T1B

Panic attacks: Voters unload at GOP rallies

The unmistakable momentum behind Barack Obama's campaign, combined with worry that John McCain is not doing enough to stop it, is ratcheting up fears and frustrations among conservatives.

And nowhere is this emotion on plainer display than at Republican rallies, where voters this week have shouted out insults at the mention of Obama, pleaded with McCain to get more aggressive with the Democrat and generally demonstrated the sort of visceral anger and unease that reflects a party on the precipice of panic.

The calendar is closing and the polls, at least right now, are not.

With McCain passing up the opportunity to level any tough personal shots in his first two debates and the very real prospect of an Obama presidency setting in, the sort of hard-core partisan activists who turn out for campaign events are venting in unusually personal terms.

"Terrorist!” one man screamed Monday at a New Mexico rally after McCain voiced the campaign’s new rhetorical staple aimed at raising doubts about the Illinois senator: “Who is the real Barack Obama?”

"He's a damn liar!” yelled a woman Wednesday in Pennsylvania. "Get him. He's bad for our country."

At both stops, there were cries of, “Nobama,” picking up on a phrase that has appeared on yard signs, T-shirts and bumper stickers.

And Thursday, at a campaign town hall in Wisconsin, one Republican brought the crowd to its feet when he used his turn at the microphone to offer a soliloquy so impassioned it made the network news and earned extended play on Rush Limbaugh’s program.

“I’m mad; I’m really mad!” the voter bellowed. “And what’s going to surprise ya, is it’s not the economy — it’s the socialists taking over our country.”

After the crowd settled down he was back at it. “When you have an Obama, Pelosi and the rest of the hooligans up there gonna run this country, we gotta have our head examined!”

Such contempt for Democrats is, of course, nothing new from conservative activists. But in 2000 and 2004, the Republican rank and file was more apt to ridicule Gore as a stiff fabulist or Kerry as an effete weather vane of a politician.

“Flip-flop, flip-flop,” went the cry at Republican rallies four years ago, often with footwear to match the chant.

Now, though, the emotion on display is unadulterated anger rather than mocking.

Activists outside rallies openly talk about Obama as a terrorist, citing his name and purported ties to Islam in the fashion of the viral e-mails that have rocketed around the Internet for over a year now.

Some of this activity is finding its way into the events, too.

On Thursday, as one man in the audience asked a question about Obama’s associations, the crowd erupted in name-calling.

"Obama Osama!" one woman called out.

And twice this week, local officials have warmed up the crowd by railing against “Barack Hussein Obama.”

Both times, McCain’s campaign has issued statements disavowing the use of the Democrat’s full name.
A McCain aide said they tell individuals speaking before every event not to do so. “Sometimes people just do what they want,” explained the aide.

The raw emotions worry some in the party who believe the broader swath of swing voters are far more focused on their dwindling retirement accounts than on Obama’s background and associations and will be turned off by footage of the McCain events.

John Weaver, McCain’s former top strategist, said top Republicans have a responsibility to temper this behavior.

“People need to understand, for moral reasons and the protection of our civil society, the differences with Sen. Obama are ideological, based on clear differences on policy and a lack of experience compared to Sen. McCain,” Weaver said. “And from a purely practical political vantage point, please find me a swing voter, an undecided independent, or a torn female voter that finds an angry mob mentality attractive.”

“Sen. Obama is a classic liberal with an outdated economic agenda. We should take that agenda on in a robust manner. As a party we should not and must not stand by as the small amount of haters in our society question whether he is as American as the rest of us. Shame on them and shame on us if we allow this to take hold.”

But, if it were up to them, such hard-edged tactics are clearly what many in the party base would like to use against Obama.

That McCain has so far seemed reluctant to do so has frustrated Republicans.

“It's time that you two are representing us, and we are mad,” reiterated the boisterous Republican at McCain’s town hall in Wisconsin Thursday. “So go get 'em!”

"I am begging you, sir, I am begging you — take it to him," pleaded James T. Harris, a local talk radio host at the same event, earning an extended standing ovation.

