Posted on 09/29/2008 10:01:17 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
John McCain isn't dead in the water. But he sure is dying. He lost the debate and the polls are dismal. Gallup has him down 50-42. Rasmussen has Obama ahead 50-44. And both polls are only partially after the debate. Obama won the debate. When the polls come in fully after the debate, the picture won't get any prettier for those of us who favor McCain.
His gambit of suspending his campaign and going to Washington has failed because he did not think it through adequately or correlate it with what was happening in Congress. The Republicans teed up a perfect shot for him. He took the bat but went back to the dugout without even swinging. McCain should have gone into the debate challenging Obama on his $700 billion taxpayer bailout of financial institutions. He should have pushed the Republican alternative. He could have said, plain and simple, that Obama wants to make Americans pay for $700 billion in bad mortgages and McCain wants to make businesses pay for their own bailout through loans and insurance premiums. It would have been a straight shot. But McCain copped out and mumbled something about the deal being the "end of the beginning" and said he hoped to vote for the bailout. It was a failure that may have cost him his best shot at the presidency.
But not his only shot. McCain can still win.
He needs to deploy the tax issue. His campaign has to stop the scattershot web ads and focus instead on a sustained attack on Obama's plans for tax increases. Stop the pinpricks and go for the jugular. It is only through the tax issue that McCain can win this campaign.
Voters understand that our economy is vulnerable and teetering on the brink of a black hole. McCain needs to capitalize on this new sense of vulnerability and hammer away at the Obama tax proposals. He needs to say that our system is starving for capital. Raising capital gains taxes, much less doubling it as Obama proposed during the primaries (but now is trying to backtrack), is like taxing water in the desert. McCain has to talk about Obama's spending proposals and mock the idea that he can spend a trillion and still give "95% of Americans" a tax increase.
McCain should take a page out of the playbook of the endgame of the Bush 1992 campaign. With Bill Clinton holding a solid lead, Bush was reluctant to attack him for his record of tax increases, especially given his violation of his 1988 "read my lips" pledge not to raise taxes. So the campaign sent Vice President Dan Quayle out to attack Clinton, day after day, for raising taxes. And the results were clear in the polls. Bush gained each day and, four days before Election Day, Bush took a lead over Clinton in the tracking polls. Clinton was saved by the announcement by Iran Contra Special Prosecutor Lawrence Walsh that he was planning to indict Cap Weinberger, Bush's Defense Secretary. Clinton surged ahead and won the election. But the tax issue had almost reversed his lead in the polls.
If McCain pounds away at taxes, taxes, taxes he can still win this election. By tying the Obama tax plans to the possibility of massive depression, he can pull this out.
Remember: Whenever we raised taxes amidst a downturn, we triggered a massive falloff. It was the tax increases of the early 30s that worsened the Great Depression and it was Bush's 1990 tax increase that created the 1991 recession that cost him his job. America understands that we can't raise taxes now. American grasps that Obama will not just raise taxes on a handful of rich people but will raise them on everybody. And we understand that Obama has no real answer to this charge. McCain just needs to begin to make this central attack his campaign theme from now on.
go suck toes, Dickie....you're a tool.
He is saying stop reaching across the aisle, My Friend, and clobber 0bama over taxes.
He also said grab the Republicans plan and Drill Obubba with it!
Dick talks a good talk, but I’ve noticed over the years that he’s usually wrong in his predictions, more often than not! I seem to remember him predicting that W didn’t have much of a chance in 2004 (probably saw him on Hannity) due to Kerry’s popularity and look what happened.
Hey, maybe his talent is predicting the OPPOSITE of what is actually going on. If so, then this is spot on! /sarc
I think Morris is right, the Youtube stuff is fine, but after awhile, you have to get serious, enough with the under the radar campaign.
Obama is hanging there waiting to be busted like a pinata on Cap Gains taxes, McCain is dicking around to much.
I do like putting Gov Palin on talk radio, that is a good start, but it is not enough, but Obama’s hand on everyone’s wallets and in their gun cabinets and things will improve.
If I recall correctly, Clinton was saved by Ross Perot. Of course, Iran-Contra didn't help.
Drill Obubba. Drill Here and Drill Now!
Raising capital gains taxes, much less doubling it as Obama proposed during the primaries (but now is trying to backtrack), is like taxing water in the desert.
