What if McCain knows what he's doing?

American Thinker ^ | October 07, 2008 | Charlie Martin

[vietvet67]

Sometimes, if I'm puzzled by someone's actions, I like to ask myself "if he's really smarter than I am, why would he be doing what he's doing?"

You can learn a lot that way.  Unfortunately, the American Chattering Classes often operate on the opposite assumption: "if I don't see the point of this, that other guy must be an idiot."

As a case study, let's consider the McCain campaign in the month since my piece on McCain's apparent use of the OODA loop was published here in American Thinker.  God knows it's been a rough month: after the rush of the Palin selection, we had a couple of disappointing experiences with major media interviews, and worse -- much worse -- we had the credit market freeze and the fight to get a rescue package working.

Of course, then we had the Vice Presidential debate, which certainly restored a certain amount of respect for Sarah Palin.  (It must have: there has been another flood of Palin rumors.)  But then we had some more inexplicable actions on the part of McCain's campaign: the announcement that they intended to get tough on Obama... real soon.  The announcement that they were pulling out of Michigan ... or were they?  The Michigan GOP didn't like it, and Sarah Palin said to send her and her husband.   It became clear McCain didn't exactly have complete control of the moose-hunting governor.

Following shortly after that announcement, the New York Times published a piece on Obama's association with William Ayers, describing Obama's association with the "60's bomber". The article argued, not very successfully, that there wasn't much of a connection.  (It was timed perfectly to appear shortly after the first hints of McCain using the topic.)

Then the Obama campaign started to talk about the Keating Five, a topic that Obama had previously suggested wasn't very interesting.

The Palin rumor mill pumped up a visiting Kenyan preacher who apparently was a "witch hunter" in his village in Africa.  This preacher, in a single visit to Palin's church three years ago, prayed for God's blessing and protection on Palin.

What followed?  Now Ayers was a topic in the mainstream press; when Sarah Palin attacked Obama on the association, she did so referring to the New York Times story.  When the issue of Obama's connections to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac came up, it came up only after the Obama campaign had already brought up the Keating Five -- and, of course, it happened that just about then, another of the Keating Five was introducing Bruce Springsteen at an Obama fundraiser. 

Now that the topic of Palin's religious connections has come up, well,  the Rev. Wright story had shown us Obama wasn't lacking in peculiar religious connections -- and, while McCain had refused to use it during the late primary, Palin brought it up. She had already established that she wasn't always going to do exactly what McCain wanted when she argued against the Michigan pullout.

Suddenly, Monday, McCain is pulling no punches: in a talk in Albuquerque, he brought up the Ayers association, just as Sarah had; he brought up the issue of Obama's association with so many figures who seem to have been at the heart of the credit crisis; he asked the questions people had been pushing for weeks in the GOP blogosphere.  Questions like "What has Obama accomplished?  What were his relationships to Ayers and other radicals?  Why is he so secretive about his past?"

In every case, we see that the McCain campaign had telegraphed the topic, then waited for the Obama campaign (or the mainstream media).  They reliably would then bring out the defenses, making them topics that McCain could then explore.

In the last four weeks of the campaign, McCain is bringing up topics that are weaknesses for Obama, having stood up to the repeated attacks.  We go into the "town hall meeting" debate tonight, a forum that shows McCain to best advantage, with a new and combative McCain, armed with topics that are now on everyone's minds, having conserved his resources effectively, and after months of record-breaking Republican National Committee fundraising.  What's more, he's doing so at a time when Obama's resources are strained, and his fundraising is under scrutiny.

It's never good to make predictions about anything in this race, but I think there's one prediction that we can make without fear: the campaign isn't done yet, and we can expect surprises.

For those of us on McCain's side, I suspect they will be good surprises.

[jokemoke]

What if McCain knows what he’s doing?

Imagine that!

[Tax-chick]

He blew by Maria Schriver like a bull in a china closet.

Hey, I've got to like him for that.

[AFreeBird]

But this is a situation where you have to pull out all the stops on third and long.

