Not only has McCain, scion of a Mississippi plantation, pledged to "whip" Obama's "you-know-what" in Wednesday's debate...

...but now Sarah Palin promises to make the chant "Mine, Baby, Mine!" a staple of her campaign. Glad to see our pubricans haven't lost their sense of providential entitlement.

Per: http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2008/10/sarah-palin-ton.html

Which is the single biggest reason I quit voting for all of them. I haven't voted Republican in 20 years now since the toxic element of their voting base took over and started getting nasty. About the time I find one that looks like he might be decent they go to Washington and prove they are the same old corrupt mess. So I won't vote for anyone who has Republican in front of their name again until they clean up their act. I have more moral's and character than to vote for corrupt people like them.

No "personality-based, substance-free (and issue-obfuscating) campaign tactics... to win national elections — building manipulative personality cults around their leaders while simultaneously destroying the Democratic candidate with character smears."

Well, except for the primaries, that is.

Today in the NYT, Kristol called for McCain to fire his whole campaign.

For the folly of following Kristol's advice??

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/13/opinion/13kristol.html?ref=opinion

and when I went to answer it a man handed me his campaign literature. He informed me he was running to be elected as a judge. I looked at the flyer and there was no party affiliation noted on it, so I asked him which party he was affiliated with. He said 'Republican'. I asked him if he was a member of the Federalist Society. He looked a little surprised but answered 'yes'. I told him there was no way he would get my vote, that I didnt want idealogical legislating from the bench. He looked deflated as he walked away. It made my day.

... "character smears--and one sees this year as vividly as ever"... You dart tooting. ugh.

In DC, on 4/16/08. I assume it was Glenn Greenwald who signed: Good Celery- `Best Wishes.

The signature is illegible on the title page.

My personal copy of the book is much underlined. My added scribbles: bizarre anomaly too, mindlessly, a weak hapless losers' and the depraved demonizers, disgust.

`Daisy Dukes, Dukes of Hazardousness, the stunted and coddled personalities, and a Mr Romney ilk, a weak-kneed, blabber. spewers. sewers.

`Hawkish views, and opposing a war-critic... a anti-war person said way back then:

This: `Get out of Vietnam! Bang! a door slams, and people who smear (Giuliani ETC.,) on and on as a vile career, go along, on and on, incapsulating those in this pro-war, foul-America's HOME.

The ingrate administration... Gads, only the chicken hawkish, those who had war deferment, giddily, cheerlead for more wars. Carnage ETC., spiel on and on...

To heel with them, crush, and keep smashing the 'pro-war activism'...

Just before finding this post from Glenn, I was putting up a post showing how my local gooper Congressman stole coverage by the local press at the dedication of a biofuel production pilot plant when he has consistently voted against funding alternative fuels. These guys just never get it...

The post is linked at my name. [And yes, I have contacted the local paper. I asked them to run a news story with my information or to at least let me modify the post to run as a "Speaking Out" column from me or even allow similar space for the Democratic challenger to debunk their story.]

I don't see the press or the public (or myself) as being especially competent at judging the "character" of a candidate.

"Character" is a subject better left to playwrights and novelists.

But the members of the press corpse fancy themselves as the tellers of profound "character" narratives.

The press corpse, supposedly tasked with explaining issues, actually finds issues unbearably tedious - - the press room in Nashville, at last week's debate, grew increasingly frustrated and restless at last week's debate in Nashville, when they felt that McCain and Obama were talking about issues too darn much.

Anyway, here's my little anecdote.

B., a Reagan Republican, told me she's leaning towards the Dems, especially after viewing the debate in Nashville last week.

Not because of the issues, says B.

But, says B., because McCain is "a nasty little man" and Palin is "a joke".

B. is obviously not broadly representative of those leaning towards the Dems - - few of whom are conservative Republicans - - but I'm guessing B.'s not entirely unique, either.

B. and millions of others have bought into the concept that personality and "character" matter more than issues.

And based on personality and "character", B. is leaning against her own party.

Me, I have no idea which candidate has superior "character". I reckon anybody running for office is pathological. But I'm not B.

Smear is just another name for exposing what liberals are actually about. If they were honest, they would admit who they really are.

Glenn,

A good fund raiser idea for some of your interests might be to offer a signed edition of the hardback for say 10 dollars over normal cost. Strange Bedfellows might make a few bucks that way; if your writing hand would hold out.

This would especially be nice with a hardback edition of one of your next books.

(a half-backed idea)

the fact the Glenn keeps writing, every day, thereby continuously putting before us material that is more up-to-date than you might expect to find in a book.

But that fault is more than offset by the prescience of this book's reporting: Glenn's ability to look at the past and see the future and predict how this election would play out.

Glenn may be unmatched in his ability to untangle the logical missteps of the right wing and in his talent for explaining the falsity and predictability of standard right wing attack narratives. We're so fortunate to have his analysis so freely available.

I would think you'd get tired of being right all the time, Glenn (hee). At least you have a book that has gone into paperback (congrats!) to wave in the face of anyone who discounts what you've been saying.

The precious quote from David Brooks about Repub unpopularity leaves me wondering, do they think they are unpopular because there is something wrong with *them* or something wrong with *us*? I'm guessing that the party of Personal Responsibility probably figures that the popularity of the Democrats this year is due to some character flaw on the part of those voting that way.

Un-self-examined political parties tend to collapse and fade away, hopefully that will happen with the Repubs and they'll be converted back into a "loyal opposition" party that we can actually debate the issues with.