This morning I read the entire NY Times and took an hour to monitor the cable news programs, and all are loaded with the same question: 'what did John McCain do wrong?' Read on, the answer might be simpler than you think!
[Excuse the length of my chat!]
Murphy says Davis screwed things up, Davis said Murphy is a jerk and he should go away, and everyone is pointing fingers on who drove the Palin choice. "Where did the McCain campaign go wrong?" dominates the news cycles, and today's polling numbers with double-digit positives for Obama in all the key swing states are astonisihing. The real question is not being addressed: What is Obama doing that's right? We'll get to that in a minute.
But on the subject of McCain running a bad and wrong campaign, I have a strong sense that the campaign is not the problem. McCain is the problem! No campaign, not even one designed by Obama for example, could hide the fact that McCain is the wrong man at the wrong time. I will follow Joe Biden's advice here and not question McCain's motives - wise, because I have no idea what they really are. But McCain's shallowness, lack of core beliefs that he can make others share, his obvious venality -- going for the cheap shot, the momentary advantage, following out lines of argrument that are manifestly false and based on lies -- all this is right on the surface of almost any perception of the McCain effort, and that especially includes his choice of Mrs. Palen - a younger and female version of exactly who McCain has turned out to be. Neither of them has any real political philosophy or valid intellectual or spiritual qualification to be the Nation's leaders, and the long hard campaign has brought that right out into the light of day. It ain't the campaign, folks, it's the candidates that are no damn good, are out of joint and out of synch with American today -- and know not the truth.
In the face of that almost any decent Democrat could win, you say? Well, maybe so; that's not an unreasonable view. Obama, however, is the most logical candidate of all those the Democrats had to consider, it turns out, because he exactly fits the bill of what the majority of Americans think they want, and want badly: a totally new broom to clean up the mess, but at the same time an honest compound of traditional values with the strength and ability to respond to needed change.
Remember your college speech classes? You probably learned that Aristotle and Cicero, the originators of public speaking and political oratory, showed there are three basic elements to be used in persuading people to your view, to move them to action. These are: Logical proof (facts), emotional proof (appealing to your emotional values), and ethical proof (who you are and your motives and believability). Just think about that for a minute -- I find that Obama perfectly fits all three modes, all three criteria for a great and successful rhetorician and politician. Very early on he made a rational decision, based on factual information, about what Americans need and want -- and he has calmly stayed with his core principles. He has an attractive, warm and moderate personality, and it helps him inspire confidence. And he has just a touch of 'magic,' maybe that's not the word - let's call it a touch of sincerity and the appeal of someone with good and generous intent, and he's able to inspire people understand that about himself. I don't think you can assign any of those virtues to McCain -- he's all tricks and purple smoke, bad rhetoric, confusion and suspicion. I don't trust McCain and I doubt that many of you reading these words do either. So, truly, it's not the campaign that is at fault, it's the Republican candidates themselves who are inadequate. They are a backward-looking bunch of hacks, and they are not going to win.
"The biggest landslide since Lyndon Johnson in 1964," suggested pollster John Harris this morning -- yes! Don't you feel it? I do! May God keep the man safe and bless him in his family mission today. I want him home safe and sound to do America's work.
jim/santa fe