The deadline for an application for an absentee ballot in the Massachusetts Special Election was several days ago, on Jan. 15. Absentee ballots are, to the best of my information, issued only to specific individuals. So what is a Democrat activist doing today wandering about Massachusetts with a stack of blank absentee ballots, offering to fill them out with a vote for Martha Cokely?
Hopefully, immediately after the above video was shot, the police were called and, once Ms. Melendez was booked. Moreover, let's hope that police learn the identity of the person who gave this stack of absentee ballots to her. Then lets get started building a gibbet.
If the far left thinks they can do this type of blatant vote fraud and, like it has for most of the last decade, it will pass yet again under the radar, they are just not reading the tea leaves. True, we can be reasonably certain the Obama DOJ will ignore it. And as I wrote the other day:
But the middle and the right are energized - and organized - like they haven't been for decades. Let Brown lose because of the "margin of fraud" (which American Digest puts at 4.8%) and all hell will break loose. God help the left when the right decides that their vote no longer matters because of fraud. It will make what is happening in Iran look like a . . . well, a tea-party is probably the most apt description.
Grand Ayatollah Montazeri died on Sunday. His burial on Monday, shown in the video above, turned into the largest protest against the Iranian regime since at least June. Here is a report on the burial that appeared on Al Jazzera. If you do not know about Grand Ayatollah, it provides a suprisingly good two minute summation:
Hossein Ali Montazeri, a man deeply respected by Shia Muslims, one of only a handful of Grand Ayatollahs and, until his death, the most senior Shia cleric living in Iran, boasts a unique resume. He was a leading figure and, indeed, Grand Ayatollah Khomeini right hand man, during the 1979 Iranian revolution. He was slated to succeed Khomeni upon Khomeini's death, but instead turned against Khomeini over Khomeini's brutal tactics and his imposition of the the velayat-a-faqi, Khomeini's bastardization of over a millenium of apolitical Shia tradition to establish a theocracy. Grand Ayatollah Montazeri was held for several years under house arrest in Qom, where he remained an implacable critic of the regime. Now he has played a central role in igniting the fires of a second revolution.
In the wake of the theocracy's stolen election in June, Montazeri criticized the regime and called for new, fair elections. When the regime responded with brutality to repress demonstrations, Montazeri issued a fatwa declaring the regime un-Islamic and illegitimate, writing:
"A political system based on force, oppression, changing people's votes, killing, closure, arresting and using Stalinist and medieval torture, creating repression, censorship of newspapers, interruption of the means of mass communications, jailing the enlightened . . . and forcing them to make false confessions in jail is condemned and illegitimate."
Montazeri, more than anyone else in Iran, gave legitimacy to what is now a revolutionary movement. And he, more than anyone else, has torn asunder the religious legitimacy of the theocracy in the eyes of the Iranian people. His importance in this second revolution cannot be overestimated. His death will not in the slightest extinguish his influence. Indeed, given Shia's penchant for revering the dead and Montazeri's highly respected standing in the Shia faith, he will now pass into iconic status for those who wish to see the theocracy ended. Thus it is no surpise at all that his burial should lead to the largest single anti-regime demonstration since June. This from the NYT, discusses both the demonstraton-nee-burial and the importance of Montazeri that will continue on long after his burial:
The funeral of a prominent dissident cleric in the holy Iranian city of Qum turned into a huge and furious antigovernment rally on Monday, raising the possibility that the cleric’s death could serve as a catalyst for an opposition movement that has been locked in a stalemate with the authorities.
As mourners carried the body of the cleric, Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, tens of thousands of his supporters surged through the streets of Qum, chanting denunciations of the leadership in Tehran that would have been unthinkable only months ago: “Our shame, our shame, our idiot leader!” and “Dictator, this is your last message: The people of Iran are rising!”
Although the police mostly stayed clear during the funeral procession, some skirmishes broke out between protesters and members of the hard-line Basij militia. As the mourners dispersed, security forces flooded the streets, blocking all roads around the ayatollah’s house, and some militia members tore down posters of him, witnesses said.
The funeral of Ayatollah Montazeri, who died in his sleep on Sunday at the age of 87, appears to have put Iran’s rulers in a difficult position. They had to pay public respect to a senior religious scholar who helped build Iran’s theocracy and was once the heir apparent to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the leader of the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Yet they are also keenly aware that his mourning rites could set off further protests, especially as Iranians commemorate the death of Imam Hussein, Shiite Islam’s holiest martyr, on the Ashura holiday this Sunday.
