An old man goes to the park to hear the speech, armed with a bushel of rotten tomatoes. When the speech begins, the old man lets fly -- over the head of the orator. His next few missles sail to the right of their mark. Soon, though, the man's age takes its toll, and his lobs fall progressively short. Seeing this, a friend leans over and suggests that it's time to stop. "Stