Posted on 10/15/2008 9:12:55 AM PDT by Reagan Man
Oct. 15, 2008 | BLUE BELL, Pa. -- Yes, America, there is yet another new John McCain on the campaign trail now, after yet another campaign "reset" over the weekend (albeit one that didn't involve any melodramatic suspensions). This one promises to fight, and he pounds the podium as he says, "Yes, we will," a slogan that sounds strangely familiar. The new McCain, though, appears to have some of his supporters pining for the old version, the one who would bring up Bill Ayers and challenge his opponent's character more directly, asking, conspiratorially, "Who is Barack Obama?"
You know, the McCain from last week.
A day before the final presidential debate of the year -- and three weeks before Election Day -- McCain's campaign still seems to be struggling to figure out how to regain momentum in a race that, for him, has gone south faster than a retiree with a ticket to Florida. (That is, if the retiree still has any savings left to head south with.) McCain himself is sticking to a kindler, gentler stump speech that only impugns Obama's policies, not his personality, and his rallies are more carefully controlled by the campaign -- at least in part because polling found voters were starting to turn away from McCain, rather than Obama, because of McCain's sharp tone.
But aides haven't given up on the notion that voters would revolt against the Democrat if they only knew whom he's been hanging out with. "Obama did pal around with a terrorist," McCain staffer Michael Goldfarb wrote on the campaign's blog Tuesday, in a post that was also e-mailed to reporters. McCain's weird "Ambition" ad, with its campaign-finance-dictated leap from Ayers to "congressional liberals" (because its cost was split between McCain's campaign and the Republican National Committee), is still running all over the place; nearly all of McCain's TV ads are attacking Obama in similar fashion. And a day after McCain debuted his retooled stump speech, and only a few days after he rebuked his own supporters for taking anti-Obama vitriol past where McCain wanted it to be, he also promised the old McCain -- last week's McCain -- would make an appearance at Wednesday night's debate, with an attempt to highlight Ayers.
Which would be just fine with McCain's supporters who came out to see him Tuesday. "Who you associate with speaks volumes to what you believe," said Meggie Roddin, who owns a healthcare placement business in Norristown, Pa. "And Barack Obama has associated with people who clearly have indicated by their words and their actions that they are not for America. They are against America." Another supporter, Anne Matthews, a chemist from Jeffersonville, Pa., said she wanted McCain's whole speech to slam Obama. "I'm hoping to hear a good solid backup of why Obama is not what we need, of what's wrong with him and what he'll do to my child's future, and what he'll take from my parents and the contempt that that man has for the people in this room," she said. "The picture is there if you want to hear it, but I think [McCain] needs to drill it home."
Just then, a McCain campaign staffer came over to the fence that separated the press from the supporters and interrupted our conversation. "I'm sorry, guys, we're not actually -- we don't actually do interviews before or during the event, we do them after," she said. A volunteer had already chastised me for talking to another supporter, and shooed me down the fence to an area that seemed out of the way, and now the staffer was confirming the "no talking" policy. "If we let one person do that, then we have to let everyone, and it gets a little hectic, and we have to keep these areas clear," she said. "I'm sorry." (Of course, it turned out there wasn't time to go find people after the event, either, as the campaign quickly herded the national press onto a bus back to Philadelphia, pulling out so fast they accidentally left two reporters behind.)
That may be a new measure introduced by the campaign to reduce incidents of embarrassment-by-voter. Sometimes, in the presence of the media, the GOP base lashes out at McCain for not hammering Obama hard enough, which happened last week in Minnesota and Wisconsin. Sometimes the base lashes out at Obama in ways that make McCain and Palin look bad. On Tuesday, at a Palin rally north of here in Scranton, another McCain-Palin supporter called for the death of Barack Obama. In Blue Bell, unwilling to take a chance on off-message signs, the campaign distributed prefab ones for supporters to hold up, with bland slogans like, "Go McCain," "The maverick" and "Drill!" The crowd booed Obama, but no one seemed to yell out anything particularly nasty. For the second day in a row, an event billed as a town hall turned out to be just a speech, where McCain supporters couldn't take the mike and call Obama an Arab; this one was dominated by fairly detailed policy proposals on the economy. (That did produce the bizarre spectacle of the crowd fervently cheering McCain's plans to increase the amount of capital losses you can deduct on your taxes and to eliminate taxes on unemployment benefits -- which would surely only draw cheers in an economy as lousy as ours is now.)
