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TechnoratiBlame game: GOP Forms Circular Firing Squad
With despair rising even among many of John McCain's own advisers, 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.
![[John McCain speaks in Florida on Thursday, with his wife, Cindy, by his side.
(Photo: AP)]](http://www.commondreams.org/files/article_images/mccain1024.jpg "mccain1024.jpg")
A McCain interview published Thursday in The Washington Times sparked the latest and most nasty round of 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 advisers 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 résumé was a political loser, it was decided.
"The pollsters and the entire senior leadership of campaign believe that experience vs. 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 nonconservative ideas as a massive government purchase of homeowner mortgages - seal his fate?
Dan Schnur, a McCain communications adviser 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 fundraising tactics, but in the process revealed no small amount of envy over 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 the 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 Magazine piece on Sunday 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.
Longtime 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."
Alexander Burns contributed to this story.
45 Comments so far
Show AllIf the last seven+plus years of misrule in Washington and this shockingly vile, ugly and destructive campaign have proved anything, it is this:
The Republican party is the deadly enemy of peace, freedom, justice and human rights everywhere. The world won't be safe until its destruction is complete.
Is this not the largest spending Presidential Administration in the history of the United States? indeed, of any nation in the history of Mankind?
Grappa
Ecuse me , but I was wondering if the repubs are committing Hare Kari, could some one give me an address to send the blades to. I would certainly like to help them out of their predicament. Matter of fact, I have a number of friends that would be willing to chip in.
Wouldn't it be a nice ka-pow if 3rd partys did better than the Repubs in this election?
I suspect that that result is the MOST powerful, DESIRED, and impactful to VASTLY improve our chances collectively working effectively within the Obama administration's obvious constraints.
Power sharing is going to be a direct result of popular opinion clarified through the vote totals. With geo bu$h!t having an approval rating of 20%, I would love to see that be the top end of the rethuglican tally.
Having
___ ~ 50% ___ for Obama,
___ ~ 30% ___ for 3rd parties
___ ~ 20% ___ for bu$h!t, ver. I_I_I
would be a very empowering situation -- I love it !
Namaste
I can't dance in the streets yet, not until after election day.
If the Repubs "campaign" (they call THAT a campaign?) can't get McDoofus in, they'll continue trying to steal/rig the votes.
That tactic put Bush in 2x and could still get McCain the presidency.
I wish the staffers who are jumping McC's ship were right, though.
And, Sarah?
Her hate-filled rallying the racist troops, most likely is not going to go away. Look at all the attention it's gotten them? SNL every week. Yeah, EVERY week!!! Twice a week, even (what is it with that new show they do on Thursdays anyway?).
I keep thinking of that saying "bad publicity is better than no publicity"-
look what it's done for Paris Hilton, not a day goes by that we don't hear about people like her.
Sarah has neatly joined their ranks.
Obscure no more.
You think they are going to let an asset like that fade away?
I doubt it.
What? McCain is losing? You wouldn't know it by reading our local corporate ad-rag. On an otherwise bad Republican news day they just put an American flag on the front page and talk about WWII again. All these local racists will be flocking to the polls and they'll still be racists after McCain gets his head handed to him nationally.
When McCain criticized Bush about all he did to our country, he is criticizing himself because he has been a part of his party and said he voted with Bush 90% of the time. Sometimes more than some of the others in his party.
He voted for the $700 Billion bail out which is socialism but says Obama wants to have socialism if he is President. What is wrong with spreading the wealth? When McCain says that to his crowd about how Obama wants to spread the wealth, do they not realize that it would help them too. They just listen with no intelligent thought of their own.
If McCain is elected (I pray not) if he runs his administration the way he does his campaign, we are in trouble!!!! Sarah was talking about Autism today and said something about spending money doing testing on fruit flys. She told her audience, she kid them not, somewhere in France they were testing fruit flys and spending money foolishly.
The man, that Olberman was speaking to on his show this evening, had to refrain his choice of words for Palin, but said that it was in North Carolina, not France, where they do use fruit flys in looking at a protein that children with autism lack and they may have some connection. He said whoever wrote her script or maybe she did but did not have her facts right. She had to give a two and half hour deposition today in her troopergate case.