“Yosemite Sam is having the law laid down to him today in Waukesha, Wis.,” quipped Limbaugh on his show Thursday, referring to the GOP nominee. “This guy, this audience member, is exactly right,” the conservative talk show host said of the first individual.

“You are running for president. You have a right to defend this country. You have a responsibility to defend this country and not just fulfill some dream you had eight years ago running for president against Bush. It's time to start naming names and explain what's actually going on, because, Sen. McCain, the people of this country are dead scared about what we face if you lose.”

John J. Pitney Jr., a political science professor at California’s Claremont McKenna College and former Republican operative, suggested core Republicans were acting out their longstanding frustrations with their self-proclaimed maverick nominee.

“McCain has always frustrated the Republican base,” Pitney said. “In this campaign, he has alternated between partisan attacks and calls for bipartisan cooperation. It’s nice that he thinks he can round up congressional votes the way a border collie rounds up sheep. But you can’t be a border collie and a pit bull at the same time. The crowds want a pit bull.”

There is also the belief that taking out Obama is the only way to win.

“They know that when McCain has taken off the Senate mantle and put the stick to Obama (celebrity ad, as a case in point), we get movement in the polls,” said Rick Wilson, a GOP consultant not working on the presidential race. “They want McCain to call out Obama — on the Fannie/Freddie mess, on Wright, on Ayers, on guns, on [the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now] — because they know that if McCain says it, it penetrates the MSM filter. ... Only McCain and Palin can really drive that message.”

The two have begun to get more aggressive on many of these topics, with both discussing Ayers in multiple venues Thursday. The RNC is also going up for the first time with an ad featuring the former domestic terrorist.

It was enough to stir hope that McCain may stay on the offensive, even in Limbaugh, who has often criticized the Arizona senator for working with Democrats more than attacking them. The radio host praised his sometimes-nemesis for singling out Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) and Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) as partly responsible for the credit crisis.

“McCain/Palin fired back today in Waukesha, and 15 years of frustration is coming out joyously in the voices of GOP supporters at these rallies,” Limbaugh wrote in an e-mail, arguing that Republicans were fed up with having been portrayed as the bogeyman for myriad issues since the Clinton years.

But to the exasperation of many in the party, Obama’s pastor, the most damning of all his associations, remains off-limits, at the express desire of McCain. Palin ignored Wright and focused on Ayers when she was asked about the two in an interview Thursday with conservative talk show host Laura Ingraham. And McCain focused on Ayers only when he was asked an open-ended question at the town hall about Obama's “associations.”

“It is a shame McCain took Wright off the table,” lamented one prominent Republican operative not working on the race. “He is a legitimate issue, and we may look back and realize he was the issue that could have changed the race.”

For now, though, party members don't seem to be looking back with regret as much as fearing what lies ahead.

“McCain is behind in the polls, and the Republicans have no chance of regaining control of Congress,” Pitney noted. “Republicans are facing the prospect of unified Democratic control of the government for the first time since the first two Clinton years. And even then, Clinton’s agenda had moderate elements (e.g., [the North American Free Trade Agreement] and deficit reduction). With Obama, [Senate Majority Leader Harry] Reid and [House Speaker Nancy] Pelosi in power, Republicans worry about a hard push for a hard-left agenda.”

Mississippi Neck wrote:If Obama wins, I will get up the next morning and go to work.

If McCain wins, I will get up the next morning and go to work.


One shouldn't let the election of the President consume them with either fear or celebration. Its not like either of them are going to magically change the finanacial or housing markets. Nor will they single handedly wipe out terrorism.

Life goes on either way for me. Seems to work for me anyway.

Thanks,

Nishlord wrote:The sad fact is that when Obama wins, he'll spend the next 8 years of his life in a Popemobile encrusted with another layer of Popemobiles, just in case.

88 wrote:I think riots make for great television. Wouldn't a herd of blue-haired conservative women flipping cars over and burning tires in the street be awesome?

