Democrats must take McCain more seriously

[old mark]

I'm seeing a lot on McCain making him seem like a lightweight, an older version of BushII.
He is not.
Read his boig on Wikipedia.
He was one of the lowest in his graduating class at Anapolis, but mainly because he hates rules and discipline. Hw wanted to be a military aviator-many of them are like this. Not good at the military part, but good pilots.
His time spent as a POW was a terrible ordeal, and he did some honestly heroic things while a captive.
North Viets offered him early release to score political points because his father was an admiral. He refused.
He is a tough, independent guy, and he will be a tough opponent despite the Republican party going to hell.

Democrats must win this presidential election, and we cannot afford to
underrate McCain.
The country can't stand another 4 (or 8) years of republicans in power.
mark

[oldtime dfl_er]

1. Thank you for that resume

I agree that of course Dems must take him seriously (although not me, if you see my button below). But a tough independent guy? No. A panderer, a flip flopper, a power hungry war loving conservative.

[sharesunited]

7. Big with independents and a white male. Formidable to be sure.

Hey, I didn't make the world. I just explain it.

[stray cat]

2. Republicans know how to unite to protect their power - if dems don't McCain wins.

I think McCain is the strongest Repub we could run against and he will blow us away if we don't get our act together. By the way - a delayed welcome to DU.

[dembotoz]

4. dems love to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory

we must not let it happen AGAIN

[TwilightGardener]

3. He's 72, emotionally unstable, and has changed positions on just

about everything over the course of the last 8 years. His only strengths are that he's white, he's earned goodwill from his POW/military service, and he's been around a long time. I have absolutely no fear of him beating Obama.

[squawk7700]

8. There are a lot of voters who don't know or care about those negatives

and the GOP has not only a very effective organization, but also megabucks and right now a lot of motivation. If you have absolutely no fear, you're a political dummy. Sorry.

edit: Also as Willie Brown pointed out the other day (he's one politico we would be INSANE to ignore), there is a huge bloc of voters who will never say it in public but won't vote for a black person. Don't bitch at me for reporting his comments, please. :-)

[bdamomma]

19. but I would love seeing those two debate, Obama will just

pummel him over. This is going to be the nastiest dirtiest campaign ever, and already Bush and McCain are ganging up on Obama, and McCain is already putting the thought in those who cannot see the forest through the trees that Obama is not experienced, it's going to be bad, and it will be even worse if McInsane gets in the WH. All the more reason for those who are still asleep or have so much hatred in them to NOT vote for whomever the Dem Candidate is, try not to only think about yourselves cause there are many ex pats out there, who hate seeing what is going on in the states.

[pegleg]

5. We would be foolish not to fear him, given the Repub control

of so much of corporate media.

[DFW]

6. We SHOULD be able to beat him, but you're right, it's not a lock

He has the huge RNC budget, plus Fox, CNN, and National Hate Radio.
He will pander, switch positions, and wave that flag as if it were
Superman's impenetrable clothes.

Also, don't forget dirty tricks, Rove's knowledge of how to conjure
non-issues up out of thin air (like Ohio's anti-gay marriage question
on the 2004 ballot that brought out all the rural family values people
that never would have voted, or voted Republican, otherwise), and those
programmable Republican-made voting machines.We are not up against just
McCain. We are up against a whole corrupt apparatus, and are clearly the
underdogs here--all we have to offer is the better candidate and the better
platform. As we have seen in the last two elections, that is not enough to
win the White House.

[squawk7700]

10. And even though neither Obama or Clinton favor same-sex marriage, the recent

California decision will gyrate the rightwingnut hormones to new heights...and they'll take every opportunity to get the electorate to -believe- our nominee wants to destroy "traditional marriage." :grr:
edited to fix typo oops

[cali]

9. oh, please. McCain is not independent. He's yoked to lobbyists

big time. And he was reckless. still is. In any case, Obama is, I'm dead sure, taking beating the crap out of him, very seriously. And no, I don't agree that he'll be as tough an opponent as you think.

[DFW]

11. McCain by himself? Of course not. But he's not the main opponent

It's the whole well-oiled and well-financed corrupt Republican
electoral-fraud apparatus, from armed gangs intimidating native
Americans from getting to polling places in South Dakota to
polling places in Democratic wards in Florida that "inadvertently"
were insufficiently supplied with voting machines and/or ballots.

THAT'S what we're up against. If it weren't for that, we would be
discussing who would be able to follow in the shoes of President
Gore this year.

[cali]

16. Largely myth at this point.

The GOP machine is in sad shape. They just lost 3 Congressional special elections in heavily repuke districts. If their machine is well oiled and they're so adept at vote fraud, how did that happen?

You're not keeping up with the demise of the GOP machine.

[DFW]

18. Watch your myth become reality

Complacency like that will sink us.

They won't put all their big guns on close congressional races.
They know that without the White House we'll just be making a
lot of noise, and they still get to pick the Supreme Court judges.
Just because Cheney goes to Mississippi and a Democrat wins who
is so far to the right, he wouldn't even be under consideration
for the Massachusetts Republican party, that is not indicative of
what they'll do to hold on to the White House. One is a corroded
cent and the other is a silver dollar.

[GCP]

12. Yes - a lot of non-political types will be suckered

They'll be given the (false) choice between a "rookie" and someone who's been around the block a few times. Make no mistake - this is how it will be played.

[old mark]

13. My poor writing-

I did not mean that McCain is an independent "thinker", if that term is appropriate, but rather that he was-when a young man-not comfortable with the military rules and chickenshit regs at the nevy trade school.
I know that some of this carried over into his later life, but I have no doubt it would not translate into noncompliance with the Rep party line.

FWIW, I have some experience with military pilots, find him to be pretty typical-not heavily burdened with immagination or deep thought.

mark

[SparkyMac]

14. Under the pressue of a national campaign -- he will fall apart,

[sendero]

15. My attitude...

.... is that if this country is stupid enough to elect this Bush-lite idiot, we deserve whatever happens.

That said, I've already heard how Obama is going to handle these fools rhetorically, and FINALLY, FINALLY we're about to have a Dem who will CALL OUT THE REPUBLICAN PARTY ON ITS MASSIVE FAILURE TO GOVERN.

I just can't get that worried about McCain, he just doesn't have the chops.

[Perry Logan]

17. We try. But we just keep giggling.

[DemocracyInaction]

20. Think outside the box--or the voting booth box

If we actually had democracy int his country--you know, where the guy with the most votes win--then we probably would kick the crap out of "pale face". BUT, given that it's a "state" thing - called electoral college votes, I hate to break it to you but we are dealing with the same old shit, different election. The day any Dixie state votes Dem is the day the clock just flipped back to the Civil War! Unfortunately there is still a keg full of "blacks belong working on the master's plantation" mentality is this country. That alone will unite the people in certain states. Thus, it's going to be razor close to dragging a couple states out of the red column into the blue. We need to "scare" them into voting Dem better than they "scare" them into voting Repub..