I can’t in good conscience send people to this site anymore, or to Michelle Malkin’s. I send them to Ace instead. Sending them here has done more harm than good, and has, trust me, turned genuine undecideds–people who can read, by the way–into Obama supporters.
mikeinamman on October 13, 2008 at 12:51 AM

You should be sending them to PUMA sites if they’re undecided:=
http://hillbuzz.wordpress.com/2008/10/10/clinton-supporters-sharing-evidence-for-rico-case-against-obama-campaign/
Let’s roll!
ex-Democrat on October 13, 2008 at 9:58 AM

I read Ace’s PUMA thread, too, and thought it was great. Despite the penchant for colorful language, I find Ace’s posts to be very thoughtful, striking the right balance of fighting spirit and realism (with respect to how the campaign has been going). I sent the link to that thread to HotAir, but I guess they didn’t pick it up.

In addition to the PUMA sites, I would also highly recommend that people with fence-sitting independent or democrat friends send them to read neoneocon’s blog. She is a former liberal democrat whose friends are still primarily from the intelligentsia. Like Ann Althouse, she is someone they might relate to… but unlike Ann, who recently announced her likely intent to vote for O!, she is definitely in the McCain camp. (I lost some respect for Althouse when she rationalized away the violent behavior of O! supporters because of their youth, but held the McCain supporters who said questionable things to task because somehow they should know better.) See, for example, this post: Obama the soft socialist.

I think Ed’s posts tend to produce less vitriol (and attract less trolls) than Allah’s, but many of the HotAir threads would be really hard for independents to benefit from — far too much social cons name-calling people who disagree with them, imho, and negativity about McCain. Hot Air is still a great site, especially for the Headlines section, but I have no doubt that if any of my friends from academe landed in some of the Huckabee threads they would think the end of the world was coming and never consider voting for a Republican.

Michelle Malkin’s blog can be great because she is so sharp, but I agree with mikeinamman that it’s not the place to send fence-sitters. She’s too hard line. The bailout threads have been about as helpful as libertarian threads. Just not practical and not acknowledging in any way the efforts some of our representatives made to negotiate a better bailout.

You should be sending them to PUMA sites if they’re undecided:

http://hillbuzz.wordpress.com/2008/10/10/clinton-supporters-sharing-evidence-for-rico-case-against-obama-campaign/

Let’s roll!

ex-Democrat on October 13, 2008 at 9:58 AM

ex-Democrat, this is an excellent post! I’ve sent it to everyone in my email list.

I can’t in good conscience send people to this site anymore, or to Michelle Malkin’s. I send them to Ace instead. Sending them here has done more harm than good, and has, trust me, turned genuine undecideds–people who can read, by the way–into Obama supporters.

mikeinamman on October 13, 2008 at 12:51 AM

You should be sending them to PUMA sites if they’re undecided:

http://hillbuzz.wordpress.com/2008/10/10/clinton-supporters-sharing-evidence-for-rico-case-against-obama-campaign/

Let’s roll!

Yes… curious since at the “cut off”, the amount of money available to both (their funds plus DNC/RNC) campaigns was similar. The bulk of what we have seen from McCain have been Internet ads which are cheap. During the last week, my wife (independent) received 5 expensive Obama mailings in 7 days (south Florida). Obama has to be burning money at an incredible rate. I guess if he gets low, he just gets some more donations from George Soros Good Will Internet supporters under $200.

Internet ads may be cheap, but how many people watch them? If TV watchers are seeing lots of Obama ads whether they want to or not, and people have to surf the Internet to see McCain ads, who will have more influence on the sheeple? The McCain camp needs to wake up and get on TV, quickly!!!

If Obama runs low on money (not likely) he can just get more in $20 increments from “Fdsa Fdsa” of Dhff, Florida, and other keystrokes of genius from keyboard monkeys.

Why not ask why these radicals want him in power?
Matushka

Better!

Bring in the Rev, Rashid Khalidi and the rest of the gang.

Why not ask why these radicals want him in power?

This morning I counted 13 McCain and 3 Obama signs. What do you make of that?

We have reported on Europe’s sickening turn away from robust democracy, and especially freedom of speech, and towards leftist thugocracy. In no European country does the abandonment of Western values appear to be occurring more rapidly than Belgium.

The latest example comes from Ghent, as reported by the Gates of Vienna blog. On October 7, Filip Dewinter, a prominent Flemish politician, was scheduled to participate in a debate at the University of Ghent. The issue was to be cooperation between Flanders and the Netherlands. Dewinter is a member of a party that favors the separation of Flanders from Belgium. Separation would be accomplished non-violently, as occurred when Czechoslovakia separated into two Republics.

