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 McCain Campaign: Not Dead YetPosted on Jul 17, 2007
Even though Sen. John McCain is still walking and talking like a candidate, the nation’s political writers and pundits are hammering the final nails in his presidential campaign coffin and preparing to bury it in his Arizona desert. “They never come back,” Robert Novak said Sunday on “Meet the Press.” “I think there is a 40 percent chance he gets out of this thing in the fall,” said fellow panelist Al Hunt. Host Tim Russert quoted this devastating comment from political analyst Charlie Cook: “Let’s have a moment of silence. The physicians have left the room and now it’s the executors of the will taking over.” In New York magazine, John Heilemann outdid Cook, writing, “Though it’s not impossible to conjure a narrative in which McCain wins the nomination, doing so requires half a bottle of Maker’s Mark, followed by a nitrous-oxide chaser.” Not that a burial of McCain’s campaign is a bad idea. It’s appalling to contemplate McCain as president in view of his unstinting support of President Bush’s Iraq war and his pledge to increase the Army and Marines from the presently contemplated 750,000 to 900,000. We don’t need a president who believes: “Democratic candidates for president will argue for the course of cutting our losses and walking away from the threat in the vain hope it will not follow us here. I cannot join in such wishful and very dangerous thinking.” But don’t dismiss him. McCain remains the greatest threat to a Democratic victory next year. Believing the media analyses and writing McCain off now could be a big mistake. There is good reason to be suspicious of these analyses. The number of examples of journalistic wrongheadedness is endless. One of the worst was the coverage of Al Gore’s 2000 presidential campaign. Reporters were charmed by George W. Bush’s frat-boy style and stupid nicknames. Bewitched, they turned the smart, forward-looking, talented Gore into a muddle-headed liar and bore. As Eric Alterman wrote in The Nation last week, “That Al Gore’s 2000 presidential candidacy was treated unconscionably by most members of the mainstream media is not really arguable by sentient beings.” Another favorite example eerily parallels the McCain situation. In 1980, Ronald Reagan’s presidential campaign was spending too much. The staff was in turmoil. It’s hard to believe now, when the late president is so lionized, but the press was writing him off, especially after George H.W. Bush’s win in the Iowa caucuses. But Reagan brought in people who imposed tight fiscal control, smashed Bush in a New Hampshire debate and went on from there. Amid the turmoil of his campaign, McCain has a few things going for him. The most important, ironically, is his support of the unpopular war. Neither Bush nor his cheerleaders have McCain’s military record or his stature in that area. Nor do they have his ability to articulate their beliefs. As his campaign organization was falling apart, McCain headed to Concord, N.H., where he gave an unrelentingly pro-war speech. “Defeatism will not buy peace in our time,” he told the Concord Chamber of Commerce. “It will only lead to more bloodshed, to more American casualties in the future. If we choose to lose in Iraq, our enemies will hit us harder in Afghanistan hoping to erode our political will and encourage calls in Western capitals for withdrawal and accommodation with our enemy there as well.” He concluded by saying, “Peace at any price is an illusion and its costs are always more tragic than the sacrifices victory requires.” In the real world, this is craziness. But in the Republican world, it makes sense. Just 38 percent of Republicans polled by CNN in June opposed the war. While the number of opponents is increasing, the figure still means the great majority of Republicans are in favor. For them, McCain is sounding the right note. It’s also the right note for his old foe, President Bush. Unless Bush is a total ingrate for McCain’s support for the war (and maybe he is) he could be a great help to McCain in raising money. He wouldn’t openly intervene. But one of his infamous winks or a message sent by a circuitous route would put McCain back in the game. The senator is not that far out of it. Despite his troubles, some polls have McCain competitive in South Carolina and New Hampshire. If he survives and even comes close to winning in such states, the reporters writing McCain’s obituary would switch to a fresh story, his comeback. The comeback story would hurt even McCain’s strongest competitors, former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and the undeclared Fred Thompson, both of whom have enormous weaknesses. I don’t want McCain to win the Republican nomination. He’s a wild card. I don’t know how well he would campaign in the fall. Logic says there is no chance of him or any other Republican winning. But McCain is unorthodox, always on the edge, a mixture of anger and affability, and a famous ex-POW. He’s capable of shifting his positions, as he did earlier in the year to get in the good graces of the religious right. All that, plus Republican money, would be a dangerous combination in fall 2008.
