Auster On McCain (October 16th)
Though it's been said before, isn't it remarkable that McCain had such a vicious killer instinct against the conservative standard-bearer Romney, and no real instinct to fight Obama at all? [...]
I'm not saying that McCain consciously wants to lose the election and that everything he has done so far has been directed at that. On one level, of course he wants to win. He's striving, he's trying, he picks an unconventional running mate who he thinks will spark his campaign, he comes up with positions on the financial crisis, he prepares for the debates, he works at improving his dreadful speaking style, he authorizes tough ads on Obama, and so on. But on a deeper level, he doesn't really want to win. He doesn't see Obama as someone who represents something really different from himself and from America as we've known it and who must be stopped. He has no real grasp of the meaning of Obama's associations with Wright and Ayers, how objectionable those associations are--that's why, last April, he prohibited criticism of Wright, and why, last night, he pathetically dropped the ball on Ayers. Thus, while he would like to defeat Obama, he doesn't feel that he must defeat him. He wants to do a good job as a candidate and to acquit himself well, but it will not bother him very much if he loses, because his ultimate frame of reference is his loyalty to the liberalism which requires that Obama win.
To put it in the simplest terms, he wanted to beat Romney far more than he wants to beat Obama.
http://www.amnation.com/vfr/archives/011646.html
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