She calls it tasergate. Of course, she said the Safty Commissioner was fired over cut backs not because of her brother-in-law. Why does she call it tasergate then? Her husband has to give his deposition tomorrow. If the independent council finds her guilty she may be fined, impeached, or maybe nothing. She lied and said that the Legislature found her not guilty. Only they did. They said she abused her power. I think she lives in a dream state like Bush. She has also claimed she didn't spend $150,000 on clothes either but according to the RNC they did. McCain even said she needed clothes.
For those who keep saying McCain will win. Or, for those who keep saying the election will be stolen, take careful note of this story.
This is the look of a defeated campaign. Its not a GOP thing or a liberal thing. Its a loser thing.
The top McCain staff all know they've alredy lost.
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"To know, and not to do, is not to know"
Absolutely correct.
For those of us who never want to see or hear of or from "Saint Sarah" ever again, I offer this. Fred Barnes has been wrong on every issue he has offered up an opinion. He doesn't do much better with facts, either...
"Circular Firing Squad" is usually the punch line to many cliche jokes about American leftists. Since the reign of Grandpa Caligula (Reagan), that punch line has been sadly all too true. So it is with amused schadenfraude that I witness the televised meltdown of the Repugs.
I almost feel sorry for John McCain, really.
Someone before suggested he is "hollow". This is a good description I'm afraid. Decades in the senate and lacks the ability to form a coherent campaign strategy and campaign message. Obama beat him at that a long time ago, and he's barely been in the senate for one term!
McCain is one minute advocating socialism and the next minute attacking it. He advocates maintaining the Bush tax cuts and other Bush policies, but also advocates "change". He's one of those political chameleon opportunist types who lacks strong convictions about anything. This makes a McCain type of politician extremely adaptable. During the good times, nobody really notices. But during the bad times, the McCain type politician is usually very busy trying to figure out which positions to adopt, since they don't really believe in anything except trying to stay in office. This in part might explain McCain "suspending" his campaign amidst the economic meltdown. Obama maintained his cool - Obama has long campaigned on "change" and "hope" anyway. Most politicians aren't hardcore ideologues, but most aren't chameleon "mavericks" either ..... ah you know the rest.
Nope, just a loser.
This is what a losing campaign looks like. They can't form a strategy or a message because nothing is working for them. They think they have a good idea. But they try it and the polls don't budge. So, even if maybe it might have been the best idea they could have, they probably abandon it and start making changes just to try to turn things around.
Meanwhile, everyone gets nasty with each other. People blame others for ideas that didn't work. Maybe say if only they'd done it their way it would have been differently. Probably not, but when things aren't going well, there's always people saying something like this.
McCain is being outspent something like 4:1. Maybe worse. I saw that Obama is now over $600 million total for the whole campaign. I don't know how much of that matches up against the $85 million of public funds McCain is using. But a lot of it is. That alone makes the McCain campaign a huge underdog in modern American politics. Its incredibly hard to win when outspent like that.
Add to that an unpopular war and a crashing economy, and its no great surprise that they are losing. But that's about all this really is. This is what a losing campaign looks like.
----------------------------
"To know, and not to do, is not to know"
"This is what a losing campaign looks like"
You got it! Nice description.
Radio_tec, I apologize for the broken link. Here it is:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-dinges/mccain-meets-a-bloody-dic_b_137422.html
How sweet it is!
GreenIs,
Your Huffington Post link is broken. Could you please re-edit it?
McCain’s Private Visit With Chilean Dictator Revealed For First Time
Source: Huffington Post
John McCain, who has harshly criticized the idea of sitting down with dictators without pre-conditions, appears to have done just that. In 1985, McCain traveled to Chile for a friendly meeting with Chile's military ruler, General Augusto Pinochet, one of the world's most notorious violators of human rights credited with killing more than 3,000 civilians and jailing tens of thousands of others.
The private meeting between McCain and dictator Pinochet has gone previously un-reported anywhere.
According to a declassified U.S. Embassy cable about the meeting secured by The Huffington Post, McCain described the meeting with Pinochet "as friendly and at times warm, but noted that Pinochet does seem obsessed with the threat of communism." McCain, a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee at the time, made no public or private statements critical of the dictatorship, nor did he meet with members of the democratic opposition, as far as could be determined from a thorough check of U.S. and Chilean newspaper records and interviews with top opposition leaders.
Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-dinges/mccain-meets-...
It's the ambition of Republican candidates for president to be a dictator. Both Monkeyboy and McCain admitted they wanted to be dictators. So why did Monkeyboy have Saddam killed after accusing Saddam of being a dictator? Oh I forgot about Iraq's oil Bush was lusting for.
