McCain Takes on Supporters in Defense of Obama
During a stump speech before supporters on Friday, John McCain showed that he is not willing to demonize Barack Obama or to let others demonize the senator from Illinois. Something that should silence his critics who say that he has run a nasty, mean campaign, bent on destroying Obama’s image.
The following happened: when McCain said about Obama that he “respects Sen. Obama and his accomplishments” the crowd started booing. McCain got visibly angry saying: “I want EVERYONE to be respectful, and lets make sure we are.”
That was not the end of it, though. When another supporters said she was “scared to bring up my child in a world where Barack Obama is president” McCain responded not by fearmongering, but by trying to calm her down. “Well, I don’t want him to be president, either. I wouldn’t be running if I did. But,” he paused for emphasis, “you don’t have to be scared to have him be President of the United States.”
The crowd again responded angrily, booing their own candidate.
Later, McCain snatched the microphone out of the hands of a supporter who said “I’m scared of Barack Obama… he’s an Arab…”
McCain quickly took over the microphone saying: “No, no ma’am. He’s a decent family man with whom I happen to have some disagreements.”
Although a significant part of the crowd booed whenever McCain spoke respectfully of Obama, the majority applauded when he did so. Quite some Republicans, it seems, are not quite willing to demonize Obama either.
McCain has often been accused of running a nasty, ‘fearmongering’ campaign, but his actions yesterday prove that McCain does put his money where his mouth is with regards to clean campaigning. Negative ads are not the same as nasty ads, nor are they same as demonizing the opponent.
The senator from Arizona’s responses to the public are, by the way, something all those involved in politics should keep in mind. Politics are not about a battle between ‘good’ and ‘evil.’ It is a battle of ideas. The opponent is not inherently evil, he simply disagrees one certain specific policy issues. That’s worth pointing out time and again.
O, and this election – like most others for that matter – is not a choice between life and death, safety and security. There is no need for anyone to be afraid of either an Obama or a McCain presidency.
Conservative blog Hot Air published a video of the event which we will, of course, republish here.
The problem is that all this came after insinuations of Obama being like, or sympathizing with, terrorist Ayers. Personally, I think that’s why he got those questions. Not that Obama was any better in this regard, insinuating that McCain was a corrupt politician.
Yet, I think this change in attitude toward the whole Ayers affair shows that he thinks he needs to backpeddle to have any hope of saving his campaign.