You’re right, I’m sure, but I doubt the media needs any help. McCain’s nomination is an absolute guarantee that the Democrat wins. He’s a pro-war liberal, and that means he’s not getting elected. Democrats will crawl back to the Clinton trough in November while McCain will cause enough people to stay home.
The case needs to be made to people thinking about “electability” that it’s time to start thinking about what the general election debate is going to look like.
No matter who the Democrat is, they’re going to be talking about the economy, they’re going to be talking about health care.
John McCain can talk about few issues. He is less conversant than even President Bush. McCain can talk about Iraq and the surge. These aren’t going to be big issues, and to the extent that they are, they are going to hurt him specifically. Mitt Romney is supportive of victory every bit as much as McCain is, but he’s based his campaign on other things. The Democrats can’t hang “war hawk” around his neck like they will with McCain. Romney doesn’t rely on hiding behind Ronald Reagan every answer. This is McCain’s tactic. Conflate himself with Ronald Reagan. The problem with this is two-fold. The first, most obvious one is he ain’t Ronald Reagan. The second problem, something Republicans seem to forget, is that the average voter doesn’t care one way or another about Ronald Reagan. The mere mention of his name doesn’t make them tear up. They just say “why is this guy talking about 20 or 30 years ago?”
McCain can’t speak beyond his recycled one line dismissals of universal healthcare, or his answer that the way to strengthen our 14 trillion dollar economy is to cut a couple billion dollars in congressional earmarks.
Romney is extremely conversant on both of these issues, and far more knowledgeable and articulate than McCain. He can explain exactly what the right economic policy is, and why it’s the best. He can give a very detailed plan for expanding health care coverage through the private sector, rather than socialized medicine. He can explain why universal healthcare is bad, rather than just saying it is.
What we need right now is someone who believes in conservative, free market principles who can make the case for them, after 7 years of President Bush feeling he doesn’t need to articulate himself, or just can’t.
Conservatism has taken a hit over the Bush presidency, not just in his policies, but also because he hasn’t advanced it from the bully pulpit. Saying “it’s hard work” over and over is no substitution for that.
And then finally of course, there is the border. McCain has been obfuscating this fact, but he was and still is for amnesty for illegals. He has not changed his position. His endorsement from Mel Martinez and the open-borders establishment in the GOP has reminded us all of that.
We need to remind people of McCain-Kennedy every chance we get, in fact, for now on, we should refer to Senator McCain-Kennedy as Senator McCain-Kennedy.
Every national poll I’ve seen on the subject shows McCain beating Hillary in a general election, just fwiw. Maybe that doesn’t mean much this far out, but it is what it is.