The rush job on Hussein's execution was to prevent him from spilling his guts on U.S. involvement in his regime. If you're hoping to find bin Laden being frog-marched across your TV screen during the news some evening, you may also be in for some disappointment.
Sarah Palin is proud to be called a "redneck." She said so herself this week. Dumb and proud of that, too I'm sure. So she is the Republican's great white hope in 2012? LOL.........I hope so.
And look at how many woman are heading to Obama in droves because all the men are panting after Palin. She just may make the difference in this election, but not the one she was picked to make.
I've seen unexpected effects like that in elections before.
Back in GA once, during a governor's election, the Repubs had nominated this loud mouthed jerk of a county commission chair as their Lt. Gov candidate. This was back when GA was just getting pretty competitive for the Repubs.
This jerk decided the thing to do a couple of weeks before the election was to make a lot of nasty and racist attacks against the blacks who ran Atlanta. This was probably the way he normally talked anyways, and his right-wing white surburban audiences loved it.
The unexpected effect is that most of south Georiga has a majority of poor blacks. They of course heard these comments. The jerk Lt. Gov candidate probably wasn't thinking of them when he ran his mouth. But they turned out on election day in something like record numbers to defeat this jerk. And they voted Democrat on all the other races as well. Which led to a big Dem sweep statewide, one of their last wins before the state flipped Republican.
Didn't seem like the Republicans even saw it coming. They were strutting around the Atlanta suburbs reving up their crowds with this racist stuff they considered their red meat for their audience. They looked stunned when the numbers came in on election night and they lost badly.
----------------------------
"To know, and not to do, is not to know"
You gotta love it. The shooting should be very vicious, every nasty scumbag in politics, religion, fascism, media, racism and corruption was recruited to join the Republicans in pursuit of a permanent majority. I betcha plenty of loot was promised all around. Looks like the Alaskan trailer trash is taking some of her cut early, in clothing. Of course, her track record in Alaska shows her to be one greedy slime ball in her own right.
This is probably the 'EXPERIENCE' that Palin has that McCain, Obama and Biden don't have.
They may not be clean, but I bet they haven't blackmailed a public safety head over a messy family divorce. Classic.
"...the GOP is on the brink of a soul-searching debate about what to do to reclaim power"
a) they have no souls to search
b) Shouldn't they be "serving the public" rather than "claiming power"?
The Repubs are finally recognizing what I have been writing at this site for weeks now...
John McCain does not exist. There is no John McCain. He is "A Man Without Qualities," a Hollow Man.
Now it will get worse as it becomes apparent that the entire neoconservative agenda is a mythical chimera. The "bailout" AKA "Rescue" is an obvious TRILLION DOLLAR failure, the Congress is a Lemming. We are living through not merely an economic meltdown but a moral and philosophical meltdown while all McCain and company can do is spew vindictive fear-mongering malarkey in a calculated attempt to delegitimize a coming Obama administration.
There will be no "politics as usual" in the coming conflagration, regardless who wins. There is a sense in the land that this is a nation built on lies and deceit and the chickens are coming home to roost.
Spread the Wealth. Spread the Poverty.
-30-
It isn't just individuals within the party pointing the finger at one another for this mess; it seems that the various ideological groups that make up the republican-conservative movement are very busy trashing each other. Indeed, as the Republican party implodes, it is collapsing into various rival factions blaming each other for this disaster. Moderate conservatives are blaming the Christian right(Robertson, Hagee, Huckabee and their sheep); the Christian right is blaming the moderate conservatives(John McCain used to be one, but no one knows which faction he belongs to anymore) for being "too liberal". Paleo-conservatives(Pat Buchanan) and neo-conservatives are at each other's throats. Even a rift between the Christian right and neo-conservatives is growing. Should most of the opposing factions temporarily unite, they do so only to beat on libertarians, especially the anti-war libertarians(Ron Paul, Bob Barr and their associates). They all seem to be against each other nearly as much as they are against Obama.
Of course they all unite briefly for attacks on George W Bush, especially for the bailout deal, for being a near total failure as a president, and for being the party's single biggest liability. "Bush is bad" is just about the only thing they can agree on, and much of the fighting involves one faction of conservatives accusing another faction of not hating Bush enough. At least a few conservatives, mostly of the moderate faction(Colin Powell, Christopher Buckley), are even supporting Obama. Its as funny as hell to watch!
