What about the Obama campaign releasing a photograph sowing Bill Clinton with Wroght? Is the Obama campaign serious about staying above the fray?

"Photograph of Bill Clinton and Rev. Wright Surfaces"

By Kate Phillips

thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/.../photograph-of-bill-clinton-and-rev-wright-surfaces

He, John McCain, will not do anything like this; he, John McCain, cannot possibly be held responsible for the ugly tactics that others may undertake - open the gates.

Ms. Cottle, being as McCain condemns any questioning of Obama's patriotism at the first utterance;  and being as they fired in an instant the offending aide who emailed the agit-prop URL, on what grounds are you, "...starting to believe that the Senator's campaign isn't entirely serious when it emphasizes its commitment to avoiding any and all ugly personal attacks"?

There is no such thing as a Republican who can refrain from using any tactic, legal or otherwise, that he believes will gain electoral advantage, so long as he does not believe he will be held to account.  From the break-ins of Watergate to the vote shenanigans of Florida and Ohio, nothing has really changed.  The fundamental problem for the Republican party is that in reality it represents the interest of a very small, monied elite.  Thus, it must constantly do things to hide that fact (putting on "social issue" camouflage),  incite one or another form of racism or xenophobia (basic fascist tactic), or go to war (self-evident), or defraud the voters of their votes.  I'm sure there are some nasty tricks I have forgotten to list.

Count on John McCain to work all of those angles.  He's a Republican.

Gotta agree with jacksondyer on this: the Obama campaign is in the wrong, not to mention stupid, tossing this out.  

I'm with jackson and sdemuth: that was pretty low of the Obama campaign.  And it will only hurt him.  Nobody's really worried about whether Hillary is too caught up in "radical black extremism" or whatever Wright is supposed to represent.  So this won't damage her, but it will keep Wright in the public eye *and* make it seem that the Obama campaign agrees that it's damaging to be seen with Wright.  I can't think of a good justification for passing that photo around.

And I really don't think John McCain wants to take the race bait.  

Of course McCain will not take the bait - he will eschew it.  Bush told those swift boaters to stop.  He could not help it if the benighted media kept looping the story around.

All he (McCain) has to do is say,"I'm sorry". It works for our Secratary of State. They aren't responsible for anything their subordinates do or say that partains to their position. Come on people they need your respect not criticism,don't you think.

Signed,

C. Rove your USA propagandist

It was a ridiculous statement from McCain anyway. No campaign in history has been solely about the issues in a civil manner and none will. He's no created this impossible bar for himself.

With jackson on this one. Sleazy of the Obama campaign, plus it doesn't equate: shaking hands with Bubba ain't like helping to shape his worldview.

Obama's folks need to chill and think things through instead of jerkin' the knees, as in this case. Sometimes the best defense is a good defense, not a good offense.

Also, y'all, take note that once again jackson does us all a favor by providing a *link* to source material. Yesterday it was NPR, today NYT. Tip o' the (S.F.) Giants cap, jackson.

You guys seem to forget that the Republican party is essentially the party of the middle class, plus some upper class corporate types.

As such, the GOP is a permanent minority.  Because the Democratic party of the poor, the working class, and of the patrician class that plays to the poor by promising to steal from the rich, the class which the Republicans represent are always in danger of having most of their property confiscated and given to the less productive class.

In other words, the GOP is always fighting a rear-guard action for the economic survival of the burgher class.  The Democrats, who try to turn working people and the poor into a mob, if left to their own devices, would suck the blood out of those who have it, to give to those who don't, and in the process, keep themselves in power.

That's the game, in the raw.  So, if you think the GOP doesn't fight fair, it's because their very survival is at stake at all times.

Jesus -- what do you expect?  This is politics, after all.  Survival of the fittest is the truest sense.  The fact that we ask our politicians to aspire to some lofty height -- and that they attempt to accommodate us, regardless of our bloodlust -- is admirable.  But, in the end, this is politics, after all.  

I think you have the class lines a little oddly drawn, chan.  What has the Republican party done for the middle class in living memory?

"What has the Republican party done for the middle class in living memory?"

Well, as a small business owner (the largest employer in America, if I'm not mistaken) the Republicans:

1.  Lowered my taxes, allowing me to increase retirement/ health benefits and give generous yearly raises to my middle class employees, and

2.  Significantly increased the deduction for capital expenses, allowing me to expand my office (using working and middle class contractors), purchase more equipment (sold by middle class salespeople), and hire more middle class receptionists, opticians, and technicians.

Other than that......you may have a point.  Oh, and try a pair of +1.25 over-the-counter magnifiers.  May do the trick.  :)

Thank you, Celines_Ego.  You saved me some typing and had facts at hand that I didn't.