Prior to the debate, the Rector of the university announced that Geert Wilders, a member of the Dutch parliament who had also been invited, would not be allowed to participate. Wilders is a libertarian-conservative, a staunch defender of free speech, and a critic of Islam to the extent that it conflicts with freedom. Because of his criticism of Islam, he frequently receives death threats. The Rector said that Wilders would not be welcome because his safety could not be guaranteed.

Neither, it turned out, could Dewinter’s. Left-wing students (300 of them according to one estimate) calling themselves anti-fascists blocked his entrance. Dewinter refused to be intimidated and attempted to enter the building. A brawl ensued. The police eventually broke it up, but the debate was cancelled.

Afterwards Dewinter said:

We were struck and beaten because we wanted access to a university for an approved debate. The so-called anti-fascists used fascist methods to try to silence us. This can not be allowed in a democracy.

Increasingly, the question is: to what extent is a country like Belgium still a full democracy?

Any of this sound familiar? Liberals are Liberals are Liberals. Just ask Ann Coulter and dozens of others who were attacked while giving speeches.

In another thread on this site, someone wrote this apostrophe to McCain: “My country is more important than your f—cking honor!!!” And people commended the common sense of the thought and the blunt eloquence of its expression. But isn’t there a corollary we can apply to ourselves–”My country is more important than your f–cking theories of ideological purity?” Or are we crazy spinsters who hold on to our purity while we feed our dozens of cats alone? Are we above asking for the help of people who differ from us in some ways, but who share a common goal? Or maybe it’s more important that, instead of trying to talk to them, we save our strenth for more important–and self-important–endeavors which many of us will surely engage in starting November 5, and that is putting our “Don’t Blame Me, I Voted for McCain” bumper stickers on our cars while the country we claim to love decays under Obama’s mismanagement. But at least, like those spinsters, we remained “pure.”

Ace ran a brilliant thread where he attempted to reach out to the PUMAs, and to find out what they would want from McCain to get their vote, and the responses were constructive and sensible. That’s where I send my friends who ask me about McCain, not here. And I will continue to do so, because I would prefer McCain win than not.

And Mr. or Mrs. Entelechy, speaking in aphorisms as you did is rarely the sign of literacy of any kind, let alone “political” literacy.

Today watching NFL, I saw AT LEAST 20 Obama Ads…and a total of ZERO – NADA – NONE for McCain…

deedtrader on October 12, 2008 at 8:45 PM

Yes… curious since at the “cut off”, the amount of money available to both (their funds plus DNC/RNC) campaigns was similar. The bulk of what we have seen from McCain have been Internet ads which are cheap. During the last week, my wife (independent) received 5 expensive Obama mailings in 7 days (south Florida). Obama has to be burning money at an incredible rate. I guess if he gets low, he just gets some more donations from George Soros Good Will Internet supporters under $200.

You would think that sooner or later the McCain money is going to start flowing heavily. I sure hope that is the case.

CC

Two very well articulated explanations as to just WHY NOT:

http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/10/obamas_three_strikes_1.html

http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/10/why_obamas_socialism_matters_1.html

People are worried about many things, this just is not one of them.

I’ve grown to like McCain more and more as time goes by this election season, but I fear he will be steamrollered by the economy.

Where are the Republican ads tying Obama to Pelosi, Reid, Congress and Fannie & Freddie? Those should play nonstop in the swing states.

Star20 on October 12, 2008 at 11:38 PM

Tomorrow, I’m calling to cancel my subscription to The Cincinnati Enquirer. In mid-March, right when Jeremiah hit the fan, it ran a great article about character and its importance in evaluating candidates. I was really impressed.

But it’s been downhill ever since. It’s kind of a second-rate paper to begin with, but it’s op-ed pages have become tiresome. Most of its news comes from AP. It collaborated (using that word in an intentionally pejorative sense) with other papers in other to run reviews of the candidates ads, and the verdicts are always the same: McCain lies, Obama stretches the truth a little. One screwball said the sex ed ad was a lie. I’ve read the legislation; McCain was right. Anyway, they like picking up NYT columnists (Gail Collins hails from Cincinnati, so she usually gets picked up) and other liberal columnists for balance. And the conservatives that they get are Kathleen Parker and David Brooks. And I’ve notice where they make the HLs more critical of the conservative that may be featured.

