Friday, April 04, 2008

Things are seriously off track

According to an article in this morning's New York Times 81% of Americans think the country is headed on the wrong track.

Americans are more dissatisfied with the country's direction than at any time since the New York Times/CBS News poll began asking about the subject in the early 1990s, according to the latest poll.

In the poll, 81 percent of respondents said they believed "things have pretty seriously gotten off on the wrong track," up from 69 percent a year ago and 35 percent in early 2002.

Read the entire article

Obviously, with the voters feeling this way the only way John McCain can get elected is if he somehow convinces the voting public that he is an agent of change and will pursue policies that are very different than those of the Bush Administration. You might think that would be a difficult task for him since he has had to cozy up to many of the Bush Administration's policies in order to win the Republican nomination, flip-flopping on issues such as campaign finance reform, global warming, comprehensive immigration reform and the advisability of the Bush tax cuts. But he may be able to pull it off with the help of the Main-Stream (allegedly liberal) Media. It may amaze you how the media keeps trying to portray McCain as a maverick on those issues in blatant denial of reality.

Here are a few examples of the media ignoring McCain's flip-flopping on his former maverick views: here, here, here, here and here.

3 comments:

Dave Barrett said...

I-Know-It--I-Knew-It,
Yeah, being a die-hard Republican must be tough at the momonent. Your reaction to the situation, however, strikes me as somewhat dysfunctional. After 7 years of Republican control which has ruined the economy, ruined our reputation around the world, killed 4000 Americans and untold hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and ignored global warming, to continue to claim that it is the Democrats who are ruining the country must strike everyone reading your comments as truly bizarre.

Orville Portforker said...

It will be interesting once the Dem's ever figure out who their nominee is - then Obama will have to go toe-to-toe with someone who can put it to him.

"Agent of Change" is a nice phrase and one that most definately creates reaction. Unfortunately for Obama, when he has to face the truth, it will become clear to all that -

Obama TALKS change while LIVING partisan politics (voting with the ultra-left consistently), while McCain LIVES non-partisan politics.

Let's be honest, the Republican base is unsure of McCain - because he is CHANGE in ACTION and votes against his Party quite often.

Yes, the left will follow Obama anywhere - the same way that the right will follow McCain (more reluctantly, but what is their choice).

But the Pastor-Disaster has those in the middle questioning Obama (and this will increase as the Swift-boaters hit the issue hard) -and the fact that Obama is about anything but Change - and that McCain has LIVED CHANGE for 30-years will be a severe hit on Obama.

Saul said...

orville portforker,

I think for most people "change" does not mean an end to what you call "partisan politics", it means a change from the disastrous track that the government is on now. Most important in that respect is the war and the economy. Americans on the whole do not like the war and do not want to continue it, and it's just a plain fact that the Democrats are more likely to get us out of the war than the Republicans. That's pretty much impossible to dispute. McCain hasn't given any indication that he wants to stop it, and he's not opposed to occupying Iraq forever. So no "change" there. And McCain has also refused to put forth any serious criticism of the way that Bush has run the economy. No "change" there, either. As David points out, all McCain's desire to oppose the right wing of his own party seems to have gone down the drain once he became the nominee.

And all of your attempts to keep alive the "pastor" controversy can't change the fact that most people have moved on. It was blown way out of proportion to begin with--anyone who listened to the whole speech by Reverend Wright knows that it wasn't that bad. Your attempt to seize on a two-second sound byte by someone who's not even a part of the Obama campaign can't change the fact that most Americans seem to like both Obama as a person and what he stands for: and end to the war, and an end to far right wing economic policies that are ruining the economy for everyone but the rich.

And since you keep incessantly harping on about Obama's pastor, let's take a quick glance at the pastor McCain ACTIVELY sought out to get a presidential endorsement from--John Hagee. He calls the Catholic Church "the Great Whore", he thinks Hurricane Katrina was God's punishment for New Orleans and America (how's that for "damning America!), and he wants war with Iran, because he thinks it will bring about the Apocalypse and the second coming of Jesus. Now that is certifiably insane--a pastor who wants more war because it will bring about the end of the world. Eh, no thanks. The Republicans might want to reassess the "advantage" they think they have on the "pastor" front.