The rapid response by Obama to Bush’s statement in the Israeli Knesset and to McCain’s follow-ups is reassuring.
No doubt soon the MSM will criticize this back-and-forth as nothing but “name-calling”. They’ll comment regretfully on how this only serves to lower the tone of the campaign.
And to a certain extent, you’ll have to sympathize with them. Someone from our side responding forcefully to the trash-talk coming from the other side? It’s something new! How dare we?
Of course we have a model for this — and it’s not the rarefied boudoir male that the Media perennially tries to paint our candidates as.
Rather, it comes from Harry S. Truman, FDR and countless liberals before and after. It’s a tradition that doesn’t let cheap shots like “limousine liberal”, “tax and spend”, “cut and run”, and yes “appeasement” go unanswered.
It’s exhilarating to see Obama embracing this tradition. It’s about time we all did. It’s the only way we can create a more balanced environment where liberal values stand a chance of succeeding.
Huffpost: The Size of a City
Obama draws a record crowd of 75,000 in Portland Ore
I see in the comments on other threads that people say large rallies for candidates is nothing new.
Some people brought up the huge “dueling” rallies (>250k) that Nixon and Humprey had in 1968. There are other examples.
But what I think we have here is something new and remarkable.
We’re still technically in the primary. I don’t think there’s a precedence for crowds of this size at this stage in the process. It’s phenomenal.