Regain the offensive, starting with Gov Palin on Thurs, and hammer both Obama and Biden as tax and spend liberals. Make them defend it.
Because they can’t.
Morris is right on the money. McCain blew the trip to Washington. We all know it. He also may have won the second half of the debate but for the independents he did not win them over. McCain had opportunity after opportunity. He could’ve brought up the bill he sponsored to reform Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. He could’ve did so much and on the economic question which I’m sure everyone agrees is the important question right at this moment he failed. Not in my eyes but in the eyes of the body nonpolitic. We need someone to talk to McCain and tell him to get with it. Letting the Democrats be out there attacking and attacking getting away with murder is stupid. He should’ve learned from Bush. You can not play the game that way and win long term. The pity vote isn’t big enough.
McCain is putting what he believes is good for the country ahead of political expediency. As a guy who worked for both Bill Clinton and Trent Lott it’s probably a foreign concept to Dick.
Governor Palin is *ahem* rather more effective than Dan Quayle (God Bless him, btw). McCain needs to set Governr Palin free to do to Obama what Jesse Jackson said he wanted to do...Unleash the Pit Bull!
Dick is right on this. I don’t think the polls are going to get much worse though. That is one disagreement. I imagine the GOP may end up showing an up tick in party id for opposing this bailout. McCain needs to get with it. Getting in and then getting out was a waste. Why in the hell did go to Washington? To volunteer as a pinata? I’m telling you he has regressed back into his Senator mode and he needs to start thinking strategically. What is best for this country is not what Bush is saying and he needs to cut his ties with Bush no matter how much he likes him now. Bush and Paulson put together a stupid plan.
Gov Palin should be out shoring up the Conservatives and Values Voters, she can do that no matter what the debate looks like and it can only help.
Liberals and Media will always despise her so why not send her to “us” and buck us up a bit?
Make your friends stronger as it were.
Dick Morris: he has politics covered from head to toe!
(Thank you I’ll be here all week.)
McCain lost this when he:
1) Put Palin on a few MSM shows rather than numerous talk radio and local TV shows (face it: she brings the base while he brings the moderates, they are running her like she needs to appeal to the moderates...total wasted effort)
2) Focused on earmarks exclusively and failed to hammer the $700B in proposed spending by Congress on a Wall Street bailout.
That is part of it, McCain does not graps base politics though, it eludes him IMO.
Cutesy stuff with Katie Couric means nothing to “us”, a couple of columns at NRO and Townhall or FRepublic would do far far more then a lukewarm interview on C..BS...
Palin should be the Ambassador to Conservatives, not a joint appearance on the Nightly News followed by a cloister in AZ..
Heck yeah, Gov Palin rocks on offense. Let her do her thing. Make Biden explain his own favorable comments about McCain, and defend his own critiques of Obama. Make Biden defend his own tax and spend legacy, his own plagiarism. You’re right, the left hates her no matter what - but the thing is, they hate her primarily because she’s so good on offense; they hate her because they fear her. Unleash the Pit Bull!
Then Obama replies that his tax “cuts” are for the 95% of Americans who ‘didn’t create this mess’ or whatever.
Basically McCain has to call out Obama as being full of crap. Not that I disagree with that assessment, but I’m not sure this is as clear cut as Morris makes it out to be. Obama’s been relatively undefined up to this point. McCain needs to make him prove that he’s not some kind of radical and naive trojan horse for extreme left wing crap.
McCain likes to rail against Wall Street and talk about taking on the ‘Washington crowd’, but he needs to tie it all together. The Dems and their support of Fannie and Freddie is the obvious target. Obviously, ‘Main Street’ America is fed up with this crap. Even when faced with everyone and their dog in DC proclaiming that their investments are about to hit the crapper because of this “crisis”, Americans called their bluff. Americans are ticked off at the lack of accountability in DC and NYC. McCain’s campaign has been all about accountability and reform. I think Bush’s greatest PR problem has been that he is perceived as being perfectly happy with good ol’ timey crony government and business. McCain should take this on full bore. He’s been the one who has taken on any and everyone who he feels has not served the public interest.
The problem is, McCain is in favor of the bailout. The bailout is seen as yet another example of Main Street getting screwed over by Wall Street and DC.
Maybe the path is simple. People know John McCain. They really don’t know Barack Obama. Who can you trust at this moment in history? The old, grizzled patriot who spent 5 years in a Vietnamese hellhole or the young, smooth talking cipher without a history and with a lot of questions?