More broadly, the continuing protests underscore a deadlock between the opposition and the government, which wants to avoid the cycle of martyrdom and mourning for dead protesters that helped create Iran’s revolution, analysts say. . . .
The government made some conciliatory gestures Monday, including a respectful statement of condolence from the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, that was read aloud at the funeral. The statement hailed him as a “well-versed jurist and a prominent master” and said “many disciples have benefited greatly from him,” according to state-run Press TV.
But the statement also described Ayatollah Montazeri’s break with Ayatollah Khomeini in 1989 as a mistake. That line provoked jeers and shouts of “Death to the dictator!” — shouts that were audible in video posted on the Internet. In one clip, protesters could be seen shaking their fists and chanting, “We don’t want rationed condolences!”
“Words cannot describe the glory of the funeral,” said Ahmad Montazeri, the ayatollah’s son, in a telephone interview on Monday night. But he added that 200 to 300 Basij members had partly disrupted the ceremony, and that by evening Basij members and security forces had filled the streets and occupied the grand mosque of Qum, preventing the family from holding a planned mourning ceremony there.
The government jammed phones and Internet service through much of the day, and the BBC’s Persian service, a crucial source of information for many Iranians, suspended broadcasts, saying the government had been jamming it since Ayatollah Montazeri’s death on Sunday.
There were also protests in Najafabad, Ayatollah Montazeri’s birthplace. Videos posted on the Internet showed large crowds of people chanting “Dictator, dictator, Montazeri is alive!” and “Oh, Montazeri, your path will be followed even if the dictator shoots us all!” Banners in the bright green color of the opposition movement were visible.
The protests in Najafabad, which began Sunday, were apparently set off in part by disrespectful reports about Ayatollah Montazeri’s death on right-wing news sites, including Fars News, which initially referred to him without the title “ayatollah.”
Iran’s hard-liners have long spoken dismissively of Ayatollah Montazeri, who was under house arrest from 1997 to 2003 for his antigovernment critiques. In the months since June’s disputed presidential election, he had unleashed a series of extraordinary denunciations of the government crackdown on protesters, declaring that the government was neither democratic nor Islamic and that Ayatollah Khamenei was unfit to be the supreme leader. He also dismissed the results of the election, in which Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won officially by a landslide, as fraudulent, echoing the claims of opposition leaders.
Ayatollah Montazeri’s criticisms carried a special weight because of his status as Iran’s most senior cleric. And despite the fact that many younger opposition supporters are generally hostile to clerics, his advocacy was meaningful to them.
“It was important that the most senior cleric, politically and religiously, came out and supported the people,” said Ayatollah Mohsen Kadivar, a former student of Ayatollah Montazeri who is now a visiting scholar at York University in Toronto.
Ayatollah Montazeri’s defense of Iran’s opposition also helped to unite its religious and secular wings, some analysts say. And he may turn out to be more influential in death than he was in life.
“His death has become a pretext for the movement to expand,” said Fatimeh Haghighhatjoo, a former member of Iran’s Parliament who is now a visiting scholar at Boston University. “He was the only cleric who gave up power and supported human rights, the characteristic that earned him respect from various political factions.”
Michael Ledeen, writing at PJM, notes the reaction of the regime to the protest - a reaction sure to enrage:
the regime is frightened. The supreme leader and his acolytes (Ahmadinejad is less and less visible. Somebody should tell Diane Sawyer) are groping for a way to survive. They seem not to realize that they died before Montazeri, and that nobody cares to mourn them. And so they stagger about, and find the worst possible gesture. As the indispensable Banafsheh tells us:
On Monday evening Saeed Montazeri announced that the Montazeri family was forced to cancel the post-funeral sacrament as the Islamic regime’s forces had invaded the A’zam mosque where the observance was to be held. Saeed Montazeri also added that the Montazeri residence has now been surrounded by various revolutionary guards, members of the Basij, intelligence agents, members of special force, etc.
It is reminiscent of Gorbachev at his most inept, finding a way to be mean enough to enrage the people, but not tough enough to assert his power, thereby provoking that most dangerous of all mass reactions: contempt for his person and his rule.
There is also one other related item to watch. With Grand Ayatollah Montazeri's death, the next most senior Shia cleric is the Iranian-born, Iraq-based Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani. Like Montazeri, Sistani is opposed to the velayat-a-faqi and, indeed, refused to support the imposition of a theocracy in Iraq. Sistani, reportedly one of the most popular clerics among Iranians today, could in fact play some role in how events transpire in Iran. Sistani had not, as of yesterday, issued a statement on Montazeri's death. One will surely be forthcoming, and may well give some indication of what role, if any, Grand Ayatollah Sistani is willing to play in the nascent Iranian Revolution II. It will be one to watch closely.
