John McCain: The Candidate We Still Don't Know

In his New York Times column this weekend, Frank Rich ponders the picture the press paints of Obama vs press favorite McCain.

As I went on vacation at the end of July, Barack Obama was leading John McCain by three to four percentage points in national polls. When I returned last week he still was. But lo and behold, a whole new plot twist had rolled off the bloviation assembly line in those intervening two weeks: Obama had lost the election!

The poor guy should be winning in a landslide against the despised party of Bush-Cheney, and he’s not. He should be passing the 50 percent mark in polls, and he’s not. He’s been done in by that ad with Britney and Paris and by a new international crisis that allows McCain to again flex his Manchurian Candidate military cred. Let the neocons identify a new battleground for igniting World War III, whether Baghdad or Tehran or Moscow, and McCain gets with the program as if Angela Lansbury has just dealt him the Queen of Hearts....MORE

When is the press corps going to follow the lead of a few insightful (and liberal) NYTimes columnists and start reporting on The Real McCain(s)? (Rich also discusses coverage of Michelle vs. Cindy. Puhlease.)

Finally, however, the Obama campaign must press the press to push the differences between the candidates. Bottom line, if the public were to hear more of the truth including the many covered-up gaffes, the cavorting with lobbyists (including his chief foreign policy advisor Randy Scheunemann having lobbied for the Georgian government until VERY recently!!), the cowtowing to the wealthy, and the many contradictions of John McCain, Obama would be the shoe-in he should be. [For more on how McCain is covered and how he is campaigning listen to AAR's Rachel Maddow's commentary, for example.] The Obama campaign must also give more play to such ads as the radio ad run in York, Pennsylvania [thanks, again, to TRMS], concerning McCain's telling Harley motorcycle enthusiasts that he enjoys the sound of the roar of American-made Harley's even as he opposed a law requiring the government to buy American made motorcycles, just one symptom of McCain's condoning American jobs being shipped overseas. McCain is the wrong choice if Americans care about the economy, jobs, and healthcare.

Keep on keeping on --

Peace hugs,
Kate Anne