The Real Sporer has received a brief report on Sen. John McCain’s “town hall” style meeting with Principal employees. Smart move by McCain to hold such an event (I know his team didn’t invent the concept, of course) at a large employer, particularly one with a well educated work force. Persuade local leaders and they will bring others to your banner.
Our correspondent asked Principal security about the seating capacities of the two rooms housing the crowd. The main auditorium seats 400 and it was overfilled and the “overflow” room (seating 120) was filled as well. I’ve heard reports of 200 from other sources but my correspondent indicated the seating capacities bespeak a much larger turnout. The event was satellite broadcast to several branch offices around the United States. Then again, would you rather spend a sunny spring Friday in your gerbil square or in an open, airy auditorium?
The topics were the standard McCain issues of security, security and security. Of course, we’re in WW3 so it’s pretty smart to focus on the most pressing issue of our times. Several attendees were apparently struck with the Senator’s candor in answering questions and sticking to his guns.
McCain apparently continued to defend the joke “Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb bomb Iran”. Great! Yes, sensitive liberals, warriors joke about war. McCain truly exposes John Murtha as the modern day Petain that he has become, a drooling old man, cringing in the terrified sight of his own shadow. Murtha, Reid, Pelosi and much of the rest of Democrat leadership have demonstrated themselves so willing to advance the cause of our national enemies for personal gain that they have now sunk below the Petains and Quislings of history, who at least thought they were doing the right thing. The modern Democrat leadership are like salmons who have returned to the disingenuous and treacherous waters in which they were spawned by their Democrat forebears like Franklin Pierce and Franklin Buchanan, who were willing to accept slavery and secession for Democrat electoral success in the 1850s. Strange how history repeats; but I do digress.
Ultimately, the ability to reach audiences in events like today’s McCain Principal appearance make those who have written off John McCain seem utterly silly. McCain has enormous name identification, as evidenced by the ability to generate the level of enthusiasm necessary for a corporation to make its work force available to him, by the hundreds. The Iowa race mirrors our national race, close and getting closer.
The Straw Poll is going to be momentous!
Our correspondent asked Principal security about the seating capacities of the two rooms housing the crowd. The main auditorium seats 400 and it was overfilled and the “overflow” room (seating 120) was filled as well. I’ve heard reports of 200 from other sources but my correspondent indicated the seating capacities bespeak a much larger turnout. The event was satellite broadcast to several branch offices around the United States. Then again, would you rather spend a sunny spring Friday in your gerbil square or in an open, airy auditorium?
The topics were the standard McCain issues of security, security and security. Of course, we’re in WW3 so it’s pretty smart to focus on the most pressing issue of our times. Several attendees were apparently struck with the Senator’s candor in answering questions and sticking to his guns.
McCain apparently continued to defend the joke “Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb bomb Iran”. Great! Yes, sensitive liberals, warriors joke about war. McCain truly exposes John Murtha as the modern day Petain that he has become, a drooling old man, cringing in the terrified sight of his own shadow. Murtha, Reid, Pelosi and much of the rest of Democrat leadership have demonstrated themselves so willing to advance the cause of our national enemies for personal gain that they have now sunk below the Petains and Quislings of history, who at least thought they were doing the right thing. The modern Democrat leadership are like salmons who have returned to the disingenuous and treacherous waters in which they were spawned by their Democrat forebears like Franklin Pierce and Franklin Buchanan, who were willing to accept slavery and secession for Democrat electoral success in the 1850s. Strange how history repeats; but I do digress.
Ultimately, the ability to reach audiences in events like today’s McCain Principal appearance make those who have written off John McCain seem utterly silly. McCain has enormous name identification, as evidenced by the ability to generate the level of enthusiasm necessary for a corporation to make its work force available to him, by the hundreds. The Iowa race mirrors our national race, close and getting closer.
The Straw Poll is going to be momentous!
8 comments:
"McCain truly exposes John Murtha as the modern day Petain that he has become, a drooling old man, cringing in the terrified sight of his own shadow."
It's nice how you so patriotically and gracefully respect our veterans. Classy and constructive.
Chairman,
1) when is Newt going to get in the race?
2) Why is Rudy still holding out on participating in the straw poll?
rf, so you think service in the military exonerates all further public conduct for the rest of one's life.
read this-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippe_P%C3%A9tain-and let me know what you think about that absolutism? I for one think that historical judgment is based on the totality of one's life and contemporary judgment is based on contemporaneous conduct.
Or perhaps you do credit Pierce and Buchanan as visionary statesman who spared the country the agony of civil war and Lincoln as the Bush like monster who forced the south to launch the civil war?
Also, why didn't you answer my question about your preferred bargaining chips in the diplomatic negotiations you would prefer with: 1) Al Qaeda; 2) Syria; and 3) Iran? What would you ask for and what would you offer?
