Meet Mr. Vague Generalities
By Steve Benen Wednesday Feb 13, 2008 7:15amIf this is the direction in which John McCain wants the campaign to go, Democrats are even luckier than I had hoped.
As he did Tuesday night, McCain focused much of his criticism on Obama, Tuesday’s winner on the Democratic side.
“I respect him and the campaign that he has run, but there’s going to come a time when we have to get into specifics,” McCain told reporters Wednesday on Capitol Hill. “I’ve not observed every speech he’s given, obviously, but they are singularly lacking in specifics.”
Now, the claim that Obama lacks specifics is, on its face, false. Obama’s campaign has presented detailed policy prescriptions on almost every issue under the sun. If McCain wants to argue that these policies are wrong and offer alternatives, more power to him. But to pretend they don’t exist is just silly.
But the more important point is that McCain is going after Obama on one of his own biggest weaknesses. We’re talking about a candidate who’s running on a powerful personal story, but whose understanding of policy details is almost Bush-like. Last year, for example, McCain explained his position on Iraqi reconciliation this way: “One of the things I would do if I were President would be to sit the Shiites and the Sunnis down and say, ‘Stop the bullshit.’” This is what passes for “policy specifics” in John McCain World.
Jonathan Chait added, “McCain takes a strong interest in foreign policy, to be sure, but his main public appeal has been to endless remind voters of his history as a POW. On economics, he’s repeatedly admitted that he knows very little. And on social issues, he doesn’t even know what his own positions are."
If this campaign boils down to which side is better prepared to offer policy specifics, McCain will be lucky to even carry Arizona.
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Nice post. This seems to be an ongoing fiction regarding Obama: that he lacks specifics. Any thoughts?
If you want specifics, go on Obama's website. Nuff' said'
Apparently, he's gleaned his talking points on Obama from the Clinton camp and their hardcore supporters, most of whom apparently have just assumed all he had was a couple of slogans, or perhaps are counting on the remaining undecideds to be swayed by such an argument without actually checking it first.
It works only because we're at a point where far too many people simply accept what pundits tell them, and buy labels ("Straight Talk Express") as truth.
How come you guys are late?
Please America do not elect another Republican to any office. They all lie cheat and steal. They have stolen America from America.
I think people hit Obama on "specifics" because they are trying to combat his oratory skill, which is indomitable. And they want to throw cold water on his hopeful message of unity.
Both McCain and Hillary are trying to appeal to base impulses like partisanship and racism, by spinning Obama into another one of America's fallen dreamers.... He's like JFK, he's like King, he's like RFK. He speaks very well... but he won't get anything done, because, well, you know what happens to dreamers in American politics.
They want to tell us that the status quo is good because it is safe, predictable, slow. McCain and Hillary won't offend the system. They won't rock the boat. They will play by the rules.
It's a sad campaign that people are running against Obama. But how else can they campaign, except by crushing our hopes that political life in the United States will change?
Sounds like almost all politicians to me. "Which way is the wind blowing today, campaign manager?"
"Cut the bullshit". Gee, why didn't anyone ever think of that before? It's brilliant!!! Just think of all of those Catholic's and Protestants that died unneccessarily! Just think! There can finally be peace between the Palestinian's and the Israeli's. Maybe the Right and the Left in America can even get along. Just cut the bullshit!
Let's see ... the last time the GOP restrained itself becaus eof Truth was ...
Help me out, here, folks -- I can't remember back that far!
“One of the things I would do if I were President would be to sit the Shiites and the Sunnis down and say, ‘Stop the bullshit.’” This is what passes for “policy specifics” in John McCain World.
Sounds like something Harry Truman might say.
muckdog @ 11:
Yeah, I think Harry tried that with Korea.
I'm no fan of McCain, but he said Obama's speeches lack specifics, and with that I agree. Why should I have to go to his website to find the details?
Why can't he speak them in his speeches? Why doesn't he go beyond the rhetoric of hope and tell us what are his goals and how is he going to get us there?
I'm undecided on my Democratic candidate, and I'm still waiting to hear his specifics from his own lips. If I have missed his own words from his own mouth specifically saying what he will do and how he will do it, please offer me a YouTube link or a link to an article quoting a speech with specifics.
So let me see if I get this straight, McCain complains about Obama's lack of "specifics" by not going into "specifics" about what "specifics" Obama is lacking.
This coming from the senile petard who goes into catatonic state whenever unrehearsed questions about the economy or education get popped his way.
Sometimes, you just can make up such comedy gold...
BigTobacco @ 7:
Yeah like MLK, JFK, and RFK. Can we get 'em for threatening...????
