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Midday Open Thread: How Not to Court Clinton Supporters |
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Yesterday, from Think Progress:
Recently, Sen. John McCain has been reaching out to Sen. Hillary Clinton’s (D-NY) supporters by lavishing praise on Clinton. But a “news article†posted on McCain’s website may undermine those efforts. The “article,†which is actually a reader’s comment made at Andrew Sullivan’s Daily Dish, refers to Clinton as “the B*tch”:
“Fred Thompson is good but pointless. He clearly doesn’t want to be in this race. His wife must really want to be First Lady. Paul is hopeless. Huckabee is at least sincere, but I just feel that nominating him is tantamount to giving away the store. He’s a big-government liberal with the compassion of Jimmy Carter and a nanny-state busybody of the highest order. I’d rather have the Bitch. At least she’d balance the budget. You know, like her husband did.”
Within hours of people noticing, the article disappeared from McCain’s website. Of course, removing the article was the right thing for the McCain campaign to do, though it begs the question “Why did they post it in the first place?” Call me old-fashioned (or not, being that I am about .00001% of McCain’s age) but I thought “respectful campaigning” would preclude this is sort of insidious republishing of name-calling.
Think Progress also notes that this is not the first time McCain has allowed his backers to go un-chastised, if not echoed, for referring to Clinton as a “bitch.” Here he is back when she was the frontrunner. Nothing like a little misogyny — and hearty jokes about ex-wives — to get a campaign rolling…:
Actually, “respect” would be calling out supporters who call Clinton a bitch, not laughing with them and republishing their work. McCain might want to re-think this approach as he tries to court Hillary’s supporters.
