{"id":15056,"date":"2008-03-30T12:00:22","date_gmt":"2008-03-30T16:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/15056.html"},"modified":"2008-03-30T12:00:22","modified_gmt":"2008-03-30T16:00:22","slug":"the-rnc-gets-a-little-touchy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/the-rnc-gets-a-little-touchy\/","title":{"rendered":"The RNC gets a little touchy"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Friday, John McCain’s campaign unveiled its first general-election TV ad — the one that uses the word “American” one too many times<\/a> — and the Democratic National Committee did what was expected: it responded by criticizing John McCain. It’s what national parties do.<\/p>\n

It wasn’t even an especially hard-hitting criticism. The DNC statement<\/a> quoted Howard Dean calling McCain “another out of touch Bush Republican who promises four more years of the same failed leadership.” In light of the interrogation footage from Vietnam included in the ad, Dean added, “While we honor McCain’s military service, the fact is Americans want a real leader who offers real solutions, not a blatant opportunist who doesn’t understand the economy and is promising to keep our troops in Iraq for 100 years.”<\/p>\n

This seemed pretty routine, which is why I found the Republican National Committee’s overheated response<\/a> rather odd.<\/p>\n

A senior Republican Party official demanded that Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chairman Howard Dean apologize late Friday afternoon for calling Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) “a blatant opportunist” who has “cast aside his principles.” <\/p>\n

Frank Donatelli, the deputy chairman of the Republican National Committee (RNC), sought to drive a wedge between Dean and Sens. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) over the comments. <\/p>\n

“Howard Dean owes John McCain an immediate apology and both Senators Clinton and Obama should unequivocally denounce this disgraceful attack,” said Donatelli.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The RNC added that Dean’s remarks amounted to a “character smear<\/a>.”<\/p>\n

Really? The Republican National Committee, of all people, believes it’s beyond the pale to call someone a “blatant opportunist”? Especially when the person is<\/i> a “blatant opportunist”?
\n
\nI’m having trouble wrapping my head around all of this. For one thing, the RNC has been the source of some of the most ridiculous campaign attacks<\/a> in recent memory. For the RNC to accuse anyone<\/i> of engaging in “character smears” is deeply ironic.<\/p>\n

For another, by raising a fuss about routine criticism, the RNC is actually doing the Dems a favor — they’re drawing attention to the criticism, which Dean and the DNC are anxious to disseminate. Indeed, I hope the DNC realizes it’s hit one of McCain’s sore spots, and uses the RNC’s response as a reminder of where to attack next time.<\/p>\n

But most importantly, the RNC may protest, but McCain is probably the most shameless “blatant opportunist” in American politics today. Have Republicans even seen McCain’s flip-flop list<\/a>? Does it not occur to them that he abandoned his principles — including rejecting legislation that he’s personally co-sponsored — for partisan gain?<\/p>\n

DNC spokesperson Karen Finney noted that the party recently conducted a focus group and found that McCain’s support dropped the most when voters learned about his habit of “shifting his positions to make them more acceptable to the right wing of the Republican Party.” In other words, people like McCain less when they learn about his flip-flops.<\/p>\n

So, it’s a pleasant surprise to have the RNC wade into this one so enthusiastically. If the RNC wants to have the debate, let’s have it — Is John McCain a blatant opportunist, or has he flip-flopped on most major policy issues in recent years for some other reason? Ideally, both sides can issue dueling statements on this every day for the next several months.<\/p>\n

The more both parties keep this debate front and center, the better. Maybe Dean can send the RNC a gift basket or something for helping us out on this one.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Friday, John McCain’s campaign unveiled its first general-election TV ad — the one that uses the word “American” one too many times — and the Democratic National Committee did what was expected: it responded by criticizing John McCain. It’s what national parties do. It wasn’t even an especially hard-hitting criticism. The DNC statement quoted […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15056","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15056","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15056"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15056\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15056"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15056"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15056"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}