Talk:John McCain presidential campaign, 2000

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I believe it is appropriate to mention McCain's controversial comments regarding Asians in the section regarding the South Carolina primary, as it garnered McCain bad press in that critical period. Jensiverson (talk) 10:31, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

I've added some more info about it.Ferrylodge (talk) 16:58, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

It belongs in the Super Tuesday section, not the South Carolina section, because it mostly concerned the reaction to him among Asian Americans in California. More importantly, we're now giving it way too much WP:Undue weight. It wasn't that big of an issue in the campaign. The Alexander bio, which devotes 145 pages to the campaign, doesn't mention it at all as an issue, as far as I can tell. A brief mention at most should be sufficient here. Wasted Time R (talk) 22:21, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

You may be right. But, this article now says no more about it than is said in the article on his cultural and political image. Why would it be undue weight here, but not there? If all that info should go anywhere, it ought to go in this article instead of that one, because he hasn't uttered the word in question since the year 2000.

Anyway, if it is just mentioned briefly here in this article, then that brief mention ought to include the fact that he only meant to refer to his captors, that many Vietnamese Americans were not offended, and that he stopped using the term eight years ago.Ferrylodge (talk) 01:46, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

I've moved it, and have tweaked the wording for context, but have otherwise left it all in. It now gets twice as much space as his famous Virginia Beach speech slagging Robertson Falwell et al. That ain't right. I'll come back to this another day. Wasted Time R (talk) 03:07, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree that it's not right. The "gooks" thing is taking up too much space in both this article and the article about his cultural and political image.Ferrylodge (talk) 03:13, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

In the other article, it's modestly relevant as an illustration of McCain's warrior-unto-"straight talk"-unto-blunt approach, combined with his underappreciated willingness to back off same when he realizes it's counterproductive. (That he hasn't said it since 2000 doesn't matter; the article is a history of McCain's image aspects, not just a current-day snapshot.) Here, it's only barely relevant; this issue didn't make much difference if any, and he was going to lose the California primary no matter what. Wasted Time R (talk) 03:24, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

I've added a sentence about Vietnamese American reaction to his "gook" usage. If it's mentioned at all, it must be made clear that most Vietnamese Americans are not offended and in fact overwhelmingly supported him in the primary. DHN (talk) 00:29, 17 April 2008 (UTC)