All I can say is, I've been working since I was 19.  For the last 13 years, I have owned my own business.  For the majority of my working life, I was either in the employ of large corporations, or freelanced.

Without having to run a major analysis, I can tell you that when the Democrats control the government, I get raped.  When the Republicans do, there's something left over to save for the future.

Now, with the prospect of a Democrat coming in and taking of the health care system, we could really be in for it.  The health system, by the way, worked wonderfully before LBJ took over a chunk of it in 1964.  

Ever since the government go involved, also making it possible for insurance companies to game the system, iot is the screwed up thing you see now.

Gather 'round children, and I'll tell you about the days back in the '60s and the '50s.  Why the people who took care of you in the hospitals were nice RNs with degrees in nursing who spoke perfect English and everything.  And nobody was saying that the health care system was going to destroy America.

Everything was cheaper and more available (but still.....you had to have the money) in the 50's and 60', Chan.  The times have changed.  We ran the world in 50's and 60's, it was an economic Pax Americana.  We had big companies that employed lots of working class people at middle class wages with good benefits that they had taken to offering during the War and the rise of unions institutionalized into part of the contract.  We had a massive blue collar middle class and there was no competition, at the level at which we owned and operated and made money on stuff, in the world.  And we had a whole lot less shit to buy.  Relatively speaking.

And less we could do when we got sick, which was why medical care was fairly cheap.  The defacto option, after a few things were tried to the limits of our technology, was that you died.  And that made the health care system simpler and cheaper.

Times have changed.

vanwurs, I don't know if you were alive in the 50s and 60s, but I was.  And, I can tell you, most people did not have two cars, multiple TVs, McMansions, several telephones and multiple telephone lines, cable TV subscriptions, internet subscriptions, plus multiple computers.  Add to this, eating out several times a week and taking expensive vacations.  Oh, and private schools for the kids

All of the above is commonplace now.   If people feel more strapped it's very much because the feel the necessity to have much of the above.

The beginning of the 1950s was only a decade removed from the end of the 1930s and the Great Depression.  Although things were far better the during the Depression, the standard of living was nothing like what we take for granted today.

ChanRobt,

My point exactly.  "We had a whole lot less shit to buy."

And, in fact, I grew up in the 50's and 60's and remember them (as well as the thirties and forties because all the movies I saw were from that time...) with mixed emotions, but mostly with fondness.

I am still drawn to simplicity and take my understandings of prosperity from that time.  And I retain many of the habits of the heart of that time.  I am the only person left, it seems, who refuses to own a cell phone.   It has alway been my contention that when the telephone entered our public lives sometime in the early part of the last century, it came with a phone booth.  There was a reason for that.  Just because we have forgotten the reason doesn't mean the the reason has changed.

But the world is conspiring to make my principles and ideas of privacy obsolete.  Soon it will be impossible to find a phone booth, and if I want to even make a phone call when I am away from home, I will have to give in. Humanity (and capitalism...) follows technology pretty much wherever it goes, entepreneurs for the money and consumers for the convenience  (remember "labor saving devices" which  have been selling the latest technology since Jackson's time?).   And our concept of a good life changes as the possibilities expand.  And it becomes more expensive.  

And in the fifties, as I recall, the top tax rates were upward to 60 and 70%.   Are you nostalgic for that too?  

Well, vanwurs, maybe we agree.  But you say, "...My point exactly.  "We had a whole lot less shit to buy." as if we HAVE to buy all the shit.

For whatever reasons, we now choose to biuy it, think we must have it, etc, etc.

But, that's our own damn fault.  It doesn't mean that the 50s 60s economy was kinder to us and that the current one is unjust.

It just means we're dumber, shallower, and less thrifty than our parents.  So screw us.  We dserve our problems.

And vanwurs, you write, "in the fifties, as I recall, the top tax rates were upward to 60 and 70%.   Are you nostalgic for that too?"  

Answer, not at all.  My point above, when the Democrats have been in control, productive people get raped.  Ike was president in the 50s, but the Dems overwhelmingly controlled the Congress, really up until the GO revolution of '94.

When Democrats are in charge "productive people get raped."

Complete nonsense.  Limbaugh cant.

Bush has been great for productive people, as long as them make more than $1 million a year and own an oil well or two.

roidubouloi, I ain't taking home a million.  But, Clinton raised my taxes.  Bush lowered them.  

Democrats treat people making $100k or more as if they were "rich".  Maybe they are if they live in Mississippi.  Not if they live in L.A., SF, NY, BOS, SEA, etc.

The Republicans treat the class that creates jobs much better than the Democrats do.  Although the Dems take good care of the very rich thank you. There are plenty of mob-pandering patricians in the Democratic party.  It's a profitable tradition of political behavior that goes back to the Roman Republic.