Is Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign sending mixed messages to supporters and fueling a deeper, more intense culture war in America? Standing in the middle of Town Hall Meetings may reveal this answer to you.
On an Oct. 10 Town Hall meeting with Senator McCain, in Lakeville, MN, as Sen McCain took comments and questions from the audience, he was forced to ask the audience to “be respectful” as he said
“I admire Sen Obama and his accomplishments”. McCain quelled boos and negative reaction from his call “for respect” after one supporter stated
“We’re scared of an Obama presidency…I’m concerned about someone who cohorts with domestic terrorists.”
McCain quickly retrieved the microphone from another supporter who proclaimed of Obama “I have read about him, and he’s an Arab” to which Sen McCain responded,
“no ma’am, he's decent family man, citizen, who I just happen to have disagreements on on fundamental issues and that’s what this campaign is all about”
McCain’s campaign strategy may have let a genie out of a bottle, after McCain campaign adviser, Greg Strimple, told the
Washington Post on Oct 4 that they would aim at
“Obama’s aggressively liberal record and how he will be too risky for Americans."
After the Oct. 10 Lakeville rally, in a live streaming cell phone interview after the rally with Adam Aigner of NBC News, CNN’s Dana Bash of CNN.and Uptake.Org reporter Noah Kunin (who also filmed the scrum), the supporter who had declared Obama an “Arab” revealed that she had originally received similar literature from “research” she had done at her local library in Shakopee, MN and had received additional information from a fellow McCain supporter from Burnsville who she said
“sent me more things about Obama.”
The supporter, identifying herself as Gayle Quinnell, confirmed to Kunin that she was a volunteer at
“McCain Headquarters in Burnsville” and notified Aigner that she had circulated literature informing people that Obama was a “Muslim” and had “sent out 400 letters.” Quinnell continued “
I went to Kinkos and I got them all printed out. And I sent about 400 letters. I went in the telephone book and sent them out to people. So they can decide if they would want Obama.”
Even as reporters Aigner and Bash protested to Quinell, she insisted
“Yeah , but he’s still got Muslim in him. So that’s still part of him. I got all the stuff from the library and I could send you all kinds of stuff on him.”
McCain’s public reproach to Quinnell seemed to have had no effect on her insistence on Obama’s heritage and she doubted it would change the minds of others. As Aigner asked,
“Then do you feel there are a lot of volunteers for McCain who feel that way?” and if she fears that the United States would become a “Muslim country” Quinell confirmed
“I’m not alone…And all the people agree with what I’m saying to you about Obama.”
Follow this link to the transcript between Quinnell and reporters.
TheUptake.org reporters informed me that they are currently investigating the claim that Quinnell is in fact a volunteer at McCain's Burnsville HQ.
This particular McCain - Palin rally is not the only one where these fears were expressed or repeated.
Vice presidential candidate Gov. Sarah Palin has mentioned the connection between Sen. Obama and former Weather Underground member William Ayers in recent stump speeches and has been serving as the McCain campaign’s attack dog. In doing so, she appears to be drawing an imaginary line between terrorism and Obama. Video blogs are rife with unreported footage and while many of the blogs are partisan in nature, the footage is no less disturbing.
Footage from one,
“blogger interrupted” captures footage from an Oct 8 rally in Strongsville, OH. The Democratic - partisan video blogger focuses on one simple theme in asking “Do you think Obama is a terrorist” and is met with responses ranging from “I think he (Obama) is a one man terror cell” to “I think he’s a communist and a marxist…indoctrinated by the teachings of his father.”
"bloggerinterrupted" is clearly an Obama supporter, with an Obama logo on his page, and some reasonable rally goers respond to him,
“don’t put words in my mouth”, but it’s not hard to find sites that repeat similar vitriol directed at Sen. Obama.
In an Oct. 5 rally,
CodePink’s Linda Milazzo reported in an op-ed piece that
Palin said of Obama “this is not a man who sees America as you and I see America.” and continued
“Our opponent is one who sees America as imperfect enough to pal around with terrorists who targeted their own country.”
Little mainstream media coverage has been offered at this point, although on her Oct 10 broadcast
MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow asks of McCain,
“can he, or anyone, tamp down the flames at this point?”
