Republican Voters Aren’t The Only Ones Who Are Mad As Hell

GOP Anger Unleashed At McCain Rallies, filed by Michael D. Shear and Perry Bacon Jr. of WaPo, and reported in CBS News today, makes clear some Republicans have little patience left for the Gentleman Jim approach that McCain took at the Convention.

What this story does not mention, however – and what no mainstream outlet wishes to acknowledge – is that they are not alone in their outrage. There are plenty of Democrats and Independents likewise furious at the egregious media bias, and at the Obama campaign’s ability to dodge any and all legitimate questions about him.

The story reports:

There were shouts of “Nobama” and “Socialist” at the mention of the Democratic presidential nominee. There were boos, middle fingers turned up and thumbs turned down as a media caravan moved through the crowd Thursday for a midday town hall gathering featuring John McCain and Sarah Palin.

“It is absolutely vital that you take it to Obama, that you hit him where it hits, there’s a soft spot,” said James T. Harris, a local radio talk show host, who urged the Republican nominee to use Barack Obama’s controversial former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., and others against him.

“We have the good Reverend Wright. We have [the Rev. Michael L.] Pfleger. We have all of these shady characters that have surrounded him,” Harris bellowed. “We have corruption here in Wisconsin and voting across the nation. I am begging you, sir. I am begging you. Take it to him.”

The crowd of thousands roared its approval.
…
“I’m mad! I’m really mad!” another man said, taking the microphone and refusing to surrender it easily, even when McCain tried to agree with him.

“I’m not done. Lemme finish, please,” he said after a standing ovation. “When you have Obama, [House Speaker Nancy] Pelosi and the rest of the hooligans up there going to run the country, we have to have our head examined.

“It’s time that you two represent the rest of us. So go get ‘em.”

Interesting that this gentleman brought up Nancy Pelosi. Clearly she, along with Chris Dodd, Barney Frank and others, are playing politics with people’s life savings – and whether the media wants to acknowledge that or not, the voters get it..

The DNC elite wanted the disastrous economy as their “Fall issue” and have been campaigning with it. Her grandstanding last week, lambasting Republicans to make sure the rescue plan vote failed is evidence of this. Meanwhile, as Bill Clinton himself acknowledged, Democrats are the ones who fought against further regulation of Fannie and Freddie and now are loathe to acknowledge their part in this disaster.

Clearly there is plenty of blame to go around. But more than pointing fingers, the American people want a solution. McCain went back to Congress in an attempt to find just that. Obama, on the other hand, said “Congress will call me if they need me.” Typical. No wonder people are furious.

McCain spends most of his time at his rallies and town hall meetings lambasting his rival, often calling him a “co-conspirator” with congressional Democrats in what he argues are the seeds of the financial crisis at mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

“Will you assure us,” one woman asked, “that, as president, you will take immediate action to investigate, prosecute and name the names of the people actually responsible?”

“I will,” McCain answered.

“The same people that are now claiming credit for this rescue are the same ones that were willing co-conspirators in causing this problem that it is,” he said, raising his voice to be heard over the crowd. “You know their names. You will know more of their names.“

McCain/Palin have as their campaign mantra “Country First,” but they have found themselves ‘at the center of an outpouring of raw emotion rare in a presidential race.’

The crowds that show up for his rallies these days appear to have little appetite for the talk of bipartisan compromise that had been at the heart of his message around the Republican National Convention. During a rally outside a small airport in Mosinee, Wis., on Thursday, McCain said that “it’s time we come together, Democrats and Republicans to work together. That’s my record. I’ll reach across the aisle.”

The crowd stood silent.

Maybe those who stood silent are frustrated because it is apparent the Democratic leadership was not exactly acting in a spirit of bi-partisanship. On the contrary, they used McCain suspending his campaign to return to Congress against him. Here we finally have a rather moderate Republican, by all accounts a decent man working to do the right thing; he can’t get a break in the media and his own party wants him to go nuclear. They see Obama as a disastrous choice for our country, and there is no hope that the media will report fairly. Perhaps since some Republicans have cried wolf about Dem candidates in the past, now that one really deserves to lose the election, they can’t get anyone to pay attention to the truth about him.

I can relate to the frustration, if not the backstory. As a lifelong Democrat, I never thought I’d be faced with such egregious corruption in my own party – trashing the better candidate in favor of a dissembling charlatan. They ignored any evidence against him and kept beating the drum for Hillary to get out.

At the town hall gathering here, McCain praised Harris for his “courage” in speaking his mind. But, heedful of the economic chaos gripping the country, McCain sought to steer away, at least briefly, from attacks on Obama’s character and integrity.

“Yes, I’ll do that,” he said of the request to “take it to” Obama. …“We need to restore hope and trust and confidence in America and have Americans know that our best days are ahead of us. That’s the future and strength and beauty of America.”

