Poll: McCain Wins 'Decisive Leader'

NewsMax ^ | April 9, 2008 | Dick Morris & Eileen McGann

[2ndDivisionVet]

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 prevailed in these categories:

Cares about the needs of people like you (66 percent to 54 percent)

Shares your values (51 percent to 46 percent)

Understands the problems Americans face in their daily lives (67 percent to 55 percent)

McCain prevailed in these categories:

Is a strong, decisive leader (56 percent to 69 percent)

Is honest and trustworthy (63 percent to 67 percent)

Can manage the government efficiently (48 percent to 60 percent)

The following categories ended in a statistical tie:

Has a clear plan for solving the country’s problems

Has a clear vision for the country’s future

Would work well with both parties in Washington to get things done

Is someone you would be proud to have as president

So Obama won in the categories of traditional Democrats (and females): virtues of understanding problems and caring about people. McCain won in the usual categories for Republicans (and males): 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 re-election 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-Qaida? 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.

[2ndDivisionVet]

Everything from Dick Morris, especially advice, should come with a big grain of salt.

[se_ohio_young_conservative]

He is still very intresting and has very intresting things to say.

[infantrywhooah]

He sure was decisive enough about amnesty for illegals. The only reason I will vote for him is the alternatives are unspeakable; an ultraliberal racist and a megalomaniac, pathologically lying Marxist

[apocalypto]

Whatever, Senator John McCain is sure to lose and lose big. he has no chance.

[farlander]

Don’t think so - I think it is McCain’s to lose. Both of the Dem’s have critical and very exploitable faults.

[HappyinAZ]

Nope...McCain will win...and it’s a good thing....the country can’t survive Hillary or Obama.

[isrul]

So it comes down to what people value. someone who cares shares and understands vs. a decisive, trustworthy manager. It's a lot easier to sell the former. especially to the gullible masses aka those all important independents.

[harpo11]

***"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."***

Something is bothering me about this Ayers guy, and I will probably get flamed for mentioning it, but the question of his association with Obama because they are neighbors and their children go to the same school, and because some foundation, the Wood Foundation, don't know what that is either, appointed both Ayers and Obama to the board, and Ayers is a professor at an Illinois University, isn't Ayers associating with a lot of people, hired and paid to instruct college students, so doesn't that give this Ayers person some notion that he is acceptable in happy juiced liberal land by many people?

I'm sure the Clintons have associated with some of the same people in liberal/socialist circles, but are being given a pass on their associations.

Heck, today on Sean Hannity's Radio Program he was actually laughing at the Clintons for their duplicity in the manner in which one Clinton is for one thing and the other Clinton is against it, and one of them is getting paid for their influence, access, and who knows what kind of other donations are being made to his library and/or foundation. His laughter reminded me of when the Clintons were co-presidents and how the MSM would marvel at them for running circles around Republicans. Now the Conservative Talk Show Host is the one laughing.

Frankly, what the Clintons are doing and getting away with stinks like a cess pool.

[harpo11]

***"Whatever,Senator John McCain is sure to lose and lose big. he has no chance."***

apocalypto, he had better have a chance, or we are all in for a very rough and turbulent ride for the next four years of socialistic hell.