House Republican leadership aide in an e-mail was no more complimentary: “The staff has been remarkably undisciplined, too eager to point fingers, unable to craft any coherent long term strategy. The handling of Palin (not her performances, but her rollout and availability) has been nothing short of political malpractice. I understand the candidate might have other opinions and might be dictating some aspects of the campaign to staff – but the lack of discipline and ability to draft and stick to a coherent message is unreal. You have half of the campaign saying Ayers is a major issue, and then the candidate out there saying he doesn’t care about a washed up terrorist. You have McCain one day echoing Milton Friedman and the next day echoing FDR.”

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1008/14891.html

That is supported by the fact that the Gini Coefficent is actually raising in pretty much every country in the 1st world including the EU ones.

Good find damrika.

It turns out winning the last presidential election was about the worst thing that could have happened to the GOP. Bush (and his puppeteer Karl Rove) have single-handedly destroyed the Republican Party when they thought they would usher in a new era of conservatism. And the Republicans who were along for the ride in Congress, right or wrong, have already suffered for it, and will continue to suffer for it.

At least for the GOP this defeat should be pretty humbling. Who knows, in four years they may even have something relevant to add to the political discussion. Whatever happens, the GOP is going to go through some big changes after this election. The GOP of yesterday will be gone (which is probably a good thing, even for the GOP). We'll see what the GOP of the future will be.

Here's another excellent article, also from Politico, from today about the upcoming gop bloodbath in the house of representatives.

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GOP 'goner' list warns of House rout

An internal document circulating among House Republicans warns of an impending congressional bloodbath, listing 58 Republican-held House seats being at risk, and 11 already considered as good as gone. As many as 34 GOP-held seats are in serious jeopardy of swinging to Democrats, the assessment shows.

The state-of-the-race update, first reported on by U.S. News’ Paul Bedard, shows the GOP already writing off the seats of Reps. Tom Feeney (R-Fla.), John R. Kuhl (R-N.Y.), Don Young (R-Alaska) and Tim Walberg (R-Mich.). It also expects losses in the seats of retiring GOP Reps. Rick Renzi of Arizona, Jerry Weller of Illinois, Jim Saxton of New Jersey, Mike Ferguson of New Jersey, Vito Fossella of New York, James Walsh of New York and Tom Davis of Virginia.

Drafted by a Republican consultant, the document ranks seats on a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being the most likely for a Democratic takeover. Eleven members received a 5, meaning the seat is gone unless “a significant turn of events” changes things in the final two weeks. An additional seven seats are ranked as a 4, in the leaning Democratic category, and 16 seats are in the tossup category.

One well-connected Republican operative told Politico that the list, if anything, understated the number of members needing a political lifeline. The operative also said the GOP is all but writing off the seats of Reps. Marilyn Musgrave (R-Colo.), Joseph Knollenberg (R-Mich.), Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), Phil English (R-Pa.), and the open New Mexico House seat of retiring Rep. Steve Pearce (R-N.M.), who is running for the Senate.

Many of these potential pickups would strike at the heart of the Republican base. Pearce represents an oil-rich district that has been under Republican control since 1981. Musgrave and Bachmann are among Congress’ leading conservative voices, and both have won elections in the exurban areas that were until recently GOP strongholds.

With as many as 34 seats considered tossups or expected to flip, the National Republican Congressional Committee is being forced to make painful decisions about resource allocation.

Earlier this week, the NRCC pulled its advertising in Musgrave’s Colorado-based district and decided not to spend money it had previously reserved on Bachmann’s behalf in Minnesota, leaving them to fend for themselves in the campaign’s final week.

The operative added that the two New Jersey seats and Walberg’s Michigan seat may, however, be salvageable. The National Republican Congressional Committee has spent $1.1 million on behalf of Walberg, and about $630,000 in the two open-seat New Jersey districts.

In addition, the operative suggested that the seats of Reps. Bill Sali (R-Idaho), Christopher Shays (R-Conn.), Thelma Drake (R-Va.), Virgil H. Goode (R-Va.) and the open Kentucky seat of retiring Rep. Ron Lewis (R-Ky.) were in far more tenuous situation than the document shows.

National Republicans are confident in their prospects of taking back just one currently Democratic seat — the one held by scandal-plagued Florida Rep. Tim Mahoney. Reps. Carol Shea-Porter (D-N.H.), Paul E. Kanjorski (D-Pa.), Christopher P. Carney (D-Pa.) and Nick Lampson (D-Texas) are in tossup races, according to the NRCC, and the committee also views the battle for retiring Democratic Rep. Bud Cramer's seat in Alabama as a tossup.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1008/14885.html

McCain ad has a small business person saying something to the effect of this:

"He want to raise our taxes, he says he understands business but he doesn't. He never had to try and keep the lights on (at a business)."


If you're worried about keeping the lights on then you don't have 250k in profits, so your taxes aren't going up.

Income taxes are paid on profit. The "light bill" is a business cost and isn't taxed.

odd... double post three minutes apart.... really odd

OMG, I can't believe I missed this article during the primaries...  They give the funniest reasons why they don't endorse Obama.


Ku Klux Klan Won't Endorse Obama


Racist Rejection Revives Dark Questions of Electability

Dateline - Lynchburg, Virginia

In a surprising move, which some are calling a deathblow to his candidacy, the Ku Klux Klan today decided to not endorse Senator Barack Obama in his bid for the Presidency of the United States. Seeming to validate Hillary Clinton's assertion that Obama cannot win the all-important poor white racist vote which had became the cornerstone of her support, many are now speculating that rejection by the influential domestic terrorist organization could spell the end for the Illinois Democrat's race for the White House.