Dems must resist the temptation to get specific. The GOP always pushes Dems for specifics because it gives them ammunition. Their talk radio monopoly allows national uncontested repetition 24/7 for myth making, distorting, swiftboating, and framing, and the sooner they can start that process the more people they can turn and confuse.
Until the dems have a real answer to the talk radio monopoly, like with a new Fairness Doctrine, they play politics without a front line and must resist the temptation to get too specific and comprehensive.
who in MSM deals in truth? none of them until well after the fact. they offer page-14, whispered corrections. fugg all-of-em.
Thinking Person @ 13:
So, you'll go to Youtube, or click on a link to hear his specifics, but you won't go to his website?? That makes sense. Give me a break.
trank @ 16:
I think the specifics will always work for the dems. if they continue to be pussies, they will continue to lose. check the earlier post about the avalanche of communications to Conyers' office. that should tell you something about whjat the american people are clamoring for.
PS to above --16
the internet is not an answer to the right wing talk radio monopoly because it isn't a monopoly. any advantage progressives have there is a reflection of the advantage they would have in politics in general if we had a real democracy without the right wing talk radio monopoly to distort it by intimidating 'moderate ' republicans and blue dog dems, radicalizing the GOP, and generally determining what is and what isn't acceptable in the rest of the corp med.
Thinking Person not Doing Person.
CoIntelPro @ 19:
The real pussies are the republicans who see a foreigner behind every corner and have to simplify everything into stupidity because complexity and uncertainty frightens them so much.
Dems often lose because the GOP has the biggest uncontested soapbox in the country. It's uncontested because there is no Fairness Doctrine and because most progressives ignore that soapbox and won't get their representative's back when they get swiftboated constantly at local talk radio station. Dems biggest political mistake of teh last twenty years has been to evaluate their representatives, causes, and candidates and their lack of progress, as well as the popularity of the GOP, while completely ignoring the power of talk radio.
The current activism re Conyers would have happened a long time ago or would not even be needed is we didn't have the talk radio monopoly intimidating anyone in the rest of the media who criticizes bush. The TR monopoly is what gets Dan Rathers fired. The TR monopoly is the major tool for keeping bush in office and the dems from getting a veto proof majority.
Watch what happens from your local talk radio station when/if Conyers starts because that's where the groundwork of the Conyers attacks will be coordinated, and wave the impeachment signs there. That will get attention.
Thinking Person @ 13:
want to explain the difference in reading his policy positions and hearing them?
im sorry that you are either too lazy or just too illiterate to read
im not
Thinking Person @ 13:
truly pathetic
“One of the things I would do if I were President would be to sit the Shiites and the Sunnis down and say, ‘Stop the bullshit.’”
I don't understand the complexities of the situation but I do know that within the Shiite community there are divisions. Moqtada al Sadr and Nouri al Maliki are both Shia and belong to different factions that are implacably opposed. Similarly, the Sunni are divided. And you have the al Qaeda goons, Salafists from Saudi Arabia that most Iraqi religious types would regard as heretics. It is the idea that the President of the United States could get them to sit down together which is bullshit.
Incredibly detailed policy explanations don't belong in a campaign speech. Both Clinton and Obama are pushing their healthcare plans and talk about them in their speeches. They hit the main points but don't go into the details. Anyone that has a good healthcare plan through their job knows that most healthcare plans are complicated and not easy to explain (I had to go to a two hour meeting to have mine explained at my work). Most people just want the basic questions answered, like 'can I go to any doctor?' and 'will I be covered?' which Clinton and Obama touch upon in speeches.
Campaign speeches are intended for the largest possible audience with a wide variety of interests. A better forum for discussing specifics are debates and even those will never satisfy everyone. Remember the last presidential election where Bush turned his policy points into soundbytes and catch phrases that were easy for people to remember. Kerry made the mistake of putting rambling explanations of policy into his speeches and that turned a lot of people off.
BigTobacco @ 7:
BINGO!
That's it exactly. Don't expect much, because WE are not going to give it to you.
Settle for the same old same old...The rich get richer, the poor get poorer, and the US continues it's slide to 3 world status......
God, did Pete Townsend get it right or what.
Meet the new boss....Same as the old boss!
Thinking Person @ 13:
If you want presidential candidates to have an precise and unwavering action plan that resolves every relevant issue you are fooling yourself. No one can do that, and ever will. The reality of the matter is that solutions exist somewhere between absolute proof on one end and hope and concept at the other. You make the assumption that Obama has come up with only vague ideas, that is totally false. No one will come up with a concise solution for every problem. You need adjust your reality, please.
Quit repeating the talking points used against Obama.
In this case, it would be simply better to say "John McCain has no specifics about his policies". The doubt is then cast on John McCain and this talking point can be repeated about John McCain.