But it's not clear the new McCain -- call it McCain version 2.2, since he already restarted his campaign last summer, then twice suspended it this fall in response to a hurricane and the economic collapse -- will resonate better with voters than the old one did. "I'm not as skeptical of this particular reset message as I am skeptical of the fact that it's about his 10th reset message over the last four months," said one Republican consultant who worked for a McCain rival in the primaries but supports McCain now. "Presidential campaigns are won with a devotion to the methodical, and unfortunately, this campaign is just a nonstop compilation of distractions about the trivial."
It's also not clear which tone McCain will try to take in the debate Wednesday night at Hofstra University. His promise to bring up Ayers -- apparently because Obama goaded him into it -- doesn't bode well for a high-minded discussion of the economy, the stated topic for the final debate. McCain is cramming in far more prep time for these encounters than he ever did in the primaries (when aides actually stopped prepping ahead of time and switched to town hall meetings on debate days instead), which some supporters worry may not be helping him. The format of this debate, where both Obama and McCain will be seated at a table with the moderator, CBS' Bob Schieffer, ought to make harsh attacks even more awkward than in the last two debates -- he would be ripping the head off of a man with whom he's supposed to be sitting and having a faux-civil conversation.
McCain, in fact, is particularly bad at the sitting-and-having-a-polite-chat thing. In January, at a Republican debate in California, he taunted and mocked Mitt Romney all night, sitting right next to him at a table in the Reagan Presidential Library; the spectacle was enough to make you feel bad for Romney, who isn't the world's most sympathetic figure. Obama's advisors, looking ahead to the evening, don't believe that McCain will be able to conceal his contempt for his opponent, and expect his reactions -- while Obama and McCain are both in the same TV shot -- to repel independent voters who dislike negativity.
The problem for McCain, of course, is that if he doesn't swing for the fences, he will have lost what's almost certainly his last, best chance to change the dynamic of the election. All Obama needs to do is maintain the steady performance he showed at the first two debates -- even a tie, in an election where polls show Obama is on the verge of a national landslide, would help him. A good rule, for anyone scoring at home, might be this: If you find yourself bored while watching the debate, Obama is probably winning. But for McCain, a lot of fireworks, if he deploys them badly, might turn out to mean the same thing.
I fear nice, mild Johnny will show up ans speak in hushed tones about how he is bipartisan and reaches across the isle to foster cooperation. What I was is ass kickin’ and name takin’ Fighter Pilot John.
When did the RNC use the Bob Dole strategy again? It did not work against Clinton and will not work against Clinton++.
I think the McCain surrender weenie will show up tonight.....and I don’t like that result. If he is not willing to fight against what 0bama stands for, he has basically given up his shot for the office.....
See my tagline.
McCain promised to “kick his you-know-what” and to bring up Ayers. What happens if, just like in the last debate, conservative pundits and writers don’t feel that McCain has “kicked you-know-what” and what if the Ayers comment is disjointed and looks irrelevant to the question asked by the moderator?
I have not been impressed by McCain, the debater, but I am even less impressed by his penchant to constantly raise expectations for a great, overpowering debate performance, expectations so high that he can almost assuredly not deliver on them? Keep expectations ultra-low, then come out swinging and surprise everybody. Now everybody is going to look for kick-you-know-what fireworks and feel cheated again when the debate format does not allow for a lot, if any, of that.
Why does it matter?? Seen the headlines for tomorrow??
“Obama clear winner in final presidential debate”
“Obama dunks McCain at debate”
“McCain erractic at presidential debate”
“McCain fails to meet Luntz’s focus group expectations”
Need more? You know its coming.
Also see mine for more than the 2 yrs.
I, too, agree with you....
If McCain is smart he won’t bring up Ayres. He should only talk about if the moderator specifically asks him about Ayres.
He should should bring up the plumber and robbing Peter to help Paul out.
He should also, ask Obama exactly how he plans to pay for all his new projects while only raising taxes on those making $240,000 or more.
He needs to give specifics on how his plan is better than Obamas.
How much do you want to bet that if McCain goes negative he’ll apologize first?
Yeah, the excitement for #3 sure is building, reaching a crescendo, a climatic fever pitch ... stifling yawn
See my daring tagline. (Lugar—Negative. Pence—Yes, yes.)
The difference between strategy and tactics! Woo hoo!
A little bit of Popeye I hope.
Nice!
Can anyone tell me about one law that McCain helped get passed through bi-partisanship that was conservative? He’s never been bi-partisan. He’s simply given in to the democrats.
When the republicans took all three in 2000 he was the one who said they needed co-chairmen to be fair.
You're right but McQueeg is still much better than the alternative.
Everytime Obama opens his mouth, McCain should begin his answer with: “Maybe that’s what Bill Ayres taught you but terrorists.....” Maybe that’s what the Rev Wright taught you but racists ...... “Maybe that what Tony Rezko taught you but criminals.......
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