Lastly, I have one bone to pick with an otherwise good piece of journalism by the NYT that I quote above. The NYT mistakenly describes the Iranian MSM which totes the line of the theocracy as "right wing." The theocracy in Iran is non-democratic and rules both the economy and its subjects with an iron hand. They are intollerant of dissent. To describe those things as "right wing" is not but pure projection by the NYT's authors.
Al Franken is going to the Senate, in part because of his team of lawyers did all they could to mainipulate the vote count in Minnesota after the election initially turned for Sen. Norm Coleman. And Franken is going to the Senate, in part because Sen. Coleman's legal strategy regarding the vote count was inept. And Franken is going to the Senate with the assistance of a biased State Canvassing Board that came down strongly on Franken's side. This from the WSJ, giving a requim for a stolen election:
The Minnesota Supreme Court yesterday declared Democrat Al Franken the winner of last year's disputed Senate race, and Republican incumbent Norm Coleman's gracious concession at least spares the state any further legal combat. The unfortunate lesson is that you don't need to win the vote on Election Day as long as your lawyers are creative enough to have enough new or disqualified ballots counted after the fact.
Mr. Franken trailed Mr. Coleman by 725 votes after the initial count on election night, and 215 after the first canvass. The Democrat's strategy from the start was to manipulate the recount in a way that would discover votes that could add to his total. The Franken legal team swarmed the recount, aggressively demanding that votes that had been disqualified be added to his count, while others be denied for Mr. Coleman.
But the team's real goldmine were absentee ballots, thousands of which the Franken team claimed had been mistakenly rejected. While Mr. Coleman's lawyers demanded a uniform standard for how counties should re-evaluate these rejected ballots, the Franken team ginned up an additional 1,350 absentees from Franken-leaning counties. By the time this treasure hunt ended, Mr. Franken was 312 votes up, and Mr. Coleman was left to file legal briefs.
What Mr. Franken understood was that courts would later be loathe to overrule decisions made by the canvassing board, however arbitrary those decisions were. He was right. The three-judge panel overseeing the Coleman legal challenge, and the Supreme Court that reviewed the panel's findings, in essence found that Mr. Coleman hadn't demonstrated a willful or malicious attempt on behalf of officials to deny him the election. And so they refused to reopen what had become a forbidding tangle of irregularities. Mr. Coleman didn't lose the election. He lost the fight to stop the state canvassing board from changing the vote-counting rules after the fact. . . .
Read the entire article. The final word - let's give it to Glen Reynolds: Caligula sent a horse to the Senate. Minnesota is just sending part of the horse.
Iran's Supreme Guide Ali Khameni has thrown down the gauntlet in his much anticipated speech today. Mousavi did not show up. Calling for an end to protest marches, Khameini defended the vote, claiming there was no fraud and that Ahmedinjad is the winner. There seems little doubt that he intends to use force against the protestors at some point in the near future.
Khameini is not an electric speaker. His speech was broadcast live on CNN. His main points:
1. There was no fraud in the election.
2. How could there be fraud when Ahemedinejad won by an 11 million vote margin.
3. If anyone has proof of fraud, you can come forward with it. Protests need to stop. Only use legal means to complain of fraud.
4. He has no intention of allowing a revote. If the Guardian Council wants to allow some limited vote recount, they can.
5. He warned Mousavi, without naming him, that he will be held responsible if he continues to ask his supporters to protest.
6. He also warned "Rioting after the election is not a good way. It questions the election. If they continue [the consequences] will be their responsibility."
7. He blamed terrorists hiding among the protestors for attacking basij members.
8. People among the protestors have looted shops. There are "ill wishers, mercaniries, and operatives of the west and zionism" among the protestors.
9. Khameini said there is some corruption in Iran, but nothing compared to Britian. Heh.
More on the speech at the NYT and CNN. The Washinton Post is running an AP story on the speech.
For an analysis of the current situation in Iran and recomendations as to what the Obama administration should be doing in response to the Khameini speech, please see the post above, Countdown To High Noon
The Telegraph is reporting that the Guardian Council, in an obvious bid to find something to stop the protests now spinning out of control, has just announced that it will allow a limited recount of ballots in "disputed areas." I doubt seriously that this will do anything to mollify the Mousavi camp. Their charge is that the numbers were cooked across Iran and that vote fraud took place on a massive scale. If what is coming across twitter is accurate, their demand will be for scrapping the election and a revote.