Where is Obama's health plan? He hasn't been very specific about that. He has said that those details can be worked out when he is in office. That is BS! The Repugnicans will laugh at his proposals and delay and destroy them. Let him play the victim with them, and see what he gets.
Obama is a great speaker, he is often compared to John Kennedy who was also a wonderful speaker. However, take a cold hard look at what Kennedy did in his thousand days. Basically nothing. It took someone like Lyndon Johnson to twist the arms and kick the butts necessary to accomplish things. I loved Kennedy, but I am a realist. This is a tough world, and it is going to take a tough person, not a great speaker to get things done. Obama's I am a uniter rhetoric means even less than Bush's I am a uniter lies.
it's not just McCain making this same claim, it's Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, all of her surrogates, pundits. and they're just as wrong as McCain is.
look above this post as New Very City saying "Where is Obama's health plan?" guess what? it's on his damn website, where it has been for months! see what I mean? people want to blame Obama for their own ignorance. sad.
Those of us who remember the Kennedy Nixon campaign recall that it was generally agreed that even though Nixon was sweating and had a five o’clock shadow he won the debates. Nixon had all the answers while JFK stabbed at the air with his forefinger and talked of moving the country forward. With a little help from Chicago’s mayor Daley, he was elected.
Ronald Reagan’s campaign against Jimmy Carter consisted of a mélange of generalities, myths about welfare queens, and bits from old movie scripts that he confused with reality, but people liked his jovial good nature. Clinton seemed less uptight than either the old Bush or Bob Dole. Our present incumbent could scarcely find our allies and adversaries on a map, but Al Gore and John Kerry put us to sleep with facts and figures. Look where that got us. Let’s face it. The American voting public cares little about facts. They want to be inspired or at least to have a president with whom they are comfortable.
This new McCain talking point is taken DIRECTLY from a TownHall.com article by Ben Shapiro, which, unfortunately, a Democratic friend who is a Hillary supporter sent to me in an effort to discourage any support I may be having for Obama. I found the attempt to be quite distasteful...
Here's the link to the article:
http://townhall.com/columnists/BenShapiro/2008/02/07/obama_proves_americ...
Please hear me out on this but McCain is running on a platform of "I'm a wealthy, protestant, white male". That's it. When people walk into that booth in november, they will vote McCain because they don't want a woman or a black man president. Right now, those people are being closet racists. He could run campaign ads that have him saying "On January 22, 2009 after taking the oath of office, I plan on wiping my butt with the Constitution and then lighting it on fire and smoking it." People will vote for him for fear of a half black man with two muslim names in his name or a wealthy, white, shrill, conniving, bitchy woman becoming president.
Now, our fine RNC will manipulate that wording but it's the truth and we must accept that our nation is still pretty racist and women hating.
I wish it weren't true. I don't think Obama or Hillary are going to bring about the necessary change to get us back on the right track. But I'd SO MUCH rather have them anyday than any Republican.
onceler @ 31:
What is sad is that some people believe that platitudes and noble goals is a plan!
McCain isn't going to run against Obama on the "specifics". Please remember, these are Republicans we're talking about. Obama is going to be attacked for using drugs -- and also for not using drugs but claiming he did. Obama is going to be attacked for never having been a POW; for being part of the Eastern Elite and also for being a low brow Ghetto rabble rouser; Obama is going to be smeared for "fathering a black child", for being an Al Qaeda operative; for having big ears, and for seeking to push God out of the public sector; for opposing the Death Penalty; for wanting to tax all White people and give it all to Black people -- and also for being disloyal to his African American base and sucking up to the White Power elite. He is going to be attacked on the basis of mis-quotes, fabricated quotes, the fact that he opposed the invasion of Iraq and also for the fact that he really supported the invasion of Iraq.
And if these attacks don't take wing, and Obama seems -- as he surely will -- to be beating the heck out of McCain in the run up to November -- well, then, Obama had better watch his back. The fascists own enough of the radio waves to let drop a remark about how he should have a target painted on his back -- they said as much in reference to Nacy Pelosi -- and they have enough psychotic listeners who may pick up the hint to make Obama's public appearances very risky business.
Specifics? You expect specifics from the party of corporate fascism? You won't get any specifics. You'll get lies, misquotes, ugly PAC attacks, and death threats. (The ugliest of the threats and lies will not come out of McCain's camp. They will come over the radio waves from the Limbaughs and Savages; they will appear as attack ads without the candidate's endorsement.) But, over all, it's going to be another vile and infuriating campaign waged by Repubican-fascists hungry to hang on to power whatever the cost. It will, in other words, be business as usual from the Right Wing.
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