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McCain Campaign Offers Rewards For Turn-Key Comments
According to a story at the Washington Post, John McCain's presidential campaign is offering more than moral suasion to fire people up for a McCain presidency; they're also offering ready-made snippets of rhetoric for interested supporters to supply under their own names in public comments to online news sources and forums. Such pre-written commentary by itself is neither new nor necessarily nefarious, but it seems a bit off-kilter that prolific commenters are eligible for rewards — not just campaign swag like hats and stickers, but higher-ticket items like a ride with McCain on his campaign bus. Probably a script could be whipped up to compare the canned suggestions on the site with "grassroots" comments on political news sites around the web.
As per the subject line, this is going to end badly.
I do, however, find it interesting that this astroturfing is being done so publicly. Before the sources were always hidden, as if the originators seemed ashamed of it.
Now they're acting as if it seems to be business as usual.
Are party supporters allowed to have their own opinion these days? Anecodatal evidence suggests that there is a hive mind forming.
This is beyond pathetic. To think that a nation that produced the likes of John Adams, Daniel Webster and Oliver Wendell Holmes is now producing "leaders" who not only can not think and speak so articulately, but have to bribe their supporters with swag for copying and pasting soundbites... No, I'm not an Obama supporter either. I don't have a dog in this hunt.
No one ever went broke underestimating american taste, and no one ever got modded down for overstating american stupidity.
People are far more interested in this campaign than america's got talent. I mean, some age groups yes, are more interested in that, but not MOST of the voting age and above.
On a completely unrelated note, there needs to be a mod option of "-1 trite cynicism." If you like that type of thing you could change it to score +1 instead.
The reason for them doing this is because Democratic supporters tend to be a lot more vocal about their support compared to Republican supporters. This may be anecdotal, but for the sites I view, I see way more Obama supporters spouting out campaign rhetoric compared to McCain supporters. At the same time, all the national polls I see have the two in a virtual dead heat. Why are we seeing more people screaming their support for Obama? The RNC has noticed this, and is trying to light a fire under the Republican supporters in order to get them screaming just as loudly for McCain.
It's probably about the demographic. Republicans tend to be older, quiet, "don't rock the boat" types who don't give a shit about anything that doesn't concern them. Democrats tend to be young, vocal, "Change NOW!" types who feel that society as a whole needs to better function. It makes sense.
The simple fact of the matter is that Some Americans will no longer be able to afford to own and operate an automobile. That process has already started. People are on the news saying "I can't afford to put gas in my car to commute to work." It's only going to get worse as gasoline gets more expensive. We might see the price of a gallon of gas bump down a little over the coming years, but the general trend is going to be up. If you're having trouble paying for gas now, you should start planning to not own an automobile in the future. America needs better public transit options and tighter knit communities, because a lot more of us are not going to be driving in the future.
Of course Obama and McCain won't say that. It'd be political suicide. Unfortunately we don't need political grandstanding right now. We need sensible planning for a future where Americans are less affluent and have lower expectations than they did in the past.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
"Are you better off now than you were 8 years ago?"
JOHN MCCAIN
(picture of him embracing George Bush) http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/mccain%20bush%20hug%20twn.jpg
"Four more years!"
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
I think it would go over really well to say "My Friends" a lot. That makes everybody think you are telling them the truth.
I am so sick of "talking points." It just reeks of brand advertising.
Modern politics is all about brand advertising. Nobody really wants a serious discussion of the issues, least of all the candidates. You tell your base what they want to hear, you demonize your opponent in hopes of demoralizing his base, and you get your people to drive your supporters to the polls while trying to disenfranchise your opponent's supporters. If all else fails, you throw some ballot boxes into a river.
The whole idea is doing whatever is necessary to get more people to vote for you than for the other guy. Glitzy advertising that paints you as a hero of the working man and your opponent as a clown (or demon) who will single-handedly destroy the country is a key part of the package. Serious discourse has no place in such an environment.
On top of that, now you have the Internet to deal with. In this case, the more parrots you have mindlessly regurgitating your talking points on blogs and various forums, the better. It's like the hot chicks at the bar that invite you to hang out with them and offer you some expensive name brand liquor. It's viral advertising, and if it can be used to sell booze, why can't it be used to sell candidates?
Sure, the whole thing is sleazy, but that's politics for you.
This poster is simply making a point that Obama has up talking points available on his website. Admittedly though, there is no rewards program.
If you think Obama is a "socialist," maybe you should take some time to understand the issues...
As much as I wish that was true, I have never managed to get my hands on a widely distributed talking points memo for the Democrat party. If you know of an organization that distributes such talking points, please post it, I'd be interested in finding out what political mantra they would have people saying these days.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
Most Americans are better off than they were 50 years ago. Just most Americans have forgotten how to be frugal and now impulse buy all kinds of crap on credit cards then wonder why they're screwed when the credit card bills roll in.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
The Revolution was a liberal cause in the extreme. The "conservative" principles were not the ones founding this country, they were the ones fighting to prevent its independence from England. You Tory.
This space available.
