Republicans Plan To Go Down Dirty And Ugly

Although the Republican Party has made a concerted effort to keep Bush and Cheney out of public sight this month, the latest polls show that most American voters associate McCain with all the Bush-Cheney policies and the entire toxic GOP agenda that has done so much damage to the country. AP is reporting that, around the country, Obama supporters are energized and celebratory and that the McCain supporters are depressed and glum.

With Mr. Bush’s job approval ratings at historic lows, political analysts have long said Republican candidates simply do not want to be seen with him. But now, with the election just days away, it seems that Republican candidates do not want Mr. Bush to be seen, period.

“One of McCain’s biggest challenges has been how to deal with Bush, and he never quite got it right,” said Scott Reed, a Republican strategist who ran Bob Dole’s 1996 presidential campaign. “Now, the best thing is silence.”

So the president has temporarily dropped out of sight. Until recently, Mr. Bush was giving talks about the battered economy on nearly a daily basis, prompting some Republicans to grumble privately that so much presidential face time was hurting their election chances. This week, Mr. Bush stepped back, holding just four public events, none with real policy implications.

House candidates most closely associated with Bush-- especially the ones for whom he has done publicized fundraising events-- are all losing:

CT-04: Jim Himes- 433.6 vs Shays- 42.9
MI-07: Mark Schauer- 44.6 vs Tim Walberg- 35.1
MI-09: Gary Peters- 42.8 vs Knollenberg- 39.0
NM-01: Martin Heinrich- 47.5 vs White- 42.9
NY-29: Eric Massa- 49.3 vs Kuhl- 42.9
WA-08: Darcy Burner- 50.4 vs Reichert- 46.1

AP has served as part of the McCain hype machine this year. They have been shameless in their slanted coverage and in their unsubstantiated and vicious attacks on Obama. So their report today on the emotional disparities between McCain and Obama supporters is especially telling. When they write about McCain supporters feeling suicidal, they're projecting their own shared reaction to their failure in swaying voters with their shameful garbage reporting:

That smiling guy walking down the street? Odds are he's a Barack Obama backer. The grouchy looking one? Don't ask, and don't necessarily count on him to vote next week, either.

Supporters of John McCain, long less enthusiastic than Obama's, have become increasingly glum about the presidential campaign in recent weeks, according to an Associated Press-Yahoo News poll released Saturday. Their feelings have turned more negative during a period that has seen Obama, the Democratic senator from Illinois, take a firm lead in many polls.

Obama's backers have retained a higher level of excitement. One expert says the contrasting moods could affect how likely the two candidates' supporters are to vote on Election Day, possibly dampening McCain's turnout while boosting Obama's.

...More McCain supporters also feel angry and bored, while Obama's are likelier to say they are proud and hopeful.

All of this is a bad sign for McCain, according to George E. Marcus, a political scientist from Williams College who has studied the role emotion plays in politics. Negative feelings about a campaign can discourage voters by making them less likely to go through what can be a painful process: Voting for someone who will lose.

This is causing the desperation that has turned the end of the Republican campaign into the worst smear-fest seen in contemporary American politics. The absurd stories about Obama's (and other Democrats') personal lives is not meant to sway a single vote-- just to fire up the pitchfork wielding base and get them to the polls-- not so much for McCain-- a lost cause-- but to save the skins of endangered GOP rubber stamps like Elizabeth Dole in North Carolina and John Shadegg in Arizona. Dole's series of "godless" ads against conservative Democrat Kay Hagan will probably go down in ad history as the worst blunder an incumbent senator has ever made.

Other Republicans-- aside from McCain-Palin-- whose especially vile smear attacks seem to be backfiring against them include Robin Hayes (R-NC), Dave Reichert (R-WA), Scott Garrett (R-NJ), Michele Bachmann (R-MN), Ric Keller (R-FL), Mean Jean Schmidt (R-OH), Erik Paulson (R-MN), Gordon Smith (R-OR), Tom McClintock (R-CA), Darren White (NM), Tim Walberg (R-MI), Jeb Bradley (R-NH), and John Gard (R-WI), the worst of this year's smear artists.

UPDATE: CHENEY POPS HIS HEAD OUT OF HIS HOLE

...in Wyoming and endorses John McCain and Sarah Palin in one of the few non-Confederate states where they will win. Watch:



Biden noticed: "If you ever had any doubt that John McCain would continue George Bush's policies -- you can put those to rest. Just today, Vice President Cheney came out and endorsed John McCain. Do we need any more proof? I'm not surprised. Dick Cheney has been wrong on everything else the last eight years. He's on a roll."