The Impeachment Hearing Room

John McCain Prepares To Throw Away His Honor, Dignity, Reputation And What Little Respect He Has Left To Prove He Is No Better Than Karl Rove And George Bush! 

McCain Plans Fiercer Strategy against Obama.  McCain/Palin Failing Preparing For Shit House Politics.  It’s Time for America to Simply Say NO!

Forget the issue; it’s ALL about ME John McCain!  

Let The Blood Letting and Character Assassination Begin As John McCain Sinks Into The Stink Of The Pig Pen.  The “War Hero” is prepared to become a laughing stock!

I don’t care who you support; the “negative campaign” should be rejected by every voter!

McCain Plans Fiercer Strategy Against Obama

By Michael D. Shear
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, October 4, 2008; A01

Sen. John McCain and his Republican allies are readying a newly aggressive assault on Sen. Barack Obama's character, believing that to win in November they must shift the conversation back to questions about the Democrat's judgment, honesty and personal associations, several top Republicans said.

With just a month to go until Election Day, McCain's team has decided that its emphasis on the senator's biography as a war hero, experienced lawmaker and straight-talking maverick is insufficient to close a growing gap with Obama. The Arizonan's campaign is also eager to move the conversation away from the economy, an issue that strongly favors Obama and has helped him to a lead in many recent polls.

"We're going to get a little tougher," a senior Republican operative said, indicating that a fresh batch of television ads is coming. "We've got to question this guy's associations. Very soon. There's no question that we have to change the subject here," said the operative, who was not authorized to discuss strategy and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Being so aggressive has risks for McCain if it angers swing voters, who often say they are looking for candidates who offer a positive message about what they will do. That could be especially true this year, when frustration with Washington politics is acute and a desire for specifics on how to fix the economy and fight the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is strong.

Robert Gibbs, a top Obama adviser, dismissed the new McCain strategy. "This isn't 1988," he said. "I don't think the country is going to be distracted by the trivial." He added that Obama will continue to focus on the economy, saying that Americans will remain concerned about the country's economic troubles even as the Wall Street crisis eases somewhat.

Moments after the House of Representatives approved a bailout package for Wall Street on Friday afternoon, the McCain campaign released a television ad that challenges Obama's honesty and asks, "Who is Barack Obama?" The ad alleges that "Senator Obama voted 94 times for higher taxes. Ninety-four times. He's not truthful on taxes." The charge that Obama voted 94 times for higher taxes has been called misleading by independent fact-checkers, who have noted that the majority of those votes were on nonbinding budget resolutions.

A senior campaign official called the ad "just the beginning" of commercials that will "strike the new tone" in the campaign's final days. The official said the "aggressive tone" will center on the question of "whether this guy is ready to be president."

McCain's only positive commercial, called "Original Mavericks," has largely been taken off the air, according to Evan Tracey of the Campaign Media Analysis Group, which tracks political ads.

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's performance at Thursday night's debate embodied the new approach, as she used every opportunity to question Obama's honesty and fitness to serve as president. At one point she said, "Barack Obama voted against funding troops [in Iraq] after promising that he would not do so."

Palin kept up the attack yesterday, saying in an interview on Fox News that Obama is "reckless" and that some of what he has said, "in my world, disqualifies someone from consideration as the next commander in chief."

McCain hinted Thursday that a change is imminent, perhaps as soon as next week's debate. Asked at a Colorado town hall, "When are you going to take the gloves off?" the candidate grinned and replied, "How about Tuesday night?"

Yesterday in Pueblo, Colo., McCain made clear that he intends to press Obama on a variety of familiar GOP themes during the debate, as he accused the Democrat once again of getting ready to raise taxes and increase government spending.

"I guarantee you, you're going to learn a lot about who's the liberal and who's the conservative and who wants to raise your taxes and who wants to lower them," McCain said.

A senior aide said the campaign will wait until after Tuesday's debate to decide how and when to release new commercials, adding that McCain and his surrogates will continue to cast Obama as a big spender, a high taxer and someone who talks about working across the aisle but doesn't deliver.