McCain needs to play up and not shy away from his disagreements with the Washington establishment, and that begins with Bush.
Obama as a big government, tax and spender is not a bad course to take, but I don’t think it’s the miracle cure. With McCain’s ties to the party with an unpopular president in power, he has to sell himself as the real deal, the steady hand you want at the helm in the moment of crisis, rather than the unknown who could turn out to be a rabid ideologue who will impose his radical views on America if given the chance with a complicit Congress.
And for God sakes, take on Pelosi, Frank, Reid, and Schumer, by name. Run against the incompetent, foolhardy Congressional Democrats who got us into this mess. Screw the phony marshmellow bipartisanship.
Bush as a 30% approval rating and Congress has a 10% approval rating. Run against both.
Exactly, throw us a bone out here!
I think McCain does not understand synergistic movement, supposedly McCain has 90% of Republican support, I tend to question that as the spread 50-42% would include Republicans.
Let Gov Palin write a column here or on Townhall on Obama’s attempt to have those NRA commercials pulled, the reaction would be tremendous and it would take very little time for her to write it.
McCain’s campaign car is in the ditch, the wheels are spinning, but he isn’t going anywhere. He’s just gunning the motor. He isn’t going to admit he drove into the ditch.
Today McCain reminded me of Bob Dole—not the Senator, but the Presidential Candidate. Not a good thing, for you young folks.
My new name McCain is McCobain (after Kurt Cobain). He comitted political suicide and shot himself in the political head. He’s done.
Suspending the campaign was loading the shotgun. Supported a $700 billion bail was the blow to the head. He can not and should not recover from this. He lost my vote today (I though about voting for Bob Barr but someone here convinced me it was not a good idea. I think I’ll write in Mike Pence or Thaddeus McCotter.)
Poor Sarah Palin. What a mistake she made by alligning herself with this fool. I just pray she doens’t go back Alaska with her career in ruins after a landslide defeat.
You need a tune up car guy.
Go after, Obamanation, please.
Hit him hard on ALL his lies and gaffes.
Read and weep , its a SET UP by Obama and nancy !
G the defeatist circle jerk has their own thread. Just use the search box. Just so you know.
Hey, you don’t have to convince me. Thinking McCain is ineffective doesn’t mean I like that reptile Pelosi.
I’ve been reading these discussions about McCain tonight and I am getting really depressed and frustrated. I’m depressed most b/c I LOVE Sarah Palin and the future she brings to conservatives (notice I do not say Republicans) and I feel like his chances of winning this thing are going down the tubes.
Dick Morris, Karl Rove, and Newt are all right on with what McCain has to do. He blew it on Friday, but still can recover if he would just get behind the House GOP and help to craft and support a better bill that the American people want. No more of this vague crap like I saw in his statement earlier today. Go for the knock out, just attack Obama on his checkered past associations, his outrageous tax increases that no one wants, and continue to distance himself from Bush. This has been set up so perfectly. Please don’t blow it John, I have not always been you’re biggest fan, but I cannot stand the thought of Obama for 4+ years. Plus, I want Sarah in there by your side, ready to lead us in 4-8 years. Please don’t screw this up!!!
Let’s listen carefully to what Dick says . . . and do the opposite. Because Dick is always, always wrong.
I knew that vote was a scam. The entire SF bay nutters voted against the bill !
I have no proof of this, but I bet her stupid, STUPID comments simply prodded the little voice in the Republicans' heads to say "I TOLD you so!" and they decided to vote against.
It astonishes me that the Libs in the press manage to damn Bush for bailing out "the fat cats on Wall Street" AND damn the Republicans for NOT bailing out the same without missing a breath--AND they don't even point out that Barney Frank is at the heart of this whole thing, yet he is being spun as the savior of the middle class. When his only concern is the poor who vote (and, of course, his gay constituents in my home state).
What a mess this thing is, but I am so glad the Republicans are, at the very least, putting the breaks on this unbelivable powergrab by the very people who caused this disaster.
I think McCain should start hammering with the word
TRUST
and I think he should stop talking so much about “earmarks” because the word itself sounds so “inside Washington”. . .
better to use regular people words like needless spending or waste or something.
Morris is right.
I can smell it and I can see the fear on the faces of folks I respect in the media.
McCain better get on it and go negative and quit talking about how great he is.