At his armed camp outside of Crab Orchard, West Virginia, Imperial Grand Wizard Gomer Bath explained the Klan's decision. "Our secret membership just did not feel that Senator Obama was addressing our core values." he said during press conference to a group of blindfolded reporters. "We examined the platforms of the leading candidates, but for all of us there seemed to be something unsettling about Obama, something lacking in his positions. I don't know about the others," he continued, "but for myself it really came down to health care. As you know, emergency hospital care has always been associated with our Brotherhood, but I feel the Senator has been rather niggardly in explaining the details of his plan. In the end we took a hood count, and voted unanimously against endorsement."

After Obama's abysmal failure to secure the segregationist vote in Pennsylvania, some pundits began to question his ability to reach out to this all-important bigoted base. Subsequent losses in Indiana, West Virginia, Kentucky, and the Sudetenland seemed to confirm Obama electoral weakness with this xenophobic demographic.

"Without Klan support Obama is crippled coming into the Fall election," said Pat Buchanan, MSNBC commentator, and Oberfuerher of his own morning show, "Reich and Shine with Pat. "This proves what I've said all along: hardworking Americans will not vote for anyone with so colored a past." Speaking at a book signing for his bestseller about the campaign, "Is It Getting Dark In Here?" Buchanan noted that Obama had also failed to secure the critical Nazi endorsement, which has played a significant part in American politics for the past eight years. "The election of George Bush proved the importance of both Klan and Nazi swing voters, and it would be a strategic mistake for the Democrats to turn a blind eye when a candidate fails with so badly with these pure-blooded Americans."

From his National Headquarters/Mother's Knitting Room in Kudzu, Alabama, Intergalactic Majestic Dragon, and two-time winner of the "Hit a Black Man with a Stick When He's Not Looking and Run Away" Championship, Chester Podgorney agrees. "Obama's rhetoric and speeches of Hope and Understanding have not won the hearts and minds of my vast Army of Fearless Race Warriors."  (OMG, I'm crying, it's too funny.) Podgorney's vast army, Timmy Henderson, quickly agreed. "I want to see more substance behind the words." he said, while simultaneously gaining badly needed hit points for his dwarf, Zolton, in his battle against Podgorney's 12th level Elf Princess. "I also have questions about his foreign policy." he added.

For some exactly how much to not endorse the Obama's candidacy was in doubt until the Senator's comments at a San Francisco fundraiser regarding the "bitterness" in some parts of America came to light.

"That did it for me." said Tucker Jones, lifelong Klan member, outside the unemployment office in Allentown, Pennsylvania. "I mean, sure, I felt a little angry when the factory moved to Uzbekistan. But then the Triple Secret Kleagle explained to me that the off-shoring of American factories was the only reasonable response to the Socialist Zionism Muslim Conspiracy of Osama Bin Goldberg. Boy, I felt like the dumbest guy at that cross burning! But, yeah, I was mad. But I was never bitter! Senator Obama's representation of armed, unemployed fanatically religious small town racists as bitter is exactly the sort of out of touch comment we've come to expect from his kind. Of politician.

(LOL that is the funniest one.)

With the loss of the Klan endorsement calls for Obama to end his hopeless candidacy have been heard from one end of Fox News Central to the other. However, despite this seemingly fatal blow to his campaign, diehards have noted Obama's apparent strength in states where melanin challenged Americans still make up a majority. But Grand Wizard Bath feels these arguments are baseless.

"Oregon, Wisconsin, Idaho, Nebraska... you have to understand the 28 states Obama's won so far are on the fringe," the robed zealot continued . "They do not represent the true confederacy of values America has tried to spread around the world. And there is also still quite a bit of strong feeling about Senator Clinton."

Noting her strength with the broad swaths of people who have no intention of actually voting for her, Senator Clinton also feels Obama's weakness with people who hate both of them with a passion should give unpledged superdelegates pause.

"I think they should look on Senator Obama's candidacy rather darkly," said the Senator most recently from New York. "The supers should remember that Fall is the important election., and these Klan voters are going to want to to support someone who understands them, someone they feel is one of them. And for some reason that does not seem to be Senator Obama"

Indeed, when questioned many of Clinton's erstwhile supporters said, though her candidacy seems over, they would still prefer to betray her in the General Election than to simply vote against Obama.

"Hillary's campaign is a historic moment in the American story," commented Ethel Jackson Lee Davis of Hole, Kentucky. "Having the chance to vote against the first serious woman presidential candidate was something me and my Cousin/Brother/Husband were very much looking forward to. She had proven time and time again she was willing to delude herself into reaching out to plain folks like us who have no intention of putting a whore like her in the White House, and that meant alot to us. It let us feel part of a movement against real change in America." After pausing to fearfully flinch from a quick movement her husband made as he reached for the Cheese Whiz, she continued. "Years from now, when my Cousin/Sister/Daughter is all grown up, I looked forward to telling her how we helped keep a woman down. But by his winning the Democratic nomination my dream has become just another thing Senator Obama and his people have taken from us."

But Jackson Lee Davis demurred when asked if she was planning to support Sen. McCain this Fall.

"That Jew? No way!" she said, before her husband punched her for stealing his cigarettes.

Now, I hate the Klan as much as the next Ethnic or Religious minority, but geewiz, that was pretty funny.

They really need the healthcare bit. Just look at this pic of a Klansman who tried to bumrush the crowd at an Obama rally here and screaming 'McCain/Palin' at the top of his lungs. Homie got OWN3D!