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• Monday, October 6, 2008 06:21 PM

  Audience Participation

  Glenn’s post and Josh Marshall's (linked by gandhi) are both on the money.

  One thing that struck me was that the McCain rally from Glenn’s video sounded like a taping of Jerry Springer.

  I attended a Biden rally not too long ago (before the debate) - several thousand were there. I would think if anyone had a right to be angry or hateful, it would be those of us in the Biden crowd that have watched our nation steadily disintegrate year-after-year, largely under the leadership of the opposition’s party. Our crowd was very enthusiastic, but was completely well-behaved and there was nothing like the hateful loudmouths that competed with McCain and Palin. We cheered often and booed only a few times at the mention of McCain’s name or a damaging Republican policy, and no one tried to make themselves part of Biden’s speech. (And I contributed my fair share to both the cheering and the booing.)

  Obviously, McCain’s negativity, the personal attacks and hate-mongering, fuels much of the anger and hate in his audiences. At the rally, Biden focused on the positive - changing things for the better - and directed any negativity solely at policies, not people. In fact, as Biden usually does, he even complimented McCain personally (which may have precipitated one of my boos).

  I know this is Simple Answers to Simple Questions-time, but do McCain/Palin even care about the damaging effects of the hate and anger they are inciting? The fact they have made the calculation that holding office is worth that cost is disqualifying, imo.

  One other tell from the Biden rally: Palin’s name was only mentioned twice and the crowd did not respect her enough even to boo her, they laughed derisively. Pew is right.

  —rollotomasi Read rollotomasi's other letters
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