by Jill Zuckman
Aiken, S.C. – It was an impassioned plea, not the kind usually heard on the presidential campaign trail, and it was issued as a means of fighting back.
"There's a bunch of garbage out there," Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) told voters at the tail end of a town hall meeting for Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). "Has anybody gotten a phone call?"
The audience responded with knowing laughs. South Carolinians are being bombarded by automated phone calls and a blizzard of mail in the final hours of the Republican primary. Most of it is negative, and much of it is trained directly at McCain, the frontrunner in this state who was derailed in 2000 by a smear campaign.
"There's garbage on the phone, there's garbage in the mail about this man and what he's done for our country," Graham said.
McCain was a naval aviator in Vietnam who got shot down over Hanoi. He broke his arms and a knee when ejecting from his jet, and then was beaten and stabbed after North Vietnamese people pulled him out of a lake. McCain spent five and a half years as a prisoner of war, with his captors regularly torturing him.
Though he was offered early release as a means of embarrassing his father, a well-known Navy Admiral overseeing the Pacific command, McCain refused to leave before his fellow prisoners, a fact that is well documented. Nevertheless, a flier circulating here calls McCain a "songbird" who "left behind" other prisoners.
Graham promised the audience at the Aiken Municipal Center that the inmates who served with McCain would come to his rescue.
"Bud Day was his commanding officer in prison who received the Congressional Medal of Honor," Graham said. "Bud is in Florida, not in good health, but he's going to let the world know that John McCain was one of the bravest people he ever met in his life. All those who ever served with him in prison will vouch for him."
The campaign will be posting an ad on its web site today or tomorrow, featuring Day rebutting any questions about McCain's bravery or conduct.
Voters have also received mail from former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney's campaign, slamming McCain for his positions on immigration and taxes, just as he did in New Hampshire. At the same time, McCain has sent mail critical of Romney's record as governor of Massachusetts.
"I am telling you ladies and gentlemen, South Carolina is not going to be seen as the cesspool of politics," said Graham. "We're going to rise above this junk. We're going to reject this garbage, we're going to vote based on facts, principle and the way you lived your life."
In an effort to prevent accusations from taking root, the McCain campaign created a South Carolina Truth Squad, with a hotline, to quickly respond to anything that comes along.
"Please ladies and gentlemen, if you've got a question or doubt, call us and we'll give you our side of the story," he concluded. "Please vote Saturday as if the free world depended upon it, because it does."
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Comments
Does anybody know where Rove is?
Posted by: Anonymous | January 17, 2008 4:14 PM
These Morons are all garbage, the only thing that comes out of them is trash, lets trash this one and that one, you don't hear RON PAUL trashing any of them, he is a true leader and candidate, he is the only one who really cares about the U.S and only wants to clean up the trash not create it.
Posted by: Gary H. | January 17, 2008 4:22 PM
It's shameful and pathetic. And one poster on this blog, "Shelley Perry" is a part of the conspiracy.
Posted by: Jeff | January 17, 2008 4:39 PM
"KARL ROVE SIGHTINGS"
CSPAN 2 LAST NIGHT, TALKING ABOUT HILLARY CLINTONS ROLE IN THE WHITE HOUSE AND THOSE EMAILS THAT SHE IS NOT WILLING TO SHARE WITH THE AMERICAN PUBLIC.
YES, HER EMAILS. NOT HIS. NOT HIS RELATING TO "TREASON" OR THEFT BY DECEPTION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE OF BILLIONS AND BILLIONS OF DOLLARS.
KARL ISN'T IN THE SOUTH HE IS AT THE OBAMA CAMP WITH RUSS TRYING TO FIGURE OUT HOW TO GET THAT TYPE OF TAN BEFORE GOING TO ARIZONA TO PLAY GOLF AND GET SOME MORE MEDICARE RECEIPIENTS SIGNED UP.
KARL ROVE IS AT THE GEEK SQUAD LOOKING FOR THAT GUY HE USED THAT MIGHT BE IN IRAQ TO MAKE SURE HE DIDN'T REMEMBER ERASING HIS BLACKBERRY OR BEING IN THE WHITEHOUSE ERASING GEORGE BUSH'S PRESIDENTIAL RECORDS.
THAT IS WHERE KARL IS.
ARCHIVES DON'T LIE!
Posted by: Roger Morris | January 17, 2008 5:20 PM
Jeff,
You sound paranoid.
Posted by: C.Morris | January 17, 2008 6:46 PM
McCain sold his sole to these pieces of **it,he gets what he deserves now.
Nobody cry for McCain!!!!!
Posted by: Raving Loon | January 17, 2008 9:38 PM
McCain is a mental case.
Only yesterday he told a crowd in South Carolina that the state "was, hands down, the most patriotic in the nation."
First, what does his utterance mean?
Nothing. Empty rhetoric of the worst kind.
Two, keeping Dr Johnson's dictum on patriots in mind, who the hell cares who is most patriotic? It's a characteristic of value only to the brain-washed and feeble-minded.
Three, regardless of the meaning you attribute to his statement, if you account for the historical facts, quite the opposite is true.
South Carolina was the state that started secession from the Union. It was also "hot to trot" back in Adams' day under the promptings of opposition leader Jefferson.
Recently, too, McCain told us he would still have invaded Iraq, even without the excuse of "weapons of mass destruction." He has learned nothing from all that death and misery. Nothing.
McCain undoubtedly suffered brain damage when he was shot down while bombing civilians near Hanoi.
Other brain-dead Americans regard him as a hero for surviving prison in Hanoi. But heroes do not bomb civilians.
And a hero doesn't grovel to the likes of George Bush as McCain has sickeningly done for years.
A hero doesn’t support Bush’s disgusting “torture” legislation, as McCain did.
And a hero doesn't apologize immediately for one of the only unvarnished truths he ever uttered. I refer to his year 2000 remarks about the influence of the Religious Right in American politics.
McCain also a while back made a big joke of the idea of bombing Iran.
His sometimes charm simply does not compensate.
Posted by: John Chuckman, Toronto, Canada | January 18, 2008 8:42 AM
Most of it is negative, and much of it is trained directly at McCain, the frontrunner in this state who was derailed in 2000 by a smear campaign.
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A smear campaign led by Bush. They're doing it again. The Bush mob is for Romney. I don't like any of the repub candidates, but a vote for Romney is a vote for four more years of Bush.
Posted by: Bruce Y | January 18, 2008 10:41 AM
John E., how much did McCain get for the shoe sole that he sold to the devil? Or was it a filet of sale? If the devil paid more than $5 a pound for fresh Dover Sole he got ripped off.
p.s. Canadian, please stay quiet up there in our attic and let us elect a president, mmkay?
Posted by: Jeff | January 18, 2008 1:02 PM
Hey you RON PAUL spamming team out there,
DO NOT RON-PAULing us anymore. Stop the spamming. Just spare us of the RON PAULs in the comment sections all across the Cyberspace. His mere name digusts people. He has become the most shameless Internet spamming candidate the world probably would ever know.
Posted by: Bosasi Luap Nor | January 19, 2008 5:49 AM