McCain and College Football

I saw a McCain ad running here talking about McCain doing battle with the big three: Big Oil, Big Pharma, and Big Business. This is insane. Since when is it the American way to attack people for doing well in life? If they did it dishonestly, then they deserve the penalty, but if not, then they deserve congratulations. Companies are not people; they're, well, companies. Companies that employ thousands of people who make a good living off these entities that John McCain wants to fight. Come on, Senator, you're supposed to be different from Obama. Remember Michelle Obama saying:

"We left corporate America, which is a lot of what we’re asking young people to do. Don’t go into corporate America. You know, become teachers. Work for the community. Be social workers. Be a nurse. Those are the careers that we need, and we’re encouraging our young people to do that."

McCain's rhetoric in regards to "Big Business" is strikingly similar to that of the Obamas. Whose votes are you really trying to win, Senator?

Honestly, this reminds me of BYU's football team (I haven't followed college football in years, but I remember this story). BYU is a private school run by the Mormon Church, and the school has a strict, church teachings-based honor code that all students, including the football players, are expected to abide by. Several years ago, the then-head coach Gary Crowton decided to stop aggressively recruiting Mormons, figuring they'd come and play for him anyway. What happened next surprised no one except, perhaps, Crowton. The talented Mormon high schoolers went off to other schools, and Crowton lost players that he had recruited because of their unwillingness to abide the religion-based honor code.
There is a direct corollary to the McCain campaign here. McCain seems to think that he's got the Republican/conservative vote in the bag, as Crowton thought he had all the Mormons. So McCain is off courting all the independent/Democratic voters he thinks he may be able to sway. What he's accomplishing, however, is the alienation of what should be his voter base (see fighting private enterprise, being willing to put in a pro-choice veep, and countless other things) in the attempt to get people who probably won't stick with him anyway. In the end, he's likely to go down in flames, just as Crowton did.


Peachy.