McCain Campaign Attacks Key VC Demographic:
From today's JohnMcCain.com blog: "It may be typical of the pro-Obama Dungeons & Dragons crowd to disparage a fellow countryman's memory of war from the comfort of mom's basement..."
The McCain campaign is correct in wanting to rebut an ugly smear from the Daily Kos. But why drag "the Dungeons and Dragons crowd" into it?
Will present and former D&D players--of whom there are probably millions--consider voting Libertarian? A LP Convention probably has the highest percentage of past/present D&D players of any gathering in the world, other than a science fiction convention. And within the LP, the word "dungeonmaster" is never used as an epithet.
The Rev. Dr. Iñigo Montoya would like a word with you.
But I have to confess that only in my worst nightmare can I imagine the specialized Libertarian Party meaning of the word "dungeonmaster."
The Democrats are beside themselves that their war hero (Kerry) got attacked by virtually every sailor and officer he served with in Vietnam, and they can't do the same thing to McCain.
You've missed one person who can challenge the story — McCain himself. This story is a very recent development in his recounting of his time in Hanoi, and, in fact, McCain has told the story in the past secondhand, saying it was recounted to him by another POW. I don't think anyone is expecting the press to treat this as Tuzla because — let's face it — this is John McCain, not Hillary Clinton. But the fact that the story is questionable is pretty much beyond debate at this point. Whether it matters is another issue.
I've been playing D&D for about twenty years. It takes the place of pok-er night. Once a week my friends meet to get together, drink beer, and roll dice. We're not really odd, except maybe for our choice of game. We have a paramedic, a liquor store manager, a secretary, a writer, and a cable guy. None of us live in basements, and all but one of us are married. I'm guessing that we probably all make more than the staffer or intern who typed that silly release.
It's annoying to get stereotyped like this, and the three of us who are Republicans will probably not take this too kindly. It's a pointless slur, but I suppose geeks should be used to it by now.
It's almost as important as Obama's bowling score in determining how to vote. I mean, how can anyone score that low? It's not natural. I'm a clutz and my lowest score ever was a 43. Surely he's more coordinated than I am.
Depends on what my lucky d4 says.
Then they came for Magic: The Gathering players, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't an M:TG fan.
Then they came for the cosplayers, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a costumer.
Then they came for me, and by that time there was noone to speak up.
Not according to Orson Swindle. Or were you there as well? Sure, Swindle could be lying.
Zantar and Rolph for Barr!
The ones still playing probably have no idea there is an election coming up.
Better hope they make their saving throw on this one.
And no, Kazinski, we were/are proud of being geeks and especially our various abnormalities, thank you very much.
Zing!
Hilarious!
I think he is attempting to highlight the fact that they have never gotten closer to war than playing cowboys and indians and this makes them unqualified to judge his war stories.
Although now that you mention it, while D&D players of my experience are usually normal/skinny in bulk it so happen that all the regular dungeon masters I've known since I was a teenager were on the heavy side - perhaps a case of form following function.
I could never fathom D&D. I still do not understand the whole schtick of making up a character and playing pretend with magic. It's too open, too unrealistic and too silly. It would be like pretending to be Harry Potter if that book had been written back then except that you can make your own rules of magic. Not a very respectable past time for anyone over the age of 9, and even 9 year olds should have a better grasp of reality.
So, I think making fun of D&D players is descriptive in this instance, but it's a bit too easy and shows a lack of wit. These people should be pitied, not made the butt of jokes.
I don't doubt that this story is mostly factual, but it doesn't help that the first time that this story was told publicly was in 1999, and in some of retellings of it, McCain refers to the prisoner experiencing this in the third person.
Hasn't McCain effectively designated Obama as the D&D candidate?
I mean if he really wanted to drive the point home, he could have characterized Obama as the 4th edition candidate. That's a wedge issue that could win him some votes. He could even reach out to the D&D crowd and say he's the OD&D candidate, where experience points really meant something!