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By Anne Dowie, July 19, 2007 at 11:40 am # McCain’s aura of invincibleness has been an assumption untethered to reality for some time. Early in the 2000 campaign he came across as an unflinchingly principled guy—the kind John Steinbeck wrote about this country hungering for in “Travels with Charlie” in the 60s. Then came the unseemly spectacle of him sucking up to Bush after the appallingly underhanded way Bush beat him back in North Carolina, bringing his credibility and sincerity into question. And then continue to cling to Bush and some thin promise of anointment even as Bush cratered on every front shows a stunning lack of integrity and street smarts. Sounds like the guy we’re desperate to see exit the White House in 08
By Emil Lawton, July 18, 2007 at 8:37 pm # Don’t sell Boyarsky short. I have followed his work for years. He may have his biases, but I have never seen them influence his reporting of the facts as he sees them. Consequently, I will not writeoff McCain just yet. Just consider him badly wounded.
By john crandell, July 18, 2007 at 4:04 pm # Why all of the head scratching? Psychologists As reward for his brown nose, perhaps the candidate will be anointed from on high. Perhaps it was all arranged years ago. If Big Dick should abdicate during the next nine months, who would Shrub nominate as replacement?
By politicalbrew.org, July 18, 2007 at 2:59 pm # The country should know that Arizonan’s don’t see McCain as fit to be senator. A recall campaign is being led against him currently.
By Chaseme, July 18, 2007 at 12:58 pm # Don’t worry John, bush and cheney doesn’t plan to leave office...I’m sure they can continue to use your “dementia praecox” approach to politics during their next term in office.
By Paul O'Curry, July 18, 2007 at 11:48 am # Sadly ..McCain is a coward. Anyone who let Rove smear his family (bastard black child..drug addicted wife.. ) and watched as Max Cleland was compared to Osama Bin Laden and John Kerry was smeared by Republithugs .. deserves no sympathy. Good riddance.
By THOMAS BILLIS, July 18, 2007 at 11:22 am # Mccain is done stick a fork in him.There is a better chance Bush will be asked to join mensa than Mccains campaign will turn around.
By Skruff, July 18, 2007 at 10:05 am # It’s kinda sad in a way. The only person who thinks McCain has a chance is McCain. Media loves a good fight and they hate technical KO’s so they prop up the quixotic campaings in hopes that there will be a more colorful end>but> they know he’s toast. McCain’s time passed in the Carolina’s when he allowed the Bush spin machine to push-poll him out of that race. Get yourself a room in a life-care center John.
By DennisD, July 17, 2007 at 7:00 pm # Bill - enough of this crap, McCain is a political corpse. If these are the only type of articles you can “dig” up put your shovel away and spare us all any more future non-stories. Thanks in advance.
By Quy Tran, July 17, 2007 at 2:02 pm # Dear Sen. McCain, You should give in your ambition to become the next candidate for presidency so you could save a lot of money. The senatorial status was a little bit overqualified.
By tyler, July 17, 2007 at 12:09 pm # The further mccain gets from the whitehouse, the better. He’s even scarrier than bush to me, because at least bush has a team of ‘handlers’. Mccain just seems like he doesn’t have much of a clue about anything. To be able to jest about bombing iran should be a pretty good sign of that. I think he should just ‘go, go, go… go, go, away!’ Add Your Comment |
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Newsroom Carnage Continues at The Washington Post
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