As I wrote below, this is a no-win situation for Iran's mullahocracy. Khameini already tipped his hand when he did not wait the three days provided for vote counting under Iranian law to verify the vote and announce the results. Then he referred to the landslide as a "divine" gift, thus invoking the legitimacy of his religion to further sanctify the vote. Even if no revolution occurs and this peters out, there is no question that this series of events will work a fundamental change in the relationship between the Iranians and their government. The mullahocracy will have lost much, if not all of its legitimacy. And now, backtracking, Khameini appears both dishonest and weak - two historically fatal flaws for a repressive and autocratic ruler.
Blood has already been spilled and protestors are dead. Soon, a tipping point will be reached. Unlike the failed protests of a decade ago, these involve not just university students, the protests are not merely in Tehran, and they are not merely in the Universities. It will be much harder, it would seem, for the IRGC to quell these protests should that be what the regime opts to do. But if the protests go unabated for much longer, that may be the only option that the mullahocracy has left.
Update: Iran specialist Michael Ledeen has his assessment of the situation at PJM that I strongly recommend. As he sees it, we are at the tipping point, with the only question being whether the populace of Iran can become sufficiently organized. Interestingly, he sees the defections as coming from the IRGC, not just the Army, and moreover, as the hammer that the regime will/has turned to being Hezbollah. Read his article here. Also for a good roll-up, see Memorandum.
The fuse is lit. Below is a montage of fourteen videos from Iran put together by Breitbart. They show the nationwide scale of the riots and the brutality of the response - though, at this point, its still the riot police and not the IRGC responding to the riots.
The first video shows a protestor apparently beaten to death by the police. The seventh video shows riot police caught by the crowd. According to a linguist posting at Hot Air, the Italian newscaster near the end of the video is discussing the scene showing one of the police motorcycles on fire. It is not apparent from the scene, but according to the newscaster, the police rider of that motorcycle was dead and also on fire.
Its Ahmedinejad by a landslide. The mad mullahs have announced that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won Iran's Presidential election with 62.63% of the vote while his main opposition, Mir-Hossein Mousavi came in second 33.75% of the vote. CNN is reporting that Ahmedinejad has taken his victory bow and called for calm. Chief Mad Mullah Khamenei has likewise weighed in, telling his country to shut up and move on . . . nothing to see here.
Those results seem more than a tad unbelievable. And indeed, there is rioting in the streets of Iran now and Fox is reporting that cell phone service has been cut off. Whatever may happen in the immediate aftermath, its probably reasonable to conclude that this election will likely have long term reverberations.
As to anectdotal evidence that all is not kosher in mullahland's Presidential election, there are some interesting observations from Juan Cole, looking at some of the logical disconnects in the election reports:
1. It is claimed that Ahmadinejad won the city of Tabriz with 57%. His main opponent, Mir Hossein Mousavi, is an Azeri from Azerbaijan province, of which Tabriz is the capital. Mousavi, according to such polls as exist in Iran and widespread anecdotal evidence, did better in cities and is popular in Azerbaijan. Certainly, his rallies there were very well attended. So for an Azeri urban center to go so heavily for Ahmadinejad just makes no sense. In past elections, Azeris voted disproportionately for even minor presidential candidates who hailed from that province.
2. Ahmadinejad is claimed to have taken Tehran by over 50%. Again, he is not popular in the cities, even, as he claims, in the poor neighborhoods, in part because his policies have produced high inflation and high unemployment. That he should have won Tehran is so unlikely as to raise real questions about these numbers.
3. It is claimed that cleric Mehdi Karoubi, the other reformist candidate, received 320,000 votes, and that he did poorly in Iran's western provinces, even losing in Luristan. He is a Lur and is popular in the west, including in Kurdistan. Karoubi received 17 percent of the vote in the first round of presidential elections in 2005. While it is possible that his support has substantially declined since then, it is hard to believe that he would get less than one percent of the vote. Moreover, he should have at least done well in the west, which he did not. . . .
6. The Electoral Commission is supposed to wait three days before certifying the results of the election, at which point they are to inform Khamenei of the results, and he signs off on the process. The three-day delay is intended to allow charges of irregularities to be adjudicated. In this case, Khamenei immediately approved the alleged results. . . .