I’ve had. Local news during the week and Walter Williams on Sundays aren’t enough. It’s my consumer vote.

turned genuine undecideds–people who can read, by the way–into Obama supporters.

mikeinamman on October 13, 2008 at 12:51 AM

(Political) literacy is indignant.

Treat yourself. You deserve it.

http://townhall.com/Common/PrintPage.aspx?g=2539043f-7046-44c6-bc0a-00042839cbb7&t=c

John McCain has bled more for you than you ever will for him.

Get up off your ass and fight for him, if you are such a big, brave man.

funky chicken on October 12, 2008 at 10:53 PM

I meant “bleed” in a political sense, probably should have said “bleed for us now like he bled for us in Vietnam.” I have nothing but respect for McCain’s personal courage. That’s what makes this sad little whimper of a campaign so hard to understand. I don’t think you can say he’s “afraid” of running a tough campaign, or suffering media slings and arrows… so how do you explain what he’s doing? Did his sense of Senate collegiality prevent him from talking tough against Obama and Biden, until (maybe) this late hour? Does he basically agree with them on everything except foreign policy, so he only came ready to fight over Iraq, and that just isn’t a fight anyone wanted to have? Did he think his previous good relations with the boys in the press would earn him some fair treatment – has he been flipping on the news every day, waiting for critical analysis of Biden’s unbelievably stupid debate performance, or big MSM exposes of ACORN, Bill Ayers, and Tony Rezko? Was he unwilling to do anything that would cost him those long-cultivated media friendships, and is he surprised by how much they’ve been willing to turn on him to get Obama into office?

Hurling insults at each other and backbiting isn’t going to get us anywhere, in the little time we have left. It has an unpleasant sinking-ship quality about it.

As for “fighting for McCain,” I was an early and frequent defender of his around these parts, after he won the nomination. I live in an area that will vote overwhelmingly for McCain, in a state he looked like he would carry, until this week. I’ll certainly vote for him myself. What, exactly, am I supposed to do, to fight for him and prove my bravery to you, mighty Achilles? Lead a strike team against an ACORN office? Try to goad Ayers into a cage match? (I’d do the latter if I could, believe me. Heck, I’d get rich selling the pay-per-view rights…)

No, we’re long past the point where it does any good to demand people fight for McCain. He should have been fighting for us, starting a long time ago. It’s called leadership. He’s got a few weeks left to show some. If he doesn’t, we all get to start bleeding, in a variety of unpleasant ways.

into Obama supporters.

mikeinamman on October 13, 2008 at 12:51 AM

Any moron who becomes an Oslime-a supporter after reading HA, was simply a closet liberal waiting for any BS excuse to come out of the closet.

I am one of the few conservative academics I know of, and am the most vocal as well. In fact, I was interviewed for an Amman newspaper about the election, my name having been given to them by my colleagues at the university here as the only American conservative in the country. But there are a good many undecideds in academia, most of whom were Hillary supporters, and many of whom, both in the U.S. and abroad, ask me for reasons to vote for McCain. My fiancee is an Albanian Moslem, who herself comes from an academic family. Most Albanians love the Clintons. Her family has asked me on numerous occasions why I am voting McCain.

In the past, I have directed them to this site and to Michelle Malkin’s and to LGF, but too often they come back with comments such as, “Even Republicans don’t like McCain,” or “Even your own people think McCain is a coward.” Comments like the ones above–the undecideds are either too stupid or too lazy to understand an ad that requires reading, or are too stupid to vote if they don’t already know who they are voting for, are also, to put it mildly, unhelpful.

Look, I was a Fred Thompson supporter, and I understand that in a perfect world, we would be fielding a dream team of Thompson/Romney/Huckeabee/Guiliani/Palin/Jindal, tag-team style, against Obama/Biden. But the world is as it is–McCain is our candidate, and there is a huge pool of undecided Hillary voters out there that we can reel in, if we could simply accept that fact–and I’m not talking about blind devotion to the guy–but accept the fact that McCain is the Republican candidate, and that to prevent Obama we have to support our ticket. We simply can’t afford to have those PUMAs come here, hear that we despise our own candidate because we believe that if he’d only listen to Hot Air commenters, he’d be pushing 90% in the polls, and his failure to do so is a failure of courage and/or honor, and leave with that impression in their heads.

I can’t in good conscience send people to this site anymore, or to Michelle Malkin’s. I send them to Ace instead. Sending them here has done more harm than good, and has, trust me, turned genuine undecideds–people who can read, by the way–into Obama supporters.