I Wonder…

9 Responses to I Wonder…

1. swiers says:

   February 21, 2008 at 10:27 am

   Echoes of what happened to Gary Hart (D), what, in 1986? As I remember he was in good shape during the primaries. The difference now is that there doesn’t seem anyone on the R side now to plug the gap–if, in fact, one opens up–the way Mondale did.
2. Timothy Burke says:

   February 21, 2008 at 10:35 am

   Maybe. It’s a question of how this spins. Maybe there are McCain voters out there that don’t know that it’s public record that he cheated on his first wife? Though extramarital affairs and divorce are getting to be pretty much the norm for Republican candidates and party leaders: it takes something a bit more spectacular like Giuliani announcing his intention to divorce on television before telling his wife to “stick”. Plus it’s not like that particular issue will cost McCain with the religious right, they don’t like him anyway.

   His track record of questionable relationships to lobbyists is probably more damaging if that “sticks” as part of his public image, but the Times story as such seems so formless and padded in this regard that I wonder if it will have much impact.
3. swiers says:

   February 21, 2008 at 11:36 am

   As usual, it has lots less to do with an alleged affair or influence peddling, than how the thing plays out under the pressure of the campaign, and how it might come back to haunt McCain if he would ever—and I just heard a news report of his denying this very affair—have to take a stand, under oath, with charges of perjury leveled against him. His private life is one thing; it’s another matter where (potential misuse of) public funds are concerned.
   I’m watching with horror, simultaneously, as the mayor of Detroit is brought down by a ‘text messaging scandal’—the alleged affair makes for high prurient interest content; but it’s really the matter of secret deals and payoffs that stick in this case.
   Back to McCain, my hunch is that now that he’s front runner on his side, he’ll shrug it off in a folksy way. Not much to spin, after all? Amazing to me how some scandals stick and some don’t; how all Clarence Thomas had to do at the time of his nomination was to wait for the whole thing to blow over, when rumors shrouded him.
4. jpool says:

   February 21, 2008 at 3:03 pm

   What an oddly, oddly framed story. So a non-scandal from eight years ago is used to imply the possibility of an affair and to rehash the Keating business? If I were a conspiratorially minded conservative, I might suspect that that old liberal New York Times was trying to disarm McCain’s recent criticism of Obama for, as I understand it, wanting to negeotiate with McCain about campaign funding for the general, rather than simply committing to use public funds exclusively.
5. jpool says:

   February 21, 2008 at 3:39 pm

   …or, looking around, it looks they came out at roughly the same time (with the McCain “attack” on Obama coming out yesterday and the Times story today). Obviously this conspiracy is even more complex than I had imagined.
6. swiers says:

   February 22, 2008 at 7:49 am

   yeah, even Rush Limbaugh is in on this one.
7. Jonathan Dresner says:

   February 23, 2008 at 9:46 pm

   I don’t think this qualifies as a “non-scandal” as JPool puts it. It wasn’t a scandal six years ago because the story didn’t get out, but the extremely close relationship — even simple friendship — between a Commerce Committee Senator and a business lobbyist whose clients benefited from specific actions by said Senator qualifies as a significant issue, if not a full-blown scandal.

   The NYT was trying really hard in framing the story to say that McCain is an honorable legislator, but oblivious to appearances. What I took away from that is that doing favors for friends is his normal mode, and doesn’t trigger his ethical radar, and the ethics-peddler between the Keating 5 and now was an immense success as a propoganda campaign and may even have improved the behavior and accountability of other Senators.
8. Profane says:

   February 25, 2008 at 3:47 pm

   Nah, the real conspiracy here is that McCain, unable to solidy the Republican base on his own, enlisted the NYT to do that for him. . .

   In all seriousness, it was a shoddy piece of journalism, although not quite up to Dan Rather standards in the damage that it has done.
9. desirek3 says:

   February 28, 2008 at 12:26 pm

   This conspiracy is complex. However, we all know that nothing will change once they placed themselves in the White House. It will remain to be the same ol’ crap.