You can read his entire commentary here. More specific allegations of fraud come from the Debka File. It would seem that the mad mullahs set up a new system of voting for this election designed to maximize the possibility of voter fraud. They did not require voter identification at many voting centers and, indeed, are accused of running off over a million fake ID's for use by the "bassij" - Iran's thug militia - for use at stations that did requrie such identification. As an interesting aside, all this led Professor Jacobsen at Legal Insurrection to ponder whether ACORN has a branch office in Tehran:
Multiple voting resulting from lack of identification. SoundslikeACORN. More votes than people. Sounds like Minnesota.Voter identification is the key to preventing voter fraud. Which is why the Department of Justice's refusal to allow states, such as Georgia, to implement identification systems based on alleged disparate impact is so damaging to the credibility of elections.
The next few days will be a wait to see what shakes out. A perception of a stolen election has a way of really teeing off an electorate. For but one example, there was Ferdinand Marcos, whose stolen election in the Phillipines from a popular opposition led to a revoultion. That scenario is by no means unique in our world's recent history.
But for anything like that to occur, you have to have an electorate truly mobilized and involved. The Iranian electorate certainly meets that criteria this time around. Voting was, by all counts, very heavy. Official figures put the number of voters at 85% of those eligible. With that type of interest, the regime may well have just grabbed a tiger by the tail.
It has long been suggested that there has not been a counter-revolution in Iran because the middle class simply was too placid and apathetic. But an 85% turn-out suggests that they are apathetic no longer. Whether it was Mousavi's wife, who campaigned for more rights for women, or whether it was growing discontent at conditions inside Iran, something captured the people's imagination. For example, see this Martin Fletcher at UK's the Times:
Whatever the reason, Mr Mousavi's campaign took off. The youth of Tehran and other cities took to the streets in huge numbers. They flocked to Mousavi rallies in their tens of thousands. They turned the capital into a seething sea of green with their ribbons, headscarves, balloons and bandanas. They festooned the city with posters and banners. Until the small hours of each morning they packed squares, blocked junctions and careered around town in cars with horns blaring and pop music blasting.
The Islamic republic has never seen such sights before. It was almost open rebellion, an explosion of pent-up anger after four years in which the fundamentalist President and his morality police cracked down on dissent, human rights groups, and any dress or behaviour deemed unIslamic. “Death to the dictator,” young men and women roared at Mousavi rallies. “Death to the Government. . . .
Remember that it was less than a decade ago that Iran sat on the edge of a counter revolution – the so called Tehran Spring. But Iraq’s reformist president at the time, Imam Khatami, blinked and refused to support the movement. It was brutally repressed.
What has transpired since is near complete domination by hard liners opposed to any reform and who have rigged the elections to ensure their hold on power. The clerics are shifting ever more power to the 125,000 member Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), the clerics’ primary vehicle for maintaining control of their country. The IRGC now control much of the day to day power in the country and are becoming wealthy beyond measure through their economic schemes. While the IRGC and clerics get rich, the economic situation for the 60 million other Iranians, made all the worse by Ahmedinejad, is critical. Inflation is running above 25% and unemployment among a population, the majority of which is under 30, is hitting new double digit highs each month. Food prices are soaring and gas is now being rationed. Iran is, in short, a tinder box.
I would not be surprised at all to find that, when all is said and done, this election lit the fuse to the tinder-box. Whether that fuse is long-burning or short is impossible to tell. The Iranian regime is brutally repressive and I would not take any bets on the fuse being a short one. But this could well mark the beginning of the end of one of the bloodiest regimes of the last half century. And the sooner Ahmedinejad and the mad mullahs are gone, the better, for both Iran and the world.
Congratulations to Lebanon, congratulations to democracy, congratulations to freedom. The Lebanese have proved today their commitment to freedom and democracy. There are no winners and losers in this election, the only winner is democracy and the biggest winner is Lebanon.
Saad Al-Hariri, Leader of the Anti-Syrian Coalition 'March 14,' announcing victory in the 7 June 2009 election.
Despite the best efforts of Iran to turn the Lebanese election in favor of its proxy, Hezbollah, the anti-Syrian coalition known as "March 14," defeated Hezbollah and its allies in Lebanon's parliamentary election on Sunday. This from Ya Libnan:
. . . OTV, the television station of one of Hezbollah's key Christian allies, former army chief Michel Aoun, conceded that the party's candidates who challenged pro-Western competitors in several Christian districts had been defeated, preventing a victory for the Hezbollah coalition. But Aoun was able to hang on to his representation in other districts.
Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation, a leading private Christian TV station, projected the pro-Western coalition to win 68 seats in the next parliament, with 57 for Hezbollah and its allies and three for independents.
