Organizing for America | Pro Obama Boomer: Open Letter to Obama Supporters

Open Letter to Obama Supporters

By Tom Hayes, working for change - Oct 10th, 2008 at 11:19 am EDT

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Senator McCain is not, with all due respect, a coward, but you hear/read that and other vituperative personal attacks on him and his family lately. Folks describe his debate style, the attack ads, and the increasingly negative tone of his campaign as evidence of many undesireable things - but those are behaviors, not the Senator himself.

The Senator's mistakes relate to who he's trusted to run his campaign. The "That one" comment, for example, is clearly not his own style - you know it, and I know it. Somebody with a lot less concern over congressional courtesy dreamed that one up, and advisors prepping the Senator for the debate convinced him to use it.

I'm not trying to excuse such behaviors, particularly since he asserted early on that he'd avoid them. The choice was his. Spinning the record of one's opponent was to be expected - this is politics, and a lot is at stake. My point is: the attacks, be they Palin's words, electronic ads, or the phrases and style in the debate are evidence that McCain has picked the wrong team. His campaign advisors have put him farther behind in the polls than he ever imagined he'd be - and don't forget, any savvy GOP insider knew the odds were bleak following the Bush administration even before the economy belly flopped.

So, call McCain's actions foolish if you choose to; question his judgment or decry his decisions; cite the choices he's made in comparison to other paths he could have taken, but he knew the challenge of this campaign. Don't call John McCain a coward. Aside from the fact that no coward would run for the Presidency -- no coward would subject his (or her) family to the rigors and scrutiny of such an exercise -- there's a more fundamental reason for you to hold back, expressed by the candidate you're presumably supporting since

you read this website, and echoed by Joe Biden during the Vice Presidential debate.

You may not like what John McCain stands for. You may deplore the strategies and tactics that are being employed with his approval (explicitly or tacitly.) You may question the motivation and/or goals of McCain and his advisors. You may not trust him based on something you've read, or overheard, or because you think his choice of a running mate is evidence of poor judgment. You may think his voting record is disastrous, or that he's simply too closely aligned with an administration you feel hasn't served the country well. But if you don't approve of the various and sundry attacks aimed at Senator Barack Obama for political reasons you should not - must not - be goaded into adopting them yourself.

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