Two other top Republicans said the new ads are likely to hammer the senator from Illinois on his connections to convicted Chicago developer Antoin "Tony" Rezko and former radical William Ayres, whom the McCain campaign regularly calls a domestic terrorist because of his acts of violence against the U.S. government in the 1960s.

The Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. appears to be off limits after McCain condemned the North Carolina Republican Party in April for an ad that linked Obama to his former pastor, saying, "Unfortunately, all I can do is, in as visible a way as possible, disassociate myself from that kind of campaigning."

McCain advisers said the new approach is in part a reaction to Obama, whose rhetoric on the stump and in commercials has also become far harsher and more aggressive.

They noted that Obama has run television commercials for months linking McCain to lobbyists and hinting at a lack of personal ethics -- an allegation that particularly rankles McCain, aides said.

Campaigning in Abington, Pa., yesterday, Obama continued to focus on the economy, even as he lashed out at McCain.

"He's now going around saying, 'I'm going to crack down on Wall Street' . . . but the truth is he's been saying 'I'm all for deregulation' for 26 years," Obama said. "He hasn't been getting tough on CEOs. He hasn't been getting tough on Wall Street. . . . Suddenly a crisis comes and the polls change, and suddenly he's out there talking like Jesse Jackson."

Obama highlighted a new report showing a reduction of more than 159,000 jobs last month, and he linked the bad economic news to McCain and Palin.

"Governor Palin said to Joe Biden that our plan to get our economy out of the ditch was somehow a job-killing plan; that's what she said," Obama told a crowd of thousands. "I wonder if she turned on the news this morning. . . . When Senator McCain and his running mate talk about job killing, that's something they know a thing or two about, because the policies they've supported and are supporting are killing jobs in America every single day."

McCain issued a statement yesterday saying the bailout bill "is not perfect, and it is an outrage that it's even necessary. But we must stop the damage to our economy done by corrupt and incompetent practices on Wall Street and in Washington."

Speaking in Pueblo just as the House was finishing deliberations on the package, McCain blamed fellow lawmakers for the failure to adequately regulate the mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

"It was the Democrats and some Republicans in the Congress who pushed back and did not allow those reforms to take place, and that's a major reason we are in the trouble we are in today," he said. "Those members of Congress ought to be held accountable on November 4th as well."

Before the bailout crisis, aides said, McCain was succeeding in focusing attention on Obama's record and character. Now, they say, he must return to those subjects.

"We are looking for a very aggressive last 30 days," said Greg Strimple, one of McCain's top advisers. "We are looking forward to turning a page on this financial crisis and getting back to discussing Mr. Obama's aggressively liberal record and how he will be too risky for Americans."

BUT

What They Told Us: Reviewing Last Week’s Key Polls

Saturday, October 04, 2008

Voters still had mixed feelings about the $700-billion financial rescue plan as it worked its torturous way through Congress last week, but for Republicans the country’s current economic mess is proving to be more and more of a drag at the polls.

Before the collapse of Lehman Brothers started the Wall Street crisis a few weeks ago, 24% of Americans said the nation was heading the right direction. While that figure was already low, it kept falling and is down to 10% today. Eighty-six percent (86%) say the nation has gotten off on the wrong track.

Nationally, Barack Obama has opened a modest but stable lead over John McCain in both the Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll and the Electoral College projections.

Key states like Florida, Ohio and Colorado that went George W. Bush’s way are now tied or close to tied. Obama is ahead in Virginia and North Carolina, states the GOP has long called its own.

While the results for the first presidential debate on Sept. 26 were mixed, voters in surveys following the debate gave a boost in trust to Obama over McCain on 10 major issues tracked by Rasmussen Reports.

But Sarah Palin’s peformance in the highest watched debate since 1992 was a bit of good news for Republicans at week’s end, especially since 34% said the vice presidential debate was important to how they will vote. Polling results on the debate will be released later today.

Speaking of Palin, the mother of five, 67% of voters say children are a motivation for women in political office, not a distraction, and nearly one-third (31%) believe being a good wife and mother is a qualification to run for higher office.

