What do you think of Senator McCain's response at the Lakeview MN rally?

I wish I knew who the real John McCain is. I used to respect him but now I don’t. I think it’s a little late for him to be calling off his “attack dogs” if he is, and I don’t think he is really doing that. I think he is trying to play both sides of the fence and appease/incite his base and anyone else he can.

I’m not a fan of the GOP at all, but I applaud Sen. McCain for his very real efforts to stop his supporters from spewing their hatred toward’s his opponent, and for trying to nudge everyone back to a discussion of the issues.

Personally, I like the guy; I just don’t like his party, and I would probably vote for him if he was not a Republican.

I think McCain did a great job responding to the shitspeak coming from the crowd. Hat tip to him.

Kudos to him!

He responded the way you’d expect a presidential candidate to respond.

This says a lot more to me about some of my fellow Americans than it does about John McCain.

I agree, the ONE thing he’s done in his campaign for which I can legitimately applaud him…if he had demonstrated this level of civility all along, I think he’d still have a chance to win. I personally wouldn’t vote for him, but I’m glad he did that…I’m thinking he realizes now he’s going to lose, and doesn’t want Obama to have to deal with 23% of the people wanting his head on a post.

Unfortunately, you reap what you sew, and it’s basically his trying to resurrect this weak “Obama has ties to terrorists” mantra that’s only going to sell to the base, which is already angry, which brought this whole thing on.

But we still see the true colors come out more often than the increasingly rare occasions when McCain takes the high road these days. Not to take anything away from what he did (in Lakeville, not Lakeview…I know because it’s just south of St. Paul where I live), but on Thursday, I heard the McCain camp actually say that it was Obama’s fault that these supporters were angry…I forget their “logic” on that one. But it’s not much more than a reprise of when John McCain said that it was Obama’s fault that he was running such a negative campaign, because he wouldn’t be doing that if Obama had agreed to the 10 town hall format debates McCain had suggested (and given how boring those 2 debates have been, can you IMAGINE 10 of those things?). And the blame game continues, minutes after it was concluded that Palin acted inappropriately in the Troopergate scandal, the McCain camp blamed Obama again, saying that the board of 7 Republicans and 5 Democrats, who were unanimous in their agreement to release the report, were biased towards Obama.

So, I applaud McCain for that one drop of sunshine in an ocean of bitter darkness…but it ain’t gonna save his campaign, and it’s not about to redeem his bad behavior…when you lay down with the Devil, you’re bound to get burned.

I applaud McCain’s efforts here. Though I am a solid Obama supporter, I have always respected McCain, and I’ve been viscerally disappointed in him in recent months. This business of calling Obama a traitor and a Muslim, and “not like us” is shameful, especially considering that this is a country with a history of assassinations. People of both parties should avoid doing things to incite the nuts. I don’t want to see anyone killed on either side!

So, I am happy to see the McCain with a conscience returning, and I applaud him for his efforts to quell the angry crowd. But I’m still voting for Obama.

“If you want a fight, we will fight,” McCain replied. “But we will be respectful. I admire Senator Obama and his accomplishments. I don’t mean that has to reduce your ferocity. I just mean to say you have to be respectful.”

I respect McCain.

@dale: You reap what you sow. :)

I actually liked John McCain eight years ago – for a republican, he seemed like a decent choice. Then the “Straight Talk Express” got turned into the “I’ll say whatever I have to to win” and I lost my respect for him.

But I am encouraged that he’s making the effort.

Tabbycat, Could you share with me the website where we see McCain calling Obama a traitor and a Muslim. I’ve been doing research on politics and this will be very helpful.

@dithibodeaux, Though McCain and his running mate, Sarah Palin, have characterized Obama as a “terrorist’s friend,” I don’t think either specifically called Obama a traitor or a Muslim, but chants of both were spoken regularly at his rallies recently, along with cries to “Kill him!” It is only recently that McCain has repudiated such sentiments, having been warned by members of his own party that he was encouraging an angry mob.

I was happy to hear McCain’s recent remarks on the subject, that Obama is a decent man with whom McCain happens to disagree, believing that he himself would make a far better President. (As a matter of fact, I had always considered McCain a decent man with whom I happen to disagree on a lot of things.) It seems to me that in American we can disagree with one another without encouraging people who are governed by their emotions and could do someone harm. This country does have a history of political assassinations, and I don’t want to see violence done to ANY of our candidates.

Here’s an interesting article about “playing with fire” by Khaled Hosseini, Afghani American and author of two brilliant novels, ‘The Kite Runner’ and ‘A Thousand Splendid Suns’:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/10/AR2008101002456.html?hpid=opinionsbox1

@ tabbycat Great article by Hosseini. Thanks for the link.

I couldn’t have said it better myself – and didn’t.

I, too, used to admire Mr. McCain and would have voted for him in 2004.

McCain had no choice to do anything but correct inflammatory, racist perceptions about Obama when said in his presence. But his campaign continues to raise the issue via: Sarah Palin and the ads coming from him and the 527 support groups.