More like what Peyton Manning and the Colts did this past weekend.

Pull their chestnuts out of the fire; 17 down with 5 minutes left in the game, and win by four.

[Balding_Eagle]

What if McCain knows what he's doing?

Not possible.

I know, I read FR. He's a doofus.

[pctech]

ping for later

[petercooper]

bttt

[ODDITHER]

He needs to pull another Palin out of the hat. No pressure or anything Senator McCain, but a loss tonight is a loss for America forever. Our very foundation of government is at risk.

I just keep thinking about 1994. The Mainstream media had the Dems picking up seats and at the very least maintaining their numbers. Judy Woodruff’s face that night was priceless as loss after loss was reported.

I think I am confident that if given the facts Americans do not vote for marxists. However - there is so much corruption in the voting system and he is so well organized that I am not sure that stealing the election isn’t in the cards.

[HamiltonJay]

The fact that Fauxbama is at a financial and tactical disadvantage is being largely ignored by pundents and the press.

He turned down matching funds, so he’s relying totally on donations, and most of that is coming from the left, so he’s finding himself at a fiscal disadvantage, and tactically he can’t move too far to the right without risking loss of funding by his backers. Fauxbama is in a bad place going into the end of this race folks, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

McCain is going to open up with both barrels, and all those questions that Fauxbama’s been dodging he’s going to have to deal with, and he’s going to fall apart like he always has when these topics have come up, only now, he can’t get away with it.

Bloods in the water, the press is smelling it, and as much as they want to prop up the guy, individual desires for pulitzers and such are going to outway political loyalties once the feeding frenzy begins.

[AngelesCrestHighway]

“I’m not sure if it shows that I am surrounded by those who are equally smart or equally stupid, but either way, it’s nice to be surrounded by one’s peers. :)”......

At least equally independent thinkers....

[Antoninus]

Whatever his faults, Johnny Mac is not stupid and he has some smart people working for him.

He's also tenacious and a fighter. The only people worrying are those who wring their hands at the first sign of opposition. McCain and Palin aren't such people.

No one said this would be easy. If we want to win, we've got to work for it!

[fightinJAG]

From your lips to God’s ears!

[Frank Sheed]

Maybe I’m tired. Maybe I just want this course to be over.

I listened to a few minutes of the debate last night and fell asleep. One old man was speaking and the other was a bloviating blowhard similar to one I’ve heard before.

I fear that OODA loop is a brand of jelly you put on “toast.”

F

[TexanToTheCore]

I think he does know what he is doing. Many of the naysayers on this board feel that they have full information on what is going on in this election and the fact is, they do not.

Internal polling is frequently different and much more accurate than the public polls and they move on based upon the internal polling, not the public polls.

John McCain was careful in what he said last night which leads me to believe that the internal polls are showing a different situation than we are seeing in the press.

Just a reminder, most of the public polls showed a dead heat two days before before Reagan smashed Jimmy Carter. Obvioulsy cooked polls in that instance, and I don’t perceive that anything has changed in the intervening years.

[vietvet67]

Agree.

If the media is cooked then we can assume that Obama’s favorable polling numbers are too..

[Tax-chick]

I hope you feel better soon.

[Guenevere]

bttt

[GBA]

I have to think he's learned a lot since then. Besides, how cool would you act if you knew you were going to win. There are several story lines slowly converging, just in time for the election. Not just the economic crisis story which Obama is tied to, there are the raids on ACORN in several states, Rezko appears to be making a deal, the Ayers connection has become too impossible to ignore, Jerome Corsi, author of The Obama Nation: Leftist Politics and the Cult of Personality, was detained in Kenya, which means more will read the book, the large foreign campaign donations that are raising questions and more and more.

I don't agree with McCain on several issues and wanted someone else to be the nominee, but I very much respect him. For such an easy target as Obama, I'm starting to believe that McCain's working to a well timed missile and gun lock Obama and his campaign to shoot them down on election day. If he does it right, the corruption on the left will be impossible to miss and even for the msm. We all see it from here.