He's clearly having a good time with this, and the audience is into it as well!
DIGG
Here's what ABC's Jake Tapper wrote about the comments:
Proceeding through a litany of what he perceives to be McCain missteps, Obama mentioned that McCain had recently "bragged about how, as chairman of the Commerce Committee in the Senate, he had oversight of every part of the economy. Well, all I can say to Sen. McCain is nice job."
The audience laughed.
"Nice job!" Obama repeated, sarcasm dripping from his voice. "I mean, where is he getting these lines? The lobbyists running his campaign?
"You all remember Phil Gramm," Obama said, once again bringing up the former Texas senator and McCain friend whom McCain distanced himself from several months ago. "He says we’re just going through a mental recession and called the United States of America a nation of whiners. I’m not making this up. You can’t make this up. It’s like a 'Saturday Night Live' routine."
The crowd roared with approving laughter.
"So, then yesterday, Sen. McCain’s big solution to the crisis we’re facing is -- put on your seatbelts -- a commission," Obama said. "A commission! Well, that’s Washington-speak for 'We’ll get back to you later.'"
Barack Obama is LITERALLY turning McCain's campaign into one huge joke that everyone seems to get, except for the McCain campaign and the dead-enders supporting him. Another good line was the one about how McCain is bragging about being the chair of the commerce committee and having oversight over everything in the committee. Obama's response "Nice Job!" and the audience cracks up once again.
Obama's right, we couldn't make stuff like this up if we tried!
On top of all of this, polls are showing that Obama has been largely successful in tying John McCain to George Bush.
You know how McCain is trying to hijack the Obama "change" message (which Obama has had literally since like 1995)? Well, it's not working. According to the New York Times, 46% of the country feels McCain would be AS conservative as Bush, and 22 % feel he would be MORE conservative than Bush. So much for being a maverick!
The poll found that 46 percent of voters thought Mr. McCain would continue Mr. Bush’s policies, while 22 percent said he would be more conservative than Mr. Bush. (About one-quarter said a McCain presidency would be less conservative than Mr. Bush’s.) At a time when Mr. McCain has tried to appeal to independent voters by separating himself from his party, notably with his convention speech, 57 percent of all voters said they viewed him as a typical Republican, compared with 40 percent who said he was a different kind of Republican
.
And what about the "change" message? Who owns it? Well it's not McCain. While he's supposedly "improved" he's still waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay behind Obama as far as who would bring "real change"
In one of the sharpest differences highlighted in the poll, 37 percent said that Mr. McCain would bring real change to Washington, up from 28 percent before the two parties’ conventions. But 65 percent of those polled said that Mr. Obama would bring real change to Washington.
But, McCain is so "mavericky"! What's going on here?
More than twice as many said an Obama presidency would improve the image of the United States around the world, 55 percent, compared with those who believed a McCain presidency would do so. Mr. Obama also gets high marks for "sharing the values most Americans try to live by," despite concerted Republican efforts to portray him as elite and out of touch with average voters. Sixty-six percent said Mr. Obama shared their values, compared with 61 percent who said that about Mr. McCain
.
So not only is the McCain = Bush message sticking, but the McCain = "Out of Touch" is also sticking!
And the "not so much of a surprise" thing is people aren't convinced that Palin is not simply a political ploy:
And 75 percent said they thought Mr. McCain had picked Ms. Palin more to help him win the election than because he thought that she was well qualified to be president; by contrast, 31 percent said they thought that Mr. Obama had picked Mr. Biden more to help him win the election, while 57 percent said it was because he thought Mr. Biden was well qualified for the job.
Now, like I said, I'm not a fan of polls, but I think this shows that Obama is doing a great job of making John McCain look like "more of the same" and "George Bush's third term." Democrats are pushing the message hard, and it's sticking!
I think this ad, which I see all the time here in Ohio certainly helps:
And in EVERY Obama ad that mentions McCain, it ends with a shot of McCain and Bush hanging out looking like best friends.
Obama mocking McCain for saying he's change is probably also helping out.
I will admit that the poll wasn't ALL good news, for some reason people still think McCain is more "ready" to be President, but I think that's just because of Obama's age. Also, I think the more this economic stuff comes out, the less people will believe McCain is prepared. But there was good news on the judgment front, people do think Obama has good judgment. Also, they are more confident is Biden's ability to be President than Palin's.
So donate! It's great being on offense, and we need to make sure the campaign has the money it needs to STAY on offense! They even brought back matched donations (which is always a crowd pleaser).
Pics from Vegas Rally:
If you want it to stop scrolling, just mouse over it, you can probably click the pictures to see a larger one too :o)
As always, tips, recs, and comments are welcome!
UPDATE
Oh, and Stephen Colbert RIPPED McCain for the "town hall" BS.
DIGG Stephen
___________________________________________________________________
UPDATE
Today in New Mexico Obama continued his assault on McCain's policies and record:
On Monday, he said the economy was fundamentally sound, and he was fundamentally wrong.
On Tuesday, he said the government should stand by and allow one of the nation's largest insurers to collapse, putting the well-being of millions of Americans at risk. But by Wednesday, he changed his mind.
He said he would take on the ol' boy network, but he seemed to forget that he took seven of the biggest lobbyists in Washington from that network and put them in charge of your campaign.
John McCain can't decide whether he's Barry Goldwater or Dennis Kucinich. Well, I have a message for Senator McCain:
You can't just run away from your long-held views or your life-long record. You can't erase twenty-six years of support for the very policies and people who helped bring on this disaster with one week of rants.
Now that this disaster has hit, John McCain is calling for the firing of the Security and Exchange Commissioner. Well here's what I say: In 47 days, you can fire the whole Trickle-Down, On-Your-Own, Look-the-Other-Way crowd in Washington who have led us down this disastrous path.
We do not have time for commissions and we can't afford to lurch back and forth between positions when dealing with an economic crisis, like my opponent has.
You should go read the whole thing, it has more about his plans. He had some other stuff in there too, but I think he was ad libbing it because it's not in the prepared remarks.