As you point out, to tell the truth would virtually guarantee the truth teller a loss in the election. The American people don't want to be told that things will get worse. They want to be lied to about how they can have cheap gas, low taxes, universal (but not zomg socialized!) health care, and a socially secured retirement at no cost. Whenever anything goes wrong, tell everyone they can blame it on "Washington Insiders", "Evil Corporations", or "Foreigners".
Obama knows that none of this is possible. He's a successful politician, and successful politicians get where they are by lying to people. Obama is smart enough to know when to avoid telling the truth and/or lie.
McCain is a liar too, as he is also a successful politician. They are more alike than you think. Obama is much smarter than McCain, however. So if you have to pick one of these two to be President, Obama is the better choice as he will screw up less once he is elected. Hint: Morons don't make good presidents.
I don't think it's quite so simple.
People aren't sheep or parrots, but they do have possess cognitive biases and flaws -- bugs in the epistemological software if you will. One of which is that if you hear the same thing from multiple, apparently independent sources, you will tend to believe it provided you have no prior opinion or more credible source of information to the contrary.
But even though that is a timeworn strategy, it isn't sure fire.
Look at the McCain's forays into attack ads. In part, they've been poorly conceived and timed. The Paris Hilton thing might have worked as the final smack down in a long patient campaign to cut him down to size. But it was over the top. People know campaigns say bad things about the other guy, so you've got to start smaller.
Another factor is who you have to work against. People don't pay much attention to politics until it gets close to the time to vote. Nature abhors a vacuum, and you fill that vacuum with beliefs about the other guy. It worked with Gore and Kerry, but not with Clinton because of Clinton's charismatic personality. As a liberal Democrat, I'm lukewarm on Bill Clinton, in theory at least. Still I remember seeing him interviewed on TV a few years after he was out of office, and being amazed at his almost mesmeric powers of communication.
Reagan was like that too; maybe even more so. You had to really detest the man to be immune to his charm.
Time will tell, but I have an inkling Obama might be another politician of this sort. The McCain campaign is trying to define him, and the pundits are trying to turn him into a cipher, but if you watch him, what comes across is that he is completely comfortable with and utterly sure of who he is. Which doesn't preclude him being a cipher, of course, but that's not the same as being vacuum.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
At the end of the day, the thing that is broken about contemporary America is precisely this "do whatever is necessary" meme. Why is winning better than sportsmanship? Why should conservatives vote Republican even if the Republicans plan to destroy the economy? Shouldn't civilised people prefer to be able to sleep at night? Ultimately, isn't that what civilisation is?
It makes no sense, but nobody wants to admit it.
If you think Obama's a socialist, you don't know the meaning of the word socialist.
I can also introduce you to some of Obama's former colleagues at the Univ of Chicago Law School who, I guarantee, can convince you that Obama's grasp of and love for the Constitution is so strong, so deep, and that his administrative skills are so tight, that his Justice Department will be one of the best.
Voting yes on defacto telecom immunity for warrantless wiretapping shows us something, but I don't think "love for the Constitution" is what we saw.
You can forgive all you like, but don't forget.
Now that that's out of the way, why don't you go fuck yourself?
After that vote, Obama can do the same.
A Dubya supporter dares to whine about the qualifications of Obama?!?
Compared to when you voted for Dubya in 2000, Obama's a crusty veteran.
I am dismayed at the overwhelming liberalism present on this site. I had hoped that fellow geeks would have more sense than this. Conservatism, capitalism...that is what our country was founded on. McCain is not the poster child for the conservative movement by any means, but he is far superior to the socialist ideas put forth by Obama and fellow liberals, such as Nancy Pelosi. Please, PLEASE, take some time to understand the issues prior to repeating the nonsense so abundant in our media.
The reason this site is 'overwhelmingly liberal' is that /. has a global audience. Not just Alabama. It's easy to be a liberal when you're compared with, say, FOX, or the Republican Party. Hell, even the Democrats are pretty damned conservative on some things, particularly the red-state ones. This is roughly the same line of reasoning involved in creating Conservapedia - this thing is more liberal than me, therefore it must be horribly biased, and I must create my own with a correct view!
When you hear people talk about the 'far left' attacking Obama for being too conservative, consider that a large number of people (many not in America) consider your politics to be less about 'liberal vs. conservative' and more 'conservative vs. extremist'. You have mainstream politicians who haven't the slightest concern for the rights of women or gays, and in America a smear campaign involves calling the other guy a Muslim. That should be right up there with saying he's a Jew or a Catholic, but in America it's still just fine.
Everybody's a centrist in their own mind (or alternatively, thinks that there's a 'right' and a 'wrong' side of the center.) If 90% of the people you see are more liberal than you, then congratulations, you're atypically conservative.
A lot of people have been visiting it because the ads recently have been so ridiculously bad. Paris Hilton, Britney Spears, and fucking Moses? Please. It's like a car crash, I just had to visit a few times but that doesn't mean it's doing anything to win my vote.
We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
Unless they are Grover Norquist followers who wanted a failure to show how bad government is. In that case Bush had an impressive series of failures on his resume.
We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace