John McCain wants you to know the Surge is working. No, scratch that, it is succeeding. Actually, it already has succeeded. We’re not only winning, we’ve won, and we’ll continue to keep winning, for however long it takes. Maybe a hundred years?
This incoherent line of thought is, believe it or not, McCain’s strongest argument at the moment. It is a relatively strong point to note that Obama said the Surge would fail, when as it turns out, the Surge seems to be a factor in the improving security situation in Iraq. This success can be overstated—Americans, being human, tend to oversimplify and see their own actions as being the most important. The reasons for the improving situation in Iraq are many, and they include the Surge. Be that as it may, Obama’s call was wrong on this one. So he’s batting 800 instead of a 1,000 on Iraq. That’s still a better average than McCain or most Republicans can claim.
As Obama’s overseas tour continues, though, it seems to me that McCain has made a significant mistake. His campaign was obviously worried that Obama’s trip would suck up a huge amount of oxygen, and that people would forget about McCain. That’s a legitimate worry; the media are treating this as a Very Big Deal.
But in his efforts to remind people that this is a two-person campaign, McCain has resorted to shouting, jumping up and down, and waving his arms. It’s not a good tactic for him. It might have been better to concede the national media to Obama for a week, and continue to campaign on a more regional basis.
Instead, we’ve had McCain on TV, blasting Obama for being wrong, wrong, wrong on the surge. “How’s the weather there in New Hampshire, Senator?” “Well, we’ve had some rain—it reminds me of how Sent. Obama’s claims about the Surge have turned out to be all wet. He was wrong on that, you know. And I was right!”
This kind of peevish, single-minded focus is hardly the stuff of great leadership.
What’s worse is that the McCain campaign has really started to sound a little unhinged. They put out an ad blaming Obama for the high price of gas. I am not kidding. I am not exaggerating. They blame Obama for the high price of gas. Desperate, much?
They also put out a three-minute YouTube video purporting to show how the media is fawning over Obama. You know, McCain has been a favorite of the media for a long time. One of the reasons he is the presumptive nominee is that his years of positive media coverage gave him the name recognition and good reputation to win primaries. It seems little silly for him to be complaining now about not getting enough media coverage.
Patently false ads, bitter denunciations, whining about the media. Not a great way to get people excited about your campaign, in my opinion.
This race is a long way from over. Heck, Obama’s trip is still not over. Things could happen to swing opinion one way or the other, but it appears to me the McCain campaign has made the worst of a bad situation.
Oh, and here’s a pertinent quote from Joe Klein of Time Magazine.
“John McCain said this today in Rochester, New Hampshire:
‘This is a clear choice that the American people have. I had the courage and the judgment to say I would rather lose a political campaign than lose a war. It seems to me that Obama would rather lose a war in order to win a political campaign.’
This is the ninth presidential campaign I've covered. I can't remember a more scurrilous statement by a major party candidate. It smacks of desperation. It renews questions about whether McCain has the right temperament for the presidency. How sad.”
3 comments:
All three candidates who had a chance in recent months - Obama, McCain, and Clinton - were beneficiaries at different times of near-worshipful media coverage. Okay, Clinton's was never "worshipful"...but she was the media-anointed Democratic candidate seemingly since the moment Bill Clinton left office. What's that biblical quote about living by the sword? Same's true re press coverage.
You know, I wonder if McCain's camp looked back at Clinton's charges that the media was soft on Obama and decided they would try that tactic too.
After all, it worked, to some extent, for Clinton. But there's a very different dynamic between HRC and McCain. For one, he's not the first old white guy to run for President, and as such, doesn't have a huge constituency who identify with him to the extent that many women did with Clinton. I hope it's not sexist to note that many of her followers were extremely sensitive to perceived bias. And to be fair, there were many media pundits who WERE actually sexist in some of their remarks.
I just don't see a parallel dynamic with McCain. His complaints just come off as whining. To my ears at least.
(btw, I do realize that Clinton was not the first female candidate for POTUS. But first major one.)
I don't know. I think the Obama trip overseas could backfire among a key voter demographic - the working class folks that Clinton seemed to do so much better than. I remember reading an article where a bunch of British people sent e-mails to some Ohio papers and/or Ohio voters encouraging them to vote for Kerry and it sort of had the opposite effect. Don't tell me how to think or vote Europe, I am American.
Now, in case you haven't figured it out, I deeply hope Obama will win. But it's starting to feel like the new X-Files movie. I Want To Believe. But it's way too early (in my mind) to call it anything other than a coin flip.
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