Harry Hope
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 Posted: Sat Oct 11, 2008 5:12 am Post subject: McCain throws raw meat to the animals. Animals bite back. |
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From The Associated Press, 10/10/08:
http://www.newsday.com/news/politics/wire/sns-ap-mccain-angry-crowds,0,6197650.story
McCain booed by supporters after trying to calm angry anti-Obama
chants at Minnesota rally
By PHILIP ELLIOTT and BETH FOUHY | Associated Press Writers
LAKEVILLE, Minn. (AP) _
The anger is getting raw at Republican rallies and John McCain is
acting to tamp it down.
McCain was booed by his own supporters Friday when, in an abrupt
switch from raising questions about Barack Obama>s character, he
described the Democrat as a "decent person and a person that you do
not have to be scared of as president of the United States."
A sense of grievance spilling into rage has gripped some GOP events
this week as McCain supporters see his presidential campaign lag
against Obama.
Some in the audience are making it personal, against the Democrat.
Shouts of "traitor," ''terrorist," ''treason," ''liar," and even "off
with his head" have rung from the crowd at McCain and Sarah Palin
rallies, and gone unchallenged by them.
McCain changed his tone Friday when supporters at a town hall pressed
him to be rougher on Obama.
A voter said, "The people here in Minnesota want to see a real fight."
Another said Obama would lead the U.S. into socialism.
Another said he did not want his unborn child raised in a country led
by Obama.
"If you want a fight, we will fight," McCain said.
"But we will be respectful. I admire Sen. Obama and his
accomplishments."
When people booed, he cut them off.
"I don>t mean that has to reduce your ferocity," he said.
"I just mean to say you have to be respectful."
Presidential candidates are accustomed to raucous rallies this close
to Election Day and welcome the enthusiasm.
But they are also traditionally monitors of sorts from the stage.
Part of their job is to leaven proceedings if tempers run ragged and
to rein in an out-of-bounds comment from the crowd.
Not so much this week, at GOP rallies in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin,
Florida and other states.
When a visibly angry McCain supporter in Waukesha, Wis., on Thursday
told the candidate "I>m really mad" because of "socialists taking over
the country," McCain stoked the sentiment.
"I think I got the message," he said.
"The gentleman is right."
He went on to talk about Democrats in control of Congress.
On Friday, McCain rejected the bait.
"I don>t trust Obama," a woman said.
"I have read about him. He>s an Arab."
McCain shook his head in disagreement, and said:
"No, ma>am. He>s a decent, family man, a citizen that I just happen to
have disagreements with (him) on fundamental issues and that>s what
this campaign is all about."
He had drawn boos with his comment:
"I have to tell you, he is a decent person and a person that you do
not have to be scared of as president of the United States."
The anti-Obama taunts and jeers are noticeably louder when McCain
appears with Palin, a big draw for GOP social conservatives.
She accused Obama this week of "palling around with terrorists"
because of his past, loose association with a 1960s radical.
If less directly, McCain, too, has sought to exploit Obama>s Chicago
neighborhood ties to William Ayers, while trying simultaneously to
steer voters' attention to his plans for the financial crisis.
The Alaska governor did not campaign with McCain on Friday, and his
rally in La Crosse, Wis., earlier Friday was much more subdued than
those when the two campaigned together.
Still, one woman shouted "traitor" when McCain told voters Obama would
raise their taxes.
Volunteers worked up chants from the crowd of "U.S.A." and "John
McCain, John McCain," in an apparent attempt to drown out boos and
other displays of negative energy.
The Secret Service confirmed Friday that it had investigated an
episode reported in The Washington Post in which someone in Palin>s
crowd in Clearwater, Fla., shouted "kill him," on Monday, meaning
Obama.
There was "no indication that there was anything directed at Obama,"
Secret Service spokesman Eric Zahren told AP.
"We looked into it because we always operate in an atmosphere of an
abundance of caution."
Palin, at a fundraiser in Ohio on Friday, told supporters "it>s not
negative and it>s not mean-spirited" to scrutinize Obama>s iffy
associations.
But Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy
Center at the University of Pennsylvania an author of 15 books on
politics, says the vitriol has been encouraged by inflammatory words
from the stage.
"Red-meat rhetoric elicits emotional responses in those already
disposed by ads using words such as 'dangerous' 'dishonorable' and
'risky' to believe that the country would be endangered by election of
the opposing candidate," she said.
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Harry |
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