Since yesterday, I’ve seen the question posed several different ways, both mockingly and in dead seriousness: Does Mark Sanford’s blank-out on CNN (now being compared unfavorably to the Miss Teen USA contestant from SC), hurt his chances to be John McCain’s running mate?
Let me pause now and count to ten before answering that. In fact, let’s discuss an unrelated point, which is that I wouldn’t be able to answer the question either. It’s not the sort of question I think about. If you asked me to say what was different in the economic policies of Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, or John Kerry, or Alfred E. Neuman, I wouldn’t be able to answer you on the spur of the moment, and in fact would probably spurn the question as unimportant to me. Sanford’s problem is that he lacked the cool or presence of mind to do that. Perhaps he didn’t think he could get away with it. That’s too bad for him, because insouciance is what he does best, and once you take it off the table, he’s got a problem.
Now, as to our main point? Who out there still thinks Mark Sanford’s got a snowball’s chance on a Columbia sidewalk of being asked to carry John McCain’s freaking luggage, much less be his running mate? Didn’t we beat this horse to death some time back? And then beat it again? And again? What’s it doing clop-clopping down the street in the middle of summer?
I’m beginning to lose patience on this point, the whole concept is so offensively stupid.
Here’s a corollary to that: The presumption in Wolf Blitzer’s question is that Mark Sanford is somehow well situated to speak as an apologist for Sen. McCain. This is almost, but not quite, as idiotic as the idea of his being a running mate. There is probably no Republican in South Carolina LESS invested in the McCain campaign than Mark Sanford. This is the guy who expressed his "support" in the most insulting way possible, AFTER it no longer mattered — and after the other two most prominent Republican officeholders in the state had put their reps on the line for their chosen candidates.
I wouldn’t ask Mr. Sanford if he knew how to SPELL "McCain," much less ask him to defend his policy positions. Maybe that’s why I’m not in TV news…
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Excellent – I agree with you completely.
Every bit of support matters to John McCain, or it should. The GOP is on the road with another Mr. Dull who was nominated in a flawed process that doesn’t reflect general popularity, nor reward ability to do the job. So did the Democrats.
John McCain’s campaign needs to be mending fences with the base, and Mark Sanford represents the base.
Perhaps McCain should choose Sanford in order to improve his credibility. Given last week’s stunning track record of idiocy from the McCain campaign it certainly couldn’t hurt. The only thing saving this septegenarian fool is the MSM total black-out of anything that might shed the slightest negative on McCain.
Here’s an excellent article by Max Bergmann of the Huffington Post that demonstrates, yet again, how the press ignores the sheer horrors of the McCain run for the White House:
10 McCain Gaffes from This Week That Should Have Damaged His Chances
By Max Bergmann, Huffington Post. Posted July 12, 2008.
http://www.alternet.org/election08/91245/
I’m so sorry Mr. Sanford made such a fool of himself, and be extension SC, on national TV. I was so hoping he WOULD be offered the VP slot so he would leave SC -for at least a a while -so he could campaign for the senile McCain. Such a pity…
bud, I know you’ve decided to go all-out for Obama, which means to you (as it seems to mean to most political activists in America today, sadly) that you must go all-out to tear down McCain.
But suggesting an association with Mark Sanford would RAISE his credibility is really beyond the pale…
Kidding aside… as you know, I like both Obama and McCain (which is why it pains me so to see OTHERS who like one of them try to tear down the other). But choosing Sanford as his Number Two is the one thing I can think of most likely to turn me AGAINST McCain, in spite of all. It would be so stupid, so uncalled for, and such a slap in the face to the many people out there who worked so hard to nominate him while Sanford was flipping them all off.
Fortunately, I don’t think there’s any chance he will, and for some of the reasons I just cited (gain Sanford, lose every other GOP leader in SC, etc.). But it would be SO outrageous if he did that it just ticks me off to see people blithely suggest it as though it were a reasonable expectation.
To a lesser degree, I’m offended by the idea of Obama choosing Hillary Clinton. But as I say, to a lesser degree — because at least she’s been out there doing something to try to demonstrate her value to people who would want that ticket to succeed. Sanford has done the opposite.
Brad’s not knowing the differences in Bush’s economic policies and McCain’s bothers me less than Gov Sanford drawing a blank and then being 180 degrees wrong. It’s sort of Brad’s job to know that stuff, especially if he is going to lead a pack of endorsers. He loves McCain on the Iraq war, but he still clings to the former McCain before he courted the Bushites, the religionists, the Supreme Court right wingers, and the private school voucher crowd when trying to win the Republican nomination. The main difference is that McCain has figured out how to fund 300 billion in new tax cuts, energy programs, an ongoing war, and privatized, subsidized health insurance with 12 billion in savings from earmarks. Bush admitted that he doesn’t have a magic wand.
Harry, don’t be so hard on Brad. If it weren’t for Brad, I never would have looked up “insouciance” on Merriam-Webster.com, and I would have remained in my relative ignorance.
Also, if, hypothetically, I contributed $25 to HUCKPAC, does that qualify me as a “religionist”?
