Originally posted by rpm
This guy never fails to impress me every time he speaks. How the hell did he lose in 2000?
In 2000 McCain was an unexpected juggernaut. For Bush to win the nomination, he had to win South Carolina's primary. It was no-holds-barred for Rove. Here are some examples of the "strategery":
1) Racial Push Poll - McCain helped a Bangladeshi orphan get medical treatment in the US. McCain and his wife fell in love with the little girl and decided to adopt her. A polling company with ties to members of the Bush Campaign called South Carolina voters and asked the following question: "Would you be more likely or less likely to vote for John McCain for president if you knew he had fathered an illegitimate black child?" McCain's adopted daughter is dark skinned.
2) Savings & Loan Push Poll - A polling company, Voter/Consumer Research, directly paid by the Bush Campaign called South Carolina voters and asked if they would support McCain if they knew he had been reprimanded for interfering with federal regulators in the savings and loan scandal.
3) Manchurian Candidate - A veterans group formed by Ted Samply (recall Vietnam Veterans Against John Kerry...same guy) indicated that McCain had lost his mind while a Hanoi Hilton POW and that he had been brainwashed. He alluded that he could be a so called "Manchurian Candidate" brainwashed by the Vietnamese and the USSR to do their bidding. He directly called McCain a "weak-minded coward who collaborated with the enemy."
4) "Not a Hero" Campaign - Pro Bush pundits published articles slamming and belittling his war record. Doug Casey of the WorldNetDaily even wrote the following (it may sound familiar):
McCain was awarded a Silver Star, a Legion of Merit for Valor, a Distinguished Flying Cross, three Bronze Stars , two Commendation medals, two Purple Hearts and a dozen service awards. Unfortunately the narratives for the awards only speak of his having undergone extreme mental and physical cruelties at the hands of his captors, and were described as "boilerplate" and "part of an SOP medal package given to repatriated (Vietnam-era) POWs" by Naval officers Hack interviewed. The medals were basically given out for being there, not for heroism.
It was unquestionably a long, painful nightmare for McCain to log all that time in a North Vietnamese prison and, for that, he deserves genuine sympathy -- the kind of sympathy you reserve for someone who survived a five year battle with cancer. And the experience may (or may not) have made him a better person. But based on the facts, he's not a war hero. And it speaks poorly of him to let his handlers promote him to the public in that way.4) Whisper Campaign - Another comment from Doug Casy was "The
word is that he wouldn't have made the grade as a naval aviator had not his father and grandfather been flag officers..." The "word" is code for rumors heard in Washington. Against McCain these included that he was gay, had an affair, had a child out of wedlock with a black prostitute, his wife was a drug addict, that he had gone insane while a POW and shouldn't be trusted with nuclear weapons (the Bush Campaign used the code word "temper" quite a bit when referring to McCain's untrustworthiness with WMD). The Dallas Morning News outed the whisper campaign and placed it at the foot of Karl Rove. There was a major altercation at an airport between the DMN editor and Rove days after the outing. At the end of the altercation the press corps on the campaign charter pretty much all concluded that Rove had in fact orchestrated the rumors.
5) Bob Jones University email - Richard Hand, a Bush close friend and Bob Jones University professor, sent out an email that appeared to be on behalf of the University to religious leaders throughout South Carolina and to major news agencies. In it he addresses 'My fellow South Carolinians" and makes allegations that McCain had "chosen to sire children without marriage." CNN interviewed Prof Hand and asked: "Professor, you say that this man had children out of wedlock. He did not have children out of wedlock." Hand replied, "Wait a minute, that's a universal negative. Can you prove that there aren't any?"