--PtM
- 2 are self described libertarians;
- 1 is a Republican/Fascist (not an insult to Republicans, he really boarders on Fascism and is somewhat proud of it);
- 1 is a Rockefeller Republican;
- 1 is a socialist;
- 1 is a Morman (I don't know his politics, but I figure that was worth noting);
- I am a Democrat with brushes with libertarianism; and
- 2-3 don't seem to have any interest in politics what so ever.
Based on this (admittedly limited) sample, it would seem that D&D players lean Right. It is also worth noting that all of these people live within 10 miles of New York City, so the group is probably much more conservative than the average group of people in the area.
Hillary Clinton Supporters For John McCain:
http://www.hcsfjm.com
Party Unity My A$$ PAC/People United Means Action PAC:
http://blog.pumapac.org
Democrats Against Obama/Nobama ever!
http://democrats-against-obama.org
Just Say No Deal:
http://justsaynodeal.com
Take a look around these sites for a half hour or 45 minutes and then you decide....(there are hundreds more linked to these, just look for links)
Given the one fellow POW of McCain's who has corroborated him whose quotes I have read, and the others I have heard of, there is nothing--not one thing--questionable about it.
That said getting as specific as using the playing of D&D as a slur is pointlessly antagonizing a group of people who to my knowledge do tend to lean right.\
And Skyler, it's a game, you ever heard of playing games? In particular, games with many abstruse rules that may be infrequently enforced and poorly understood prepares one for dealing with any number of government bureaucracies.
Yours, TDP, ml, msl, &pfpp
As we all know, libertarians are sooooooo anti-drug. Especially marijuana.
McCain really does seem to have a glass jaw when it comes to any type of criticism. I guess "straight talk" (or at least "straightish talk") is for him, not others.
His head would explode if Democrats made more ads like this one (McCain: "A Lousy Student; A Lousy Pilot; Unfaithful Husband; Corruptible Politician; Not a Self Made Man; [picture of White House] This is one house your wife can't buy for you." (Or words close to that)
"Just about every"? Give me a break. He had a large number of fellow service members support him, too, but the damage was done. He ticked off his former service members when he spoke out against the war. Maybe the two incidents show the difference in the integrity of the people McCain served with and the people Kerry served with. The people who served with McCain aren't willing to lie to settle old grudges or to advance their own partisan agenda.
Good grief. McCain and his supporters want to set it up so that the only people who can criticize McCain are POW's? That ain't democracy.
The critics are basically using McCain's pre-1999 story to challenge he post-1999 version of events. It's perfectly fair to look at the consistency of McCain's own words.
Virtually every?
If the general public is too ignorant to evaluate his service, then we can't evaluate it--for bad or for good. Then why does he keep touting it? Oh, that's right. "Straight(ish) Talk" is for him only. No one else is permitted to challenge the Dear Leader.
Maybe we should just call him Glass Jaw McCain.
In other words, tarheel, "Swiftboating" isn't about turning an opponent's strength into a weakness, but rather it's about attacking a false strength and thereby demonstrating the opponent's weakness. Had Kerry made his Vietnam experience a peripheral part of his campaign narrative, the Swiftboat veterans would not have had such a devastating impact. Kerry couldn't do that, though, because as Bill Clinton said, Kerry's Senate record was "undistinguished" -- i.e., he was a fundamentally weak candidate.
Think of it more as a consensual improvisational theatre. Of course it's unrealistic - it's a game. Risk is also unrealistic and silly, but it's still fun.
As for my regular gaming group:
Game Master is a professional writer and moveon.org democrat
Players:
CPA (Reagan democrat)
Lawyer (me, Ron Paul groupie)
Lawyer (John Birch type)
Tech Support chick (moderate democrat)
SysAdmin (not interested in politics)
High School student (my son, larval libertarian)
Professor of Linguistics (moderate democrat)
Everyone in the group except the 15-year-old has at least one advanced degree. There are 2 PhDs, 2 JDs, 2 MAs 1 MBA, and 2 MS. Political discussions are almost impossible to have in this group - they nearly come to blows between the 3 extremists.
