What will you like most about the McCain Presidency?

Wednesday, April 9, 2008 09:16 EDT
McCain's century-long problem
One gets the distinct impression that these guys are not familiar with the phrase "Never let 'em see you sweat."

Not only are Republicans concerned about John McCain having said -- more than once -- that he's willing to maintain a U.S. troop presence in Iraq for 100 years, they're apparently in a near panic about it. Josh Marshall notes the latest in a series of press releases from the National Republican Congressional Committee:


Despite Being Widely Discredited, Democrats Level False "100 Years" Accusation at Senator John McCain in Desperate Election Year Ploy

NRCC chairman Tom Cole argued in his statement that Democrats are "worried" and "desperate." Given the intensity of the GOP response to this flap, the words seem better suited to describe Republicans.

There's no great mystery here. McCain's (repeated) willingness to maintain a century-long presence in Iraq has become the single biggest mess for his campaign that Republicans can't explain away.

First, it's politically tone-deaf. Second, it's an awful policy prescription. And third, McCain has shamelessly flip-flopped, more than once, on whether he actually thinks his own idea is any good.

Nevertheless, what we're seeing unfold is a coordinated, carefully orchestrated campaign to get the political world to stop using the words "McCain," "Iraq" and "100 years" in the same sentence. No one can do push-back as well as the Republican machine, and these guys are intent on making it impossible to hit McCain where it hurts.

Ironically, by hyperventilating, McCain and his allies are telegraphing which attack hurts the most.

Republicans insist that McCain's words have been "distorted." In some instances, that may be true. But what they probably fear most is observers taking McCain's comments at face value. They don't need embellishment -- they're devastating all on their own.

― Steve Benen

The USA Today/Gallup Poll of late March suggests a strategy for Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) in the general election. The poll compared Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and McCain on certain key variables. Here were the results:

Obama won:

• Cares about the needs of people like you, 66% to 54%
• Shares your values, 51% to 46%
•Understands the problems Americans face in their daily lives, 67% to 55%

McCain won:

• Is a strong, decisive leader, 56% to 69%
• Is honest and trustworthy, 63% to 67%
• Can manage the government efficiently, 48% to 60%

Neither won:

• Has a clear plan for solving the country's problems, 41% to 42%
• Has a clear vision for the country's future, 67% to 65%
• Would work well with both parties in Washington to get things done, 62% to 61%
• Is someone you would be proud to have as president, 57% to 55%

So Obama won the traditional Democratic (and female) virtues of understanding problems and caring about people. McCain won the usual Republican (and male) virtues of strong leadership and efficient management.

In an age of terrorism, weakness is a capital crime. McCain needs to base his campaign on establishing Obama's weakness and his own strong leadership by comparison.

It is in this context that we must analyze Obama's problems with the Rev. Wright and his emerging problems with former terrorist Bill Ayers. The American people are not about to judge Obama guilty by association, even with a lowlife type like Ayers and an anti-American like Wright. But they will see, in Obama's tentativeness in handling these controversies and his "decency" in refusing to cut off his relationships and condemn these men, a sign of weakness that will hurt his campaign.

There is in Obama something of the Democratic candidate for president in the 1950s, Adlai Stevenson. Both from Illinois, they share an eloquence that lifts them above normal political figures and a profundity of thought that lies behind it. But each was seen as weak, and Stevenson as indecisive. Obama's over-intellectualization of issues and of the problems that crop up in his campaign will increasingly harden into a perception of a lack of sufficient strength to deal with America's problems.

The right wing tried to attack John Kerry in 2004 for a lack of patriotism and commitment to American values, just as it is now doing to Obama. It likely fell short of its goal. But the pressure it brought to bear on Kerry, through the Swift Boat ad and other attacks, led people to conclude that Kerry flip-flopped on issues and led them to discount what he said during his campaign.

Similarly, Americans will not buy that Obama is un-American. But the pressure the right brings to bear on him will cause him to appear weak in the face of attacks.

McCain needs to hammer away at the issue of strength and leadership and deal decisively with the problems that crop up in the campaign, while Obama dithers, thinks things through and tries to parse hairs in his responses.