I far prefer a positive message myself, and Senator McCain needs to continue to communicate his ideas and policies, but I certainly understand many who wish to first derail the mainstream media’s ceaseless determination to put Barack Obama in the White House.

“I’m not mad, I’m pissed,” said Joan Schmitz, who owns a plumbing company here. She said she was frustrated with polls showing Obama surging, McCain’s performance in a Tuesday night debate, Obama himself, the media, and the liberal group ACORN, which she said was registering voters fraudulently.

Noting Obama’s connections with Ayers, she said that “if it was a Republican, it would be nonstop,” referring to what she said was the media ignoring the controversial acquaintance.

Note how in this story, Ayers is characterized by the writers as a “controversial acquaintance” – this is exactly what I am talking about – Ayers is far more than an “acquaintance” to Senator Obama.

“I can’t stand to look at him, I don’t trust him. I don’t like the circle of friends he keeps, I don’t like his policies,” Schmitz said of Obama. “I’m pissed off by it. I’m beyond mad. How is he climbing up in the polls?”

Well, perhaps because organizations like Gallup don’t admit that 80% of the people they call are hanging up on them this year. A Gallup pollster being interviewed on Michael Medved’s radio show the other day said that usually, the number of hang-ups hovers around 40%-50%, so there are a lot of people not willing to talk about their voting preferences. This begs the question – who is left? Who are the Gallup people, for example, actually talking to and are their polls representative of the actual electorate.

The Obama campaign has been playing the race card since January. The media happily played along and now the DNC is openly using it as a campaign strategy. I, and millions like me, who are not guilty of race bias are furious – in fact, apoplectic – at being accused of a horrible sin we are not in the least guilty of. Is it any wonder someone would not want to share their voting preferences with a pollster when to say you do not support Obama is, according to the media, tantamount to saying you are a racist.

Up until now, the press has not been willing to report fairly on much of anything, although investigations into voter fraud by ACORN are growing legs in the mainstream media and some reports are creeping out almost against the will of the MSM:

On the way into the event, the Republican Party of Wisconsin handed out fliers reading “Your Vote Is Being Stolen,” an anti-ACORN leaflet that concluded, “Why is vote fraud allowed? Vote fraud is allowed since it benefits Democrats.”

Well actually, no, I don’t want voter fraud to benefit anyone. Two wrongs don’t make a right. And I sure don’t want voter fraud to benefit the dissembling and endlessly flip-flopping Senator Obama.

The crowd showed equal disdain for the media, fueled by comments from Palin, who encouraged the Republican supporters to take the campaign’s message around the media. “I can’t pick a fight with those who buy ink by the barrel,” she said. “It’s dangerous territory whenever I suggest the mainstream media isn’t asking all the questions.”

That message was clearly shared among the crowd. Mike Payne, who traveled from Madison, Wis., for the rally, rejected the idea that McCain’s supporters are angry, preferring to use the word “frustrated.”

“It might have something to do with you guys,” he told a reporter.

“It’s not anger at all. It’s frustration. There’s millions of people around the country that think like we do. You guys refuse to acknowledge that, and you insult our intelligence by misreporting the information. You are treating [Obama] like he’s Britney Spears and covering him like he’s Paris Hilton, instead of the next president of the United States, potentially.”

Yep. The celebrity candidate. Hillary supporters were pleading for press fairness since January – also to no avail. We knocked but no one was home. The fact that mainstream media has refused to vet Senator Obama is truly a disgrace. His lies, nefarious associations, and misjudgments, his reneging on vital policy positions would all have sunk any other politician.

Now that more of the facts about him are seeping out, I am sure any Republicans foolish enough to vote for him in the primary in order to stop Hillary may now regret having done so. She is a leader, someone who does put country first and would certainly have been a better choice to steer us out of this mess than anyone else vying to get on the ticket in either party.

McCain advisers dismissed the crowd’s angry tone as an exception and not representative of most of the campaign’s events. And they noted that those gathered seemed most upset by the media’s handling of the contest, and simply wanted McCain to be more aggressive.

But when McCain is more aggressive in pointing out the truth of Obama’s contradictions and associations, the press, typically, rips him a new one. The idiotic Andrea Mitchell was even calling for Governor Palin to be “censured.” Okay. And now the media is also trying to paint voters’ legitimate frustration as ‘wild and out of control’ — further bashing Senator McCain’s supporters. By all accounts, he has attempted to keep a civil tone.

They also noted that many of McCain’s events are attended by liberal protesters, who often yell epithets and hold angry signs as McCain’s bus drives by. And they recalled angry words from Obama at a rally in Las Vegas last month, in which he urged supporters to talk to their friends and neighbors, saying “I want you to argue with them and get in their face.”

So Obama and his supporters can get in our faces and disaffected Democrats and Republicans are just supposed to keep smiling – all the way to him being elected?

Not likely.