Mississippi Neck wrote:If Obama wins, I will get up the next morning and go to work.

If McCain wins, I will get up the next morning and go to work.


One shouldn't let the election of the President consume them with either fear or celebration. Its not like either of them are going to magically change the finanacial or housing markets. Nor will they single handedly wipe out terrorism.

Life goes on either way for me. Seems to work for me anyway.

Thanks,

Cuda wrote:if onogga wins, the jigaboos will riot because they'll feel empowered

if onogga loses, the jigaboos will riot because they'll feel cheated

they will be riots either way

Derron wrote:
Is this when the purging of whitey begins ?

Can we expect any help from the spics ?? or are they next ??

What about the Asians...??...the Jews..?

IndyFrisco wrote:If Obama wins, I think it may be a push with Juice now getting a guilty verdict. Those in the "hood" will be too confused whether to riot in anger or rejoice so they will just sit there and continue to kill each other as opposed to elevating thier level of violence.

poptart wrote:I think McCain will win anyway.

Terry in Crapchester wrote:

poptart wrote:I think McCain will win anyway.

This says otherwise.

Btw, McCain's biggest problem was that he ran around like a chicken with his head cut off when news of the economic collapse came out. Obama remained calm, and looked statesmanlike by comparison.

That and the fact that McCain admitted, in a rare moment of truth, that he knows very little about the economy. And that he's all but promised to make Phil Gramm Secretary of the Treasury.

Jsc810 wrote:Terry, I just can't get past Obama's relationship with the racist Rev. Wright. How do you do that?

mvscal wrote:

Terry in Crapchester wrote: Obama remained calm,

He was frozen in abject horror. If McCoot had a clue he would have stabbed On...igger in the neck with the fact that he was on the take from the incompetant fuck ups who brought this house of cards tumbling down.

On...igger sued banks to force them to make shitty loans to dickheaded jungle bunnies who couldn't afford them. He raked in hundreds of thousands of dollars from scum like Tony Rezko and Franklin Raines.

McCoot could have destroyed him with that issue, but he let him off the hook.

Jsc810 wrote:

Terry in Crapchester wrote:

Jsc810 wrote:Terry, I just can't get past Obama's relationship with the racist Rev. Wright. How do you do that?

The comments in question were culled from 3, maybe 4, sermons over a 20-year period.

Terry, come on, a little intellectual honesty please; I'm not trying for smack here, I really want to understand how you justify your support for Obama given his history.

Oprah was a member of that church at one time, but she evidently saw something that Obama was blind to, or that he understood and willingly remained there. Oprah left, Obama stayed, and got even closer with that racist pos.

To me, Obama is like David Duke, racism with a smile. I can't get past that, Terry.

Jsc810 wrote: I'm not trying for smack here, I really want to understand how you justify your support for Obama given his history.

Jsc810 wrote:

Terry in Crapchester wrote:McCain was, for awhile, a member of a racist organization.

I was unaware of this. What organization?

Terry wrote:I suspect that Obama was at that church for spiritual guidance

88 wrote:There is no room in the United States for candidates with ties to Kenya.

Mace wrote: You're gonna pull a hamstring trying to stretch this bit of unimportant information into something relevant to the candidate.

Mace

Jsc810 wrote: Because of all of that, I don't trust him and cannot even consider voting for him.

Mace wrote:
C'mon, Terry, an anti-communist organization is "racist"? Yeah, I read about the anti-semite stuff....but also read about them ridding those "kooks" from the organization. You're gonna pull a hamstring trying to stretch this bit of unimportant information into something relevant to the candidate.

Mace

mvscal wrote:

Terry in Crapchester wrote:Obama (even though he's never endorsed Wright's views),

He sat in that church for 20 motherfucking years. That is an endorsement of his view, you simple, stupid fuck.

I get it. You're just saying that because you're afraid your n...igger wife will beat the fuck out of you, if you don't.

mvscal wrote:Nobody and I do mean nobody gives a fuck about you or anything you have to say.

Go ahead, call me a "racist" as if it actually means something.