I don't actually live in my mother's basement.
Really.
Teh Obama will pwn McCain FTW!!!
Obama advocates expanding Federal civil rights protections to dungeonmasters in the same legislation that will protect GLBTs from having to remove body jewelry while passing through TSA checkpoints.
McCain met quite a few real dungeonmasters during his sojourn at Hanoi Hilton.
Uh, huh... And I'm sure Barr understands the word "dungeonmaster" in a way having absolutely nothing to do with D&D. But frankly, I'm afraid to ask just what he thinks it means.
And you've never read The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, right?
I think you're incorrectly minimizing Goldfarb's role. He was the top online person for Weekly Standard, and now he seems to be McCain's top online person ("deputy communications director").
And if you look at McCain's blog ("The McCain Report, A Blog You Can Believe In"), it seems that 100% of the posts are written by Goldfarb.
I see McCain also has another blog, here (maybe this is A Blog You Can't Believe In), but it seems that all the articles are written by two or three people. I don't see "many bloggers."
In D&D times, the vast majority of players were young middle-class white males.
In today's MMORPG environment, a much larger percentage of players are members of ethnic or racial minority groups. In World of Warcraft, for example, a huge percentage of the players may be AZ (Asian), Hispanic-Latino, or African-American. Still largely male, though.
Remembering that today's MMO's ("massively-multi-player online games") are really chat mechanism with benefits, the political analyses on general "channels" can be very interesting. And it reinforces the original observation in this thread that the McCain campaign's analysis was mis-placed.
As far as PanzerBlitz and Jutland, you're probably not in our area of Tidewater VA. We do PanzerLeader macro-games regularly.
But of course those *don't* count. If you aren't rolling dice and marking hit points lost in the margin of your character sheet, you're not playing D&D.
Easily the most fun game I've ever played, but with job + wife + two kids, I can't see when I'll have the time again ... maybe in the nursing home. Oh, wait, that's when I was going to catch up on all the TV shows I'm missing now.
Also, although I give the piece little weight myself (As much as I would like to see Kodos win, as our first female President, I'm voting for Kang), it is simply not true that all other former POW's who have spoken out are "very supportive of McCain". And that's before we get into the accounts from this year's version of the Swift Boat Veterans.
No, where he made his mistake was in assuming his bona fide heroism would not be attacked by dishonest, mendacious people - I suspect a lot like those funding the "Vietnam Veterans Against John McCain" site. They find a few people who back them up in good faith, and use that as a hedge against the liars and miscreants who are behind the bulk of their allegations.
This is standard Karl Rove - take your opponent's biggest strength and (no matter how dishonestly) turn it into a weakness. Your attack on Kerry seems no more sincere - after all, if you wanted to be honest about it you would compare his record to G.W.'s....
Melenkurion Abatha! Duroc Minas Mill Khabaal!
I have not read the new books, but I did read the 1st and 2nd Chronicles.
To be fair, many of the cosplayers have it coming.
Sounds like Bush has played in a few of my campaigns then. I thought he looked familiar.
To be fair, many of the cosplayers have it coming. - Oh god, too true.
Although, one of the biggest sci fi type conventions is coming up (Dragon Con, in Atlanta). It would be interesting to do some boots-on-the-ground surveying there.
I think you're unfairly enlarging the scope of my point. I said that McCain's anecdote about the Vietnamese guard drawing a cross in the dirt with his rifle butt could only be challenged by his fellow POWs because they are, presumably, the only people with first-hand knowledge who could challenge the story. The story is ultimately about a gesture of compassion made by a prison guard. It's not the sort of story that's amenable to proof by documents (i.e. evidence that the POW was an informant) or other second-hand information.
Other commenters have suggested that McCain might have told contradictory stories of the account. I was not aware of any such contradictions and will concede that those contradictions are fair game for criticism.
Was your intent to insult LP convention attendees or D&D players? 'Cuz it works either way.
Politics can be so confusing. . .
It is -rolls d20- unlikely. I have a very high negative reaction adjustment due to Barr's alignment and history of attacks upon my religion and my friends' personal lives.