This election year, voters nationwide continue to rank the economy as the number one issue, and by substantial majorities they say the country’s economic situation is getting worse. The Rasmussen Consumer Index and the Rasmussen Investor Index, which measure confidence in both these areas on a daily basis, continue to hover in record low territory.

In his first inaugural address in 1981, Ronald Reagan told Americans, “Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem,” and 59% of voters still agree with him.

Voters are evenly divided over whether Congress should take action to help the troubled financial industry or just let Wall Street work out its problems on its own.

A sizable majority says Wall Street will benefit more than the average taxpayer from the taxpayer-funded economic bailout plan. Maybe that’s why just 26% of American adults have even a little bit of confidence that the nation’s policy makers know what they’re doing when it comes to the current problems on Wall Street.

Fifty-one percent (51%) of Americans think politicians are more interested in gaining additional power than in fixing the economy anyway.

In other polls last week:

-- Obama’s numbers were up in the key battleground state of Pennsylvania, New Hampshire and New Mexico.

-- McCain had good news in Texas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Arizona, Nebraska, Tennessee, Montana and Mississippi, but some of these states were getting closer than the Republican candidate expected.

-- In the nation’s Senate races, incumbent Democrats were comfortably ahead in Louisiana and Iowa while veteran Republicans had solid leads in Kentucky, Tennessee and Texas. The Republican candidate in Nebraska looks likely to hold that Senate seat for his party, but in New Hampshire and Mississippi GOP incumbent senators may be in trouble.

-- Almost all of the recent polling data from North Carolina has brought good news for Democrats, but the Governor's race is an exception. Pat McCrory, the Republican mayor of Charlotte, now has a slight lead over Democratic Lieutenant Governor Bev Perdue.

-- The gubernatorial race rematch in Washington State between incumbent Democrat Christine Gregoire and Republican challenger Dino Rossi is now a tie.

-- For the first time since Rasmussen Reports began polling on the issue, a plurality of voters in September said the U.S. mission in Iraq will be viewed as a success in the long term.

-- In the midst of an economic crisis and an historic presidential election, voting Americans are evenly divided as to whether the nation’s best days lie ahead or in the past. Still, the current results are among the most optimistic of the past two years.

-- Now that autumn is officially upon us, the top weekend activity for most Americans is simply a long walk outside.

-- And, sssh, don’t tell anybody, but the winner of the first presidential debate was moderator and PBS television personality Jim Lehrer. After earlier polls showing that most voters expect the moderators to be biased, 76% said Lehrer was neutral.

… With one month to go until Election Day, the Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Saturday shows Barack Obama attracting 51% of the vote while John McCain earns 45%. For each of the past nine days, Obama has been at 50% or 51% and McCain has been at 44% or 45% (see trends). The stability of these results suggests that the McCain campaign faces a very steep challenge in the remaining few weeks of Election 2008.

Obama is viewed favorably by 56% of voters, McCain by 53% (see trends). Rasmussen Markets data shows Obama is given a 66.5 % chance of winning in November (see market expectations for key states).

It will be interesting to see what, if any, impact passage of the financial bailout legislation will have on the final month of the campaign. In the end, just 30% of American voters supported the legislation and most believed it will benefit Wall Street rather than taxpayers.

Washington, Rasmussen Reports 10/2: Obama 53%, McCain 43%.
http://www.usaelectionpolls.com/2008/polls/Washington-Obama-McCain-October-2008.html

Nevada, Rasmussen Reports 10/1: Obama 53%, McCain 43%.
http://www.usaelectionpolls.com/2008/polls/Nevada-Obama-McCain-October-2008.html

New Hampshire, St Anselm SRBI 9/25-30: Obama 49%, McCain 37%.
http://www.usaelectionpolls.com/2008/polls/New-Hampshire-Obama-McCain-September-2008.html

New Hampshire, Rasmussen Reports 10/1: Obama 53%, McCain 43%.
http://www.usaelectionpolls.com/2008/polls/New-Hampshire-Obama-McCain-October-2008.html