So you can't find a more respectful way of expressing disagreement? Your rhetoric reveals a lot about you and how you relate to your fellow human beings.
To be honest, these days I am too many steps removed from the everyday workings of international relations that I can hardly make authoritative statements about the diplomatic dealings in the Middle East. To really know your bargaining chips, you must know what is going on.
But as usual, I have some opinions and my gut reactions:
Al Qaeda. Kill the bastards. No need to negotiate with them. And I really haven't heard anyone suggest that.
Iran. We could start where we were with them right before some idiot stuck the Axis of Evil statement in the State of the Union. We had some mutual interests in the post 9/11 world and even the W administration was engaging with them. Not surprisingly, it all stopped after SOTU.
Syria. They surely have some interest in Middle East stability, as all states do. If you don't know what trips their triggers, find out. It can't hurt to engage them. If nothing else, send another hot mature woman to talk to them. That never hurts.
I was in Sioux City after the McCain event this weekend. There were McCain people all over the place with their stickers, shirts, and bumper stickers.
From Robert Novak’s column about Hagel:
What about claims by proponents of the Iraqi intervention that failure to stop the terrorists in Iraq will open the door to them in the American homeland?
"That's nonsense," Hagel replied. "I've never believed that. That's the same kind of rhetoric and thinking that neo-cons used to get us into this mess, and everything that [Donald] Rumsfeld, [Paul] Wolfowitz, [Richard] Perle, [Douglas] Feith and the vice president all said. Nothing turned out the way they said it would." ....
"So," said Hagel, "when I hear people say, 'Well, if we leave them to that, it will be chaos.' What do you think is going on now? Scaring the American people into this blind alley is so dangerous."
These judgments come from someone credited with rebuilding Nebraska's Republican Party who has a lifetime American Conservative Union record of 85.2 percent. Hagel represents millions of Republicans who are repelled by the Democratic personal assault on President Bush but deeply unhappy about his course in Iraq.
Hagel's mind is locked in Vietnam and simply rejects reality.
Global Al Qaeda collective leadership (e.g. UBL/ the departed Al Masri, that spooky Egyptian no. 2 etc...) say they view US abandoning Iraq as a major victory that presages other even larger victories in their war with the West, Israel and especially the US. What do you think they mean by that.
Global Al Qaeda promises people victory in Iraq by citing Vietnam and Somalia. What lesson do you think the most brutal thugs in history will draw from killing a few thousand Iraqis and a very few thousand Americans? Hagel and other advocates of appeasement think Al Qaeda will construe fulfillment of their promise of victory as a sign that terrorism fails, nothwithstanding their explict statements, and the better part of a generation of history, to the contrary?
Why shouldn't we believe our enemies statements of intention.
Even if one concedes that we launched the Iraqi campaign for bad reasons, which I don't, every historical antecedant demonstrates that anything less than total victory for us is total victory for them.
Hell, I'm a Republican Party Official. I'd love to find a way to disengage. We'd continue to pound you guys if it weren't for the drip drip of Iraq. But as an American, and more than a completely amatuer military historian, I understand the consequences exiting without victory.
Hagel doesn't. Best case, he like some good faith liberals simply view everything through the prisim of Vietnam-which was the anamoly not the rule. Worst case, he is vain and petty and is so put off by the concededly arrogant and at times dismissive Ivy Leaguers who having been running the country since 89 and is now simply grinding an axe.
Either way, the exit strategy is total victory. Compare the long term peace produced by an exit strategy of armistice without victory in November 1818 and the total war that started less than twenty years later. Edwin Star was wrong. As bad as war is it is sometimes produces very good things-like the extermination of global terrorism by killing every terrorist upon whom we lay our hands and providing a very clear object lesson to those contemplating terrorism.
With all due respect, I don’t think Hagel is rejecting reality. He appears to be one of the few R’s willing to face reality, as much as it must pain him to do so.
What exactly does “total victory” mean? Are we there when we finish the job in Iraq (whatever that means and whenever that may be)? After Iraq, what then? At least D’s are coming up with something, talking about their ideas. There is no substance coming from the R side besides the empty sloganeering of “stay the course” and “victory.”
“like the extermination of global terrorism by killing every terrorist upon whom we lay our hands and providing a very clear object lesson to those contemplating terrorism.” – I think this is where our crucial difference is. To me, this kind of thinking completely ignores the nature of today’s terrorism and what fuels it. Plus, playing whack-a-mole in the Iraq civil war hardly advances your goal of killing all the terrorists.
“We'd continue to pound you guys if it weren't for the drip drip of Iraq.” – After the 2000 landslide, yes, you pounded us on the scare tactic of “we’ll be attacked if you elect a D”. Looks like that train ran out of steam in 2006. Of course, R’s will surely try it again, as Rudy already started on that path. And it may even work.
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