More to the point, I wouldn’t worry about McCain picking Sanford as a running mate. I don’t see enough upside.
Religious voters include lots of folks with differing views. By religionists, I would refer to McCain’s courting of Hagee, Parsley, Falwell, Bob Jones U and company. All of the above support, to some degree, government supported religion, determining government policy on theological grounds, and “conforming the Constitution to God’s laws.” Opps! Huckabee said that one. He semi-retracted it after some scrutiny and after the pander effect he was after when he said it. I certainly wouldn’t call all of Huck’s suporters religionist.
We do not need ideas. We have tons of those. They are cheap and easy to find.
What we need, Mr. Sanford, is hard work. That, we have very little of…if you stopped thinking so much and simply rolled your sleeves up and got to work I think you would find that your ideas would take root.
Talking, being a messenger…is of little value.
Thanks, Harry, for humoring me and elaborating.
I think at this stage of the election it’s time to set aside the silly stuff that the MSM seems so infatuated with covering and the really important developments that the MSM readily ignores.
Silly Stuff includes:
Jesse Jackson’s ‘hot mike’ comments
Anything related to Rev. Wright
Anything related to Rev. Hagee
Michelle Obama’s comments about her pride of America
John McCain’s flip-flopping on off-shore drilling
Obama’s alleged flip-flop on Iraq (Trust me, he’ll have us out in 16 months)
Cindy McCain’s recipe theft
Comments that McCain’s POW years do not qualify him to be president (they don’t but it’s not PC to say so)
Obama’s comments about supreme court decisions on death penalty and hand guns
McCain’s comments that he knows nothing about the economy (see important stuff item 1)
Important Stuff
The horror of Phil Gramm (by far the most important development of the campaign so far. A sane pick for this job and McCain’s know nothing about the economy would be irrelevant)
Obama’s flip-flop on FISA
McCain’s flip-flop on torture
McCain’s 100 year occupation comments
This isn’t Silly Stuff:
“Michelle Obama’s comments about her pride of America.”
That is Serious Sh-ite!
…………..
Bud, if you play chess, then you are smart. OK. Now, figure out how to get Bamy to just back out of this whole thing and get Michelle’s lear jet to turn back into a turnip. Then figure out a way to get Hillary and Mitt Romney in that White House.
This isn’t Silly Stuff:
“Michelle Obama’s comments about her pride of America.”
That is Serious Sh-ite!
…………..
Bud, if you play chess, then you are smart. OK. Now, figure out how to get Bamy to just back out of this whole thing and get Michelle’s lear jet to turn back into a turnip. Then figure out a way to get Hillary and Mitt Romney in that White House.
Bud, it is apparently doubly-imperative that you get right on this.
McCain would be better off picking South Carolina’s Miss Teen USA for VP.She’s pretty.Sanford looks like the scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz,but he’s actually SCARY.
Given the utter disaster of John McCain I can’t understand how Sanford would reflect badly. Some of John McCain’s humor. By Ben Smith of Politico:
“Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly?” he asked guests at a Senate Republican fundraiser. “Because her father is Janet Reno.”
In 1999, in the course of apologizing for his joke about Clinton — which he called “insensitive and stupid and cruel” — he recalled for reporters another bad joke: ‘I said, ‘The nice thing about Alzheimer’s is you get to hide your own Easter eggs.'” (Earlier in the 2008 campaign season, he reworked that joke to make himself the target.)
“Did you hear the one about the woman who is attacked on the street by a gorilla, beaten senseless, raped repeatedly and left to die? When she finally regains consciousness and tries to speak, her doctor leans over to hear her sigh contently and to feebly ask, ‘Where is that marvelous ape?'”
Another favorite has been the elderly. He has recalled groveling for forgiveness when, during his 1986 campaign, he referred to a retirement community called “Leisure World” as “Seizure World.”
If this is a John McCain quote:
“Did you hear the one about the woman who is attacked on the street by a gorilla, beaten senseless, raped repeatedly and left to die? When she finally regains consciousness and tries to speak, her doctor leans over to hear her sigh contently and to feebly ask, ‘Where is that marvelous ape?'”
…please divulge the source.
Bud,
My bad — you DID cite the source: “Politico”
And from “Politico” the original source is:
“…reported in the Tucson Citizen, an Arizona paper, during his 1986 Senate campaign.”
South Carolina, probably more so than any state in this thus-far great country of ours, NEEDS AND DESERVES better than this in regard to a leader with empathy for violence against women.
Bud — you ARE smart. Why do you trust Bamy so much?
What about Hillary Clinton, married to a molester and rapist?
Ask Barak Obama how he thinks the US should handle nations which systemically abuse women, such as much of Africa, and many Muslims.
Ask Obama about Mexico, which has almost no laws against rape or molestation, and send hundreds of thousands of young women to the USA as prostitutes?
Brad,
There’s one overriding reason why Mark Sanford should not be a vice-presidential candidate: if by some miracle he were elected Andre Bauer would be our governor.