I just had a vision! A big finger sticking down from the heavens right into the middle of them all, slowly twirling around and around ...
Thats hilarious! Thanks!!
biwee
I totally agree. Despite the fact that MacKain is an utterly incompetent loser, it was his party that endorsed him. His choice for the inbredneck form Alaska (Hey girls and guys up there, You may want to recall this failure) was as symptomatic as the choice of the republicons for MacKain.
It is indeed the republicons that have outed themselves as the worst thing that ever happened to this beautiful Country. They need to be banished as public enemy #1. Just like the NSDAP.
Yet we are still waiting for Justice to kick in and prosecute those who are responsible for all this. That will happen when we have removed those brown 'Judges' that have been planted in the Supreme Court and elsewhere. After all there seems to be a God and he/she woke up.
May all Beings be blessed. Specifically the weak and ill minded.
People notice all sorts of odd things during campaigns. For example:
Palin, Biden, and Obama can all be seen out on the campaign trail by themselves.
But you NEVER see McCain without his wife. EVER!
Shouldn't she be in front of other audiences? Couldn't she multiply voter penetration?
To me its as though McCain is so old and feeble he can't go anywhere without his nurse (or babysitter).
Look for her the next time you see him in the media. She'll be behind him (normally on his right side...).
Cindy McCain is keeping a high profile alright. Perhaps the Republicans are trying to do an age average on the two. She looks like about 30 or even 25 with her facelift (she looked her age a few years ago, in her 50's). So 30 + 72 = 51. Not so old after all eh John? I don't know about anyone else, but I'd rather not have a plastic first lady in the White House --- along with McInsane.
...ready with the defibrillator.
It is not McCain. This national election is not about the candidates. It is about Republicans vs America. No Republican could win the White House. Republicans drove America into the ditch with an unnecessary war of choice, and tax cuts we could not afford. Now, at the approach of a disaster, the evil NeoCon Republicans try to evade responsibility and hide. But, the jig is up......Republicans wrecked America.
biwee sez: "No Republican could win the White House."
***
They can't "WIN" the White House. But they can, and do, and will again, occupy it.
The fu#king fascist fu#ktards are finally fu#ked!
FU#K YEA!
Wonderful, wonderful, WONDERFUL!!! The Repugs have us awash in blood, deceit, debt,lies, Swiftboating and all manner of PAIN- hope they explode/implode and are FLUSHED AWAY big time...then the healing the Party of Lincoln and some others can begin- then the USA can start to heal even more and better- and maybe we can look to this Millenium to deliver less WAR and all of the above negativity. While they are shooting each other so nicely, could you take some of our Canadian Repugs and add them to the mix- the whole WORLD can do with a hell of a lot less NEO-CON-servatism!
The Republican Party and the fascist cabal that has taken it over in the last generation have always governed by circular firing squad. With the American people herded complacently into the middle.
I like the image of that circular firing squad. Can't you imagine it growing to encompass the whole GOP lot before 11/4? We can hope.
Another school believes Palin 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."
Fred Barnes, another nerd, another geek, from Elephant Walk, is right . . . if you're a reactionary or an Old Testament fascist. If McCain loses, the Repimplicans will learn absolutely nothing - zilch, zero, nichts, nada - from the defeat. They will claim McCain was a closet liberal, or he was too old, owned too many houses and cars, was a lousy, undisciplined campaigner, was the reincarnation of Adlai Stevenson, whatever nonsense comes from that well of bullshit, nonsense and poison known as the Repimplican mind, and cling to Mrs. Elmer Gantry as their salvation. Find an even bigger know-nothing and fuck-up than George Wanker Bush. But she will have Jeb Rancid Bush to contend with, as well as a slew of junior Caesars from the nation's ranks of Repimplican emperor wannabes.
I hope you are wrong about Palin. We shall see. She has to go back to Alaska and the Alaskans are watching veeeeery carefully, ready with the noose and/or tar and feathers.
I agree with everything you say Mordechai, except for the Nerd and Geek label. Nerds and Geeks are the people with brains - BIG ones - like Einstein. These idiots use everything but their pea-sized brains to think with.
What wonderful words!
Can someone put them to music? Perhaps a rock opera - 'McCain wasn't Able'
Here's hoping the Geezer and the Grifter fade away quickly.
Yes a great spectacular musical, perhaps along with …
__ " brother, can you spare a dime ? "
__ " brother, can you spare me ? "
Namaste
no comment