John...remember South Carolina 2000?
Did you not learn anything when it was done to you?
Don’t be so effing senatorial...they all suck anyhow.
know why you “guys” have a problem with Dick’s article. Although I don’t always agree with him, I think he’s spot on here. Obama bin Biden WILL raise taxes. McCain and Palin need to drum this ENDLESSLY AND the campaign also needs to re-up the attack Obam-uh’s “friends” (Ayers, Rezko, Wright, etc).
I’m not sure what happened, but my post SHOULD have started with:
“I don’t”
John McCain needs to start by not calling all these effen tools on the left his friends. They ain’t interested in seeing him in the White House. Not a single one has said a decent thing about him. They’re either mocking the fact he can’t salute a flag or use a computer, or reminding us he’s got skin cancer.
I like the way you think, or attack, as it were. I would also add his extreme views on abortion into the mix and make him defend those. He can’t. McCain needs to have an energy plan and get off this Climate Change nonsense. Drill on the coasts and in Alaska, more refineries, CNG for transportation, Coal to Diesel and Nuclear Recyclers. Make the Rats and Obama flip-flop to our side or force them to take an unpopular position. He needs to remind voters of the legislation he sponsored that might have prevented this crisis.
He needs to cling to allies in the House. They need to come up with a different plan and throw it into the rat’s faces. He should bailout on the bailout ASAP. He needs to remind Americans what the economy was like before they gave the House and Senate to the Rats. He needs to fight, and fight now, and unleash Sarah Palin. What the hell is he waiting for?
For whatever it's worth?
You're right.
Dick is obviously schizophrenic and needs help.
I can’t believe that after the “I’ve got a bracelet too” routine anyone could feel BO won the debate. That should have been a big enough turn off. In 2008 our media has trained most of the electorate that this callousness towards our volunteers who have given the ultimate sacrifice is acceptable.
Morris is pretty much in retirement now and trying to keep his taxes low on investments and earnings. Why do people keep publishing his stuff as though it’s political advice?
“Poor Sarah Palin. What a mistake she made by alligning herself with this fool.”
I don’t know that it’s that drastic and final yet, but I posted here a few times that it might not be a good move for Palin or Jindal to associate themselves with McCain. It could end their possibilities in national politics rather than boost them.
I called his suspension of the campaign last week showboating and it looks more and more like that was the case, despite the many attempts at spin. He didn’t do a damned thing he couldn’t have done without all the concocted drama and showboating.
Maybe things will turn around, but who ever thought McCain was the best candidate? A good candidate would have destroyed this poser named Obama. He’s the most unqualified candidate in decades, but McCain isn’t much better.
Bush pulled ahead of Clinton at one point in 1992? I do not remember that at all. It did get a little close in the final days but I can’t recall a single poll showing Clinton behind. I would like to hear Dick’s sources on that. Maybe it was the candidates’ own inside polling. Does he think Bush would have won had it not been for the Weinberger indictment? Hard to believe that many millions of votes would have turned around but I guess it is possible. Some of Clinton’s states, including OH, were close wins.
Unfortunately this campaign has kind of a 1992 feel to it. The media are creating that feeling of inevitability for their golden child 0bama. Now the electorate is even more dumbed down and willing to accept the nice sounding platitudes. It’s not only discouraging for this election. It should make us very fearful for the future of our nation when people make their decisions based on emotion and vapid sound bites.
I hate to disagree with tricky Dick (actually no I don’t) but McCain did not lose that debate. I stopped reading there.
Unleash the Pit Bull!...
...I keep seeing this sentiment being tossed about by conservatives...exactly what does that entail? What exactly is unleashing Palin going to do? What does it even mean? Sure, any politician would love to make controversial remarks, but such action would redound to that person’s detriment...especially in Palin’s case, being such a newcomer and demonstrably deficient in a number of areas, she’d be eaten alive for the fodder she’d produce with an all out attack...
G the defeatist circle jerk has their own thread...
...what’s the problem...you scared of a little debate on a subject? People with a different point of view from yours need to go elsewhere? Such courage...
“Dick talks a good talk, but I’ve noticed over the years that he’s usually wrong in his predictions, more often than not!”
And yet he still gets paid handsomely for being wrong.
Same with that Shrumm guy.
I’m right more often than these guys.
Maybe somebody could start paying me silly sums of money to spout off without worrying about getting it right.
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