 |
CO-Sen: Hillary / Obama Squabbling Limits Fallout from GOP FlipFlop |
 |
Last Thursday, John “100 years” McCain (it’s a double entendre) appeared in Colorado to shore up GOP support. Though Romney crushed him in the Feb 5 primary, Colorado’s conservatives are now falling in line.
Some are calling him “conservative enough.” Others are calling him the GOP’s “ace in the hole,” owing to his perceived independent appeal.
Fortunately, chances are good that the “ace” will be trumped as the unstable McCain campaign continues to stagger further and further from the middle.
Colorado’s conservatives, however, have little choice but to rally behind their candidate, as demonstrated by the Republican’s nominee for Senate Bob Schaffer.
Schaffer appeared beside McCain in Denver, and his campaign manager told the Rocky Mountain News that “Bob Schaffer enthusiastically supports John McCain for president,” despite past comments like this one:
Schaffer said he disagreed with some GOP presidential candidates’ views, and had to consider the possibility of running for the U.S. Senate “in parallel with somebody whose views on America I find somewhat destructive.”
Schaffer refused to name names, but told host Aaron Harber during the February 2007 show that he could not “campaign boldly and proudly in tandem with anybody who thought that severely restricting the First Amendment rights to free speech is a good idea.”
“That would have to be John McCain,” Harber said, because McCain sponsored campaign finance legislation that critics say restricts free speech.
Schaffer did not contradict Harber.
Nevertheless, the subsequent Democratic attacks of the about-face were, for the most part, impotent as …
Colorado blogger El Presidente, a McCain and Schaffer-backer, highlighted why when he wrote the following in Schaffer’s defense:
So when the Democrats and the left target Senate candidate Bob Schaffer for comments he made about Sen. McCain last year that appear critical, ask them how they will handle their party’s own squabbles, name-calling, and vitriol. If Schaffer can’t offer his opinion and then change/modify/alter it, then it will be tough (even for Democrats) to see either Obama or Clinton offering their support for each other, once the nomination is decided. And the attacks we’ve seen between those two this primary season make any tension between Schaffer and McCain pale in comparison.
The way I see it, Obama hasn’t compromised his position vis-a-vis Clinton to the same extent, but the point is fundamentally sound; the continuing race between Clinton and Obama is actively undermining both party solidarity, and the eventual Democratic candidate’s (Obama’s) campaign against McCain.
Is this fact enough to compel party leaders to force an end here and now? Apparently not, and I don’t think they’re necessarily wrong in that stance. It is a damn shame though, cause the Left’s current position makes it hard to take aim at this flip-flop, which should’ve been a big, fat bulls-eye.
This is a ridiculous manner in which to elect officials. bad mouth the shit out of one another until someone gets elected. If said person you bad mouthed is now the candidate for your party flip-flop publicly so no one thinks that you still think of them as an asshole. It’s brilliant and very fucking lame.
Can someone write something on these ass hats from big oil raping us, lying to congress all while buying mountain ranges with heir profits?