That would almost replicate the deadlock that existed in the outgoing parliament, in which the pro-Western bloc had 70 seats and an alliance of Hezbollah and other Shiite and Christian factions had 58.
The leader of the largest bloc in the pro-Western coalition, Saad Hariri, said early Monday in a televised speech that he extends his hand to the losing side "to work together and seriously for the sake of Lebanon." He urged supporters to celebrate without provoking opponents.
But despite the conciliatory tone, Lebanon was at risk of sliding again into a political crisis over formation of the next government similar to the one that buffeted the country for most of the last four years.
Hezbollah had veto power in Siniora's Cabinet for the last year, which it won after provoking the worst street clashes since the 1975-1990 civil war. The pro-Western coalition had vowed not to give Hezbollah and its allies a blocking minority in the new government if they won.
The battle in Christian districts was the decisive factor. Lebanese generally vote along sectarian and family loyalties, with seats for Sunnis and Shiites in the half-Christian, half-Muslim, 128-member parliament already locked up even before the voting started.
Christians in the pro-Western coalition warned that Hezbollah would bring the influence of Shiite Iran to Lebanon. The Maronite Catholic Church made a last-minute appeal, warning that Lebanon as a state and its Arab identity were threatened, a clear reference to Hezbollah and its Persian backer, Iran.
Sunnis were also driven to vote for the pro-Western coalition to get back at Shiite Hezbollah gunmen for seizing the streets a year ago in Beirut from pro-government supporters.
Some 3.2 million people out of a population of 4 million were eligible to vote, and the interior minister said after polls closed that the turnout nationwide was about 52.3 percent, an increase over the 2005 figure of 45.8 percent. . . .
Read the entire article. This is good news indeed.
Dick Morris and Eileen McGaan think that the Presidential race is at a critical juncture - in essence, at its Gettysburgh moment where the outcome of the immediate battle may well decide the outcome of the war. Obama has run his first national campaign ad in all the swing states, attempting to rewrite his past on the issue of welfare reform. Morris believes that whether McCain responds effectively will mortally wound Obama while a failure to engage will permanantly ensconce Obama's electoral margin. __________________________________________________________
This from Morris and McGaan writing at RCP:
. . . The Obama ad, which introduces him as someone who worked his way through college, fights for American jobs, and battles for health care also seeks to move him to the center by taking credit for welfare reform in Illinois which, the ad proclaims, reduced the rolls by 80%.
But there's one problem - Obama opposed the 1996 welfare reform act at the time. The Illinois law for which he takes credit, was merely the local implementing law the state was required to pass, and it did, almost unanimously. Obama's implication -- that he backed "moving people from welfare to work" -- is just not true.
With Obama running the ad in all the swing states . . ., this gross usurpation of credit affords the McCain campaign an incredible opportunity for rebuttal.
For the past two weeks, Obama has moved quickly toward the center. He has reversed his previous positions for gun control, against using faith based institutions to deliver public services, against immunity for tele-communications companies that turn records over to the government in terror investigations, for raising Social Security taxes, for imposing the fairness doctrine on talk radio, and a host of other issues.
McCain has watched passively as his rival repositions himself for November. Indeed, he has watched from afar as he took the time out to travel to Mexico, Colombia, and Brazil, even though they have no electoral votes.
But now, there is a heaven-sent opportunity for McCain to strike. In his effort to move to the center, Obama has distorted his own record, meager though it may be, and is taking credit for a program he strongly opposed. McCain should immediately run an ad in all of the states in which his opponent is advertising setting forth the facts and explaining Obama's distortion.
A good tag line for the ad would be: "John McCain: when you have real experience, you don't need to exaggerate."
But, if McCain doesn't answer, or just replies with his own positive ad, he will let Obama move to the center, a key mistake from which he may never recover.
. . . On the other hand, if McCain calls him on his distortion, he can do grave damage to Obama on three fronts: credibility, centrism, and experience. By catching Obama in a lie, he can undermine the effectiveness of any subsequent ads the Democrat runs. By showing that he opposed welfare reform, McCain can do much to force Obama back to the left and cast doubt on his efforts to move to the middle. And by emphasizing Obama's limited experience, he can strike at a soft spot --- made softer by Hillary's attacks in the primary.
The move is right there for McCain. Now lets see how good his campaign really is.
Read the entire article. Obama presents a target rich environment and the MSM is doing all they can in their coverage to assist Obama. McCain needs to take full advantage of gifts such as this.
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