He's never been fair and balanced and is proud of that. Too far to the right for me, although I find his loose cannon attitude to be very entertaining. But I've heard his comments and they aren't really that off the wall compared to the stuff you usuallyget in presidential campaigns.And i agree somewhat with Cunningham's perspective that Obama has gotten somewhat of a pass in that opponents are reluctant to be too critical of hm for fear of the race card getting played. The real question is if McCain's camp indirectly used him to bring out some issues about Obama that they were afraid to raise, or, if it is just incompetence on their part for recruiting a speaker who can be as controversial as Ted Nugent once you put him in front of a microphone.
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"Shoot him again....his soul is still dancing"
It is a minor mistake on the part of the McCain champaign. They don't want to be associated with freaks taking unsupported, outlandish personal attacks on their opponents -- it destroys their own credibility. But there is no reason to suppose it is a deliberate attempt to smear Obama, just a little lack of control.
I would guess McCain isn't hitting too hard at the Democratic nominee because it isn't yet clear who that nominee is going to be. Maybe in a week Obama will have an absolute lock on things, and maybe then McCain will go after him or position himself appropriately. Then again, maybe McCain is going to be more interested in positioning himself and identifying what he is versus running a negative champaign against Obama.
It is a matter of strategy. I would guess that there may be only 20 percent or 30 percent of the total votes are in play. More explicitly -- many, many voters have already made up their minds to vote for the Democrat nominee, whoever that may be. Many, many other votes have already made up their minds to vote for the Republican nominee, whoever that may be. These votes are not in play, only the "undecideds" are in play. The candidates are going to want to direct their champaigns to those undecideds.
Of course another issue is just how personal and outlandish were Cunningham's statements. He raised the issue that there are some possible connections between Obama and some rather corrupt folks back in chicago that merit scrutiny. He used the term political hack in reference to Obama, butso do a lot of folks in reference to various politicians coming out of the Chicago political climate. The big sin, however, seems to be Cunningham repeatedly using Obama's middle name Hussein. Hell, if McCain's middle name was Stalin or Hitler, it would be getting thrown around by everyone in the Democratic camp. The McCain staff may have been crazy to use Cunningham, but it could turn out to be crazy like a Fox, if suddenly Obama starts getting more scrutiny and some dirty laundry is found. Then, McCain gets credit for being a clean player who denounces folks likeCunningham while the damage is still done to Obama.
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"Shoot him again....his soul is still dancing"
Cunningham was also wrong in connecting Obama to the Daley political machine. That died in 1983 or so. Now the new Daley is not really an Obama political ally. There's lots of Democratic factions in IL and in Chicago.
I dont really know the specifics of the current Chicago political scene. I just know that most of us downstaters view theDemocrats up there as pretty much the same old bunch of people that you could find in the heydays of the Daley machine.Not too fond of the Republicans up there either. Cunningham just pointed out the apparent link between Obama and some local figure associated with that legacy who is up on charges or indictment for corruption. Considering that people were very quick to jump all over the story of McCain's alleged inappropriate relationship with a lobbyist, it seems curious that no one seems to want to touch a story that alleges impropriety on Obama's part.If Cunningham is wrong then he just comes across as being the usually flaky person that folks in Ohio expect. But one would think that any accusation of that kind should be investigated rather thanjust calling the accuser a racist.Doesnt really matter to me in the long run since I am sitting this election out.But for the purpose of my own amusement, I aminterested in hearing the whole story (if in fact there is one) no matter which candidate it concerns.
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"Shoot him again....his soul is still dancing"
There is no one who is part of the Daley political collective up on corruption charges. There is no lobbyist in IL up on corruption charges. There is a businessman indicted and going to trial who tried to get money by getting people appointed to boards by the governor. He then used them to ok shady deals. Theguy (Tony Rezko)was also a contributor toObama and his wife bought a lot next to Obama's house. Obama gave the donations back to the dude and any money the indictee solicited from friends was donated to charity.
Its not all that hard. But people outside of IL have the players wrong. And there are those willing to believe anything which makes Obama or Daley look bad. There is no racial aspect to all this.
I believe now that using the term "Barack Hussein Obama" is a racist act, but that's me.
Well, my fellow Americans, now we have a hack Chicago-style daily(sic) politician who's picturing himself as change. When he gets done with you, all you're going to have in your pocket is change.
At some point in the near future the media is going to peel the bark off Barack Hussein Obama. That day will come. Then you'll know the truth about his business dealings with Rezko, when he got sweetheart deals in Chicago and the illegal loans that he received.
At some point the media will quit taking sides in this thing and maybe start covering Barack Hussein Obama.
I speculate that daily was actually meant to be Daley, and the transcriber got it wrong.
Either way, the word "style" is germain here. It appears that Cunningham wanted to associate Obama with Chicago's history of political curruption, obviously because Obama is from Illinois.But he did not sayObama was part of the 1980's curruption itself.
Quote:
I believe now that using the term "Barack Hussein Obama" is a racist act, but that's me.
Well, it's not a "term" so much as it is the man's name. I think you're misusing the word racist here. At most, using Obama's middle name is a connotation of the Muslim faith, which many Americans are understandibly leary of. It may be unwarranted as Obama identifies himself as Christian, but it's not racist by any means.
I don't think that anyone has claimed that Rezko (is that his name) is an official lobbyist or politician. However, as you acknowledged, he is some sort of a shady player on the local scene, whom, as you also noted, has somedealings withObama. The simple fact of the matter in American politics is that when accusations are made in the media, the accused is treated as guilty until proven completely innocent. But, it seems like Obama gets more of a pass in situations like that. Also, i agree that emphasizing his middle name is a strategy for associating him with the muslim faith, something that is obviously not a compliment in this current context. However, since Muslims are a racially diverse bunch I don't really get the racist part. Calling Cunningham et al racist for using that strategy is just as much of a political strategy by Obama supporters as was Cunningham linking Obama to unsavory folks in Chi-town.I think that an Obama/McCain race is gonna be interesting to watch. McCain apparently wants to play nice and folks are gonna be quick to label any attacks on Obama as racist. However, since Obama is a relative newcomer on the political scene and (to many) an unknown commodity, he is simply gonna have to learn to live with being publically vetted during the race. And his camp continually playing the race card in response to this vetting is likely gonna get very old very quickly once the campain hits full stride.
One thing of interest. Recent polls predict that if the elections were held today in Ohio, Obama would beat McCain by a narrow margin or Clinton and McCain would be close to a dead heat. McCain's mishandling of the Cunningham affair has resulted in Cunningham withdrawing support for McCain. And it is not gonna be a good thing if a guy who talks to a couple million people in Ohio five days a week spends the next year raking McCain over the coals.
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"Shoot him again....his soul is still dancing"
Bill Cunningham Vs. John McCain