Here the Iraq issue opens a real opportunity for McCain, where otherwise his support for the war would be a real negative. Iraq is a lot like Social Security. Everyone knows there is a problem, but any solution is immediately shot down. The issue earned the label "the third rail" in our politics, a status that was underscored when Bush's momentum from his 2004 reelection was smashed against the rocks of Democratic and elderly opposition to his Social Security reform plan.

So it is with Iraq: He who proposes an alternative is doomed. McCain's position, that we have to stay until we win, is far from popular, but it's a lot better than unilateral and immediate withdrawal.

And Obama's opposition to the war begs a host of questions: Shall we retain any presence? What about al Qaeda? What happens if the government falls? Can we let Iran take over? Obama will dither and seem far from decisive as he answers each of these questions. They will make him look terrible, just as Kerry -- in opposing the war after voting for it -- looked like a flip-flopper.

McCain can use the predisposition of voters to see Obama as weak, coupled with the Iraq issue, to make the strength issue his key advantage.

Like a breath of fresh air Blatham swoops in and posts another article from salon.com.

Thanks for that bit of leftist news Blatham.

When McCain is elected this fall, what do you suppose his first 100 days will be like?

The difference between the Dick Morris piece--Morris could actually appear in almost any publication as he is a syndicated columist--and a Salon.Com piece is that the Dick Morris piece illustrates what we will/could like about a McCain presidency which is the topic of this thread.

Articles from radical leftwing groups who are dedicated to bashing the right while having little or nothing to offer to commend their own ideology is easily interpreted as spamming the thread with mean spirited rhetoric devoid of any objectivity.

I can make those distinctions. Actually several people are capable of that. But I acknowledge and accept that some are not.

Well McCain's mom is 96 years old

Editorial Reviews

The Real McCain: Why Conservatives Don't Trust Him and Why Independents Shouldn't (Paperback)
by Cliff Schecter (Author)

Product Description
Thinking about voting for McCain? Read this book. Cliff Schecter's hard-hitting profile explores the gap between the public record of Senator John McCain and his media image. Drawing on a range of sources and adding his unique perspective and humor, Schecter guides the reader though McCain's long history of expedient flip-flops, especially on his signature issues of national security and campaign finance reform. Far from a straight-talking maverick, McCain emerges as a temperamental political chameleon who will do or say virtually anything to become president of the United States. On issue after issue - including the invasion and occupation of Iraq, torture, abortion, and gay rights - The Real McCain reveals a politician who started as a Goldwater Republican, experienced a brief period after sanity after his loss to George W. Bush in 2000, and began pandering to the very groups he challenged after deciding to run again in 2008.

22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
Excellent Portrait of John W. McCain, April 8, 2008
By J S (Philadelphia, PA USA) - See all my reviews

Cliff Schecter's book on John McCain reminds us who this man really is: a panderer who flip-flops and says whatever he thinks he needs to say to climb to the next rung on the political ladder; an extremist supporter of Bush's Iraq policy, who says he would like the US to occupy Iraq for the next 100 years; someone who has dished out so many free martinis and cocktail weenies to the DC media that he calls the media "my base"; a man who defended his immigration policy by claiming absurdly that American citizens would never pick lettuce for $50 an hour -- "You can't do it, my friends" was his response to the many hard-working American wage slaves who tried to take this multi-millionaire up on his offer to pick lettuce for nearly 10 TIMES the current US minimum wage of $5.85 per hour.

Racist when he needs to be, pseudo-centrist when he thinks it will suit him, unfaithful to his disabled first wife who he then left to marry his girlfriend, a pill-popping multi-millionaire brewing heiress: John McCain can be a lot of things. But Schecter reminds us who he really is: incompetent, aggressive, pandering, old, and hopelessly out-of-touch.

So it comes down to insulting McCain's mom?

wow.

So it comes down to insulting McCain's mom?

wow.

McGentrix wrote:

So it comes down to insulting McCain's mom?

wow.

Well, you can't really insult his pappy. Pappy was military. That's sacred.