John McCain Wooed Michigan Democrats
Yesterday I published a satirical piece about John McCain. The idea: John McCain would’ve told me in an interview that Democrats should vote for him because he’s the closest thing to a Democrat the Republicans have to offer. In fact, I wrote imitating McCain: “If you can vote for Hillary Clinton, and for me, what’s the difference? We’re both acceptable to Democrats.”
Some people seemingly took that post seriously (even though the category was “satire” and the name of the author “Humpty Dumpty”). When I saw that I thought to myself: well, aren’t they… um… I bet you know what I was thinking. Anyway, it now seems that my post was actually quite close to the truth:
A message voters received yesterday, favoring McCain:
Hi. This Senator Joe Lieberman. I’m calling for John McCain.
As you may remember I was the Democratic nominee for Vice President in 2000. But this year I’m supporting Republican John McCain for President because he is the person best qualified to lead our country forward. He’s a straight talker who will always do what’s right for our country regardless of partisan politics and he’s the only candidate prepared to be commander-in-chief from day one.
There isn’t a competitive Democratic primary in Michigan this year and all registered voters are able to participate in a Republican primary. So I’m calling today to urge you to vote in the Republican primary on January 15 for Senator John McCain. He’ll break through the partisanship and make our government in Washington work for all the people again.
[I]n Ypsilanti, Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., joined McCain on the stump and urged independents to vote for his friend.
“This is a tough and close fight here in Michigan here today. But Republicans, and I want to say specifically independents and yes, Democrats……I urge them to come out today and stand for a man who is a great American patriot.”
First they denied, but then Power Line collected proof that Lieberman did, in fact, ask Democrats to vote in the Republican primary. When asked about it again: no response.
Frankly, I think that this is a very serious issue. McCain is already unpopular among the conservative base, I don’t think this will help him restore his relationship with them.
He definitely shot himself in the foot with that if it’s all true.
And not to condone it- but I can’t help but put blame on the organizers of the state primary. Allowing the other party registrants to vote just makes no sense. Independents, OK, I can live with that. But people who have allegiance to the other party? Nah.
Oh, I forgot to point out that I deliberately refrained from commenting on that post yesterday (thought about congratulating Humpty for the scoop.) Didn’t want to be accused of being a spoiler again!
McCain almost switched parties in 2001.Then in 2004 he approached Kerry about being his VP candidate.So, there’s really no suprise here.
Christine: I agree. Don’t let democrats vote in Republican primaries. The national elections follow later. Let the parties first select their nominee by themselves, than let the people as a whole decide.
And… thanks! Although I’m sure if you would’ve said that, they wouldn’t even have noticed. No, the problem isn’t joking about it - that’s funny as hell - the problem is saying "hey, morons, it’s SATIRE!"