When I get home I intend to send Goldfarb an email so that he knows that he disparaged a local Republican election judge who is a veteran of USAF’s SAC during the cold war.
Who also happens to play and D&D. In fact, being the conservative that I am, I still use AD&D 2nd edition but with the “Player’s Options” books as I feel they provide more individual liberty to the player. I have no more use for D&D 3.5 than I have for Franklin’s New Deal.
Goldfarb’s jab at Obama’s campaign using D&D players could be a critical misstep in a small but important demographic. After all, almost all D&D characters go about their business with some combination of open carry (paladins) and concealed carry (rogues) and if staying in character will usually resist quite strongly disarmament (reflecting the Right to Keep and Bear Arms crowd). Kinda makes me wonder just how many modern pro-carry people have a history of playing D&D.
Unfortunately it will probably take a critical failure roll for me not to vote for McCain.
Does Cthulhu count?
McCain is clearly eager to surrender their votes to Obama.
(with apologies to all)
Of course it does! This will not affect my vote. I would have to fail my SAN check to vote for either Obama or McCain. I will vote for Cthulhu in '08. (When you are tired of voting for the lesser of two evils).
I would apologize to the readers, but if you have followed this thread this far down, you are probably one of us.
--PtM
Okay, let's try again.
If you've ever played D&D, CLICK THIS LINK.
--PtM.
I helped write D&D. My name appears in the credits for the first edition of AD&D.
I also helped write the Call of Cthulhu role-playing game. Specifically I relayed the core concept of sanity decreasing as Mythos knowledge increases, first written by Ken St. Andre in The Space Gamer, to COC lead designer Sandy Peterson at The Chaosium. Sandy went on to design many of the monsters in the original DOOM.
A precious few deserved to be surveyed very, very closely.
The others should be sent out an airlock. Immediately.
Actually, the Vets against McCain are some of the actual Kerry swiftboaters. This site and its attacks on McCain's service come from the right. They surfaced before the South Caroline primary to fight McCain getting the Republican nomination. Isn't it funny how nobody here seems the least bit outraged by it?
Uttering easily refuted lies is a great way to lose. Kerry did that one to himself. He made his Vietnam record a big issue before he got the nomination so, when his OWN exaggerations about it hit the public eye in the general election, he was toast.
Democrats who pretend otherwise aren't doing their party any favors. A major party nominee who makes easily refuted lies about his major campaign theme will lose. What others say about it is not the problem. What he says about it himself is the problem.
And Obama's is Trinity Church. He made hia experience there, and his relationship with Reverend Wright, a big deal. Watch how McCain's campaign, and GOP suppporters, handle that after Labor Day.
But let's assume for the sake of argument that Kerry told lies and the swiftboaters revealed them. That could call his credibility into question, but the swiftboaters didn't limit their attacks to Kerry's words. They impugned every aspect of his service and every one of his decorations. And most of those attacks were based on loaded second and third hand speculation. But let's assume arguendo that even some of that stuff had merit. Only the most far-fetched conspiracy theorists claim it all had merit. Every swiftboat apologist I know admits (at least privately) that Kerry probably did brave things that deserve commendation.
So what does that tell us about what's fair game to attack in a war hero's record? As long as you find some lies, it's OK to attack his whole service, as if he never served honorably and bravely? Because I'd be pretty surprised if a careful inspection of what McCain has said over the years about his service didn't reveal contradictions. Which by that criteria opens his whole service up for attack. Or is that type of thing only OK if the veteran you're smearing risked his life for a vision of America you don't happen to care for?
You are in denial. Kerry's fatal lies about his record were first revealed by, and effectively publicized by, bloggers rather than the Swift Boat group. All people had to do was compare the dates of known events with Kerry's service record, particularly his departure from Vietnam. He said certain events he participated in were "seared, seared" into his memory when he had left Vietnam long before those events could have occurred.
He was toast when that got widespread attention.
You are creating an image of yourself as a person who sees conspiracies in everything. Do you really want that?
[FWIW, I think you may be erroneously assuming what was effective about the swiftboating. The specifics of Kerry's testimony about the Xmas incident, etc., were popular with right wing bloggers and their readers, but they were never potential Kerry voters in the first place. I think what influenced the election was much more attenuated, i.e., some undecided voters got the impression that the swiftboaters had somehow shown Kerry wasn't a war hero, which is utter bunk.]
I think it was all about Winter Soldier. That rubbed Reagan democrats, especially those with military ties, very much the wrong way. Many of Dr. Somin's rationally ignorant voters (especially those under 40) were unaware of his testimony before the Swifties drew attention to it. I think the medal carping actually hurt their credibility, and gave the left an excuse to deny what really happened.
Woah! We're among royalty. Too bad about Gygax.
Disclosure: I'm not really a Cthulhu fan...
I vacationed in Oregon last month in an SUV with STOP CONTINENTAL DRIFT! on its rear bumper and a widdle baby Cthulhu dangling from my rear view mirror.
You're acting like O'Neill proved that Kerry was never in Cambodia. Trouble is, O'Neill didn't prove that. Neither did anyone else. All O'Neill proved is that he's a liar. He said he was never in Cambodia, even though he was. He's on tape telling Nixon he was. More details here.
Anyway, your premise seems to be that Americans don't tolerate politicians who lie. It would be nice if that were true, but facts show otherwise. For example, there seem to be large numbers of Americans who are not at all concerned about these false statements:
we found the weapons of mass destruction
he wouldn't let them in
a wiretap requires a court order
Anyway, lots of people realize that "McCain lies a lot." Guess who said that. And guess who called McCain "Liar In Chief." And guess who said "McCain is a liar." Mitt Romney was a little more genteel. He said McCain "made a dishonest comment" (video).
A bunch of Republicans seem to think McCain is a liar (and that's aside from the Republicans who are worried about his temper). We'll see if this means McCain will lose.
Remember, it's not the sex, it's the lying.
I assume the impact came from, as you call it, the "medal carping" because that's what was predominantly reported by the MSM. And most high-school educated Reagan democrats don't get their news from Drudge. But I could be wrong. My memory could be colored by the fact that Winter Soldier and related events were old news to me, and the medal carping was new.
If the swiftboating had only been about Kerry's previous testimony and reports, though I would have disagreed with the conclusions, I wouldn't have considered the questions illegitimate. But it wasn't. Swiftboating Kerry was a two-pronged circular attack: On the one hand, he wasn't a hero whose war reports deserved deference. On the other, since he was a liar, there was no reason to believe the events that made him a hero. So attacking his valor wasn't "an excuse for the left to deny what happened." It was a linchpin in the right's deterministic narrative. More important, it was sleazy and offensive, and no such attack on a Republican war veteran would be tolerated. Nor should it.
If you disagree, then you won't object when some jerk does likewise to McCain. Oh, I forgot, they already have. But that stuff comes from the right, so you guys don't seem to be very troubled by it. I am. I think it's disgusting. And I thought it was disgusting when it was done to Kerry. And I'm confident I'll suddenly have plenty of company in thinking it's disgusting if somebody on the left does it to McCain. Now what's wrong with that picture?
Under oath, sexual harassment, yada, yada, yada
Whatever. I voted for Clinton. Twice. His lurch to the braindead left to save his own ass was a tragedy for our country.
Agreed, those are differences, but in my opinion they're secondary. The essential points are the same. He cheated on his wife, and he lied about it.
Here's another difference: Clinton's party doesn't present itself as the party of religious piety and family values.
Here's another difference: Clinton went back to his wife and kid. McCain's affair led to him leaving Carol behind, along with two sons and a daughter. I think that's worse than the cheating.
I'm also not impressed by the fact that he left his wife and his kids for someone young enough to be his daughter. When he started the affair with Cindy, he was 42, she was 24, and his kids were 19, 16 and 12.
I've voted for persons named Clinton or Gore a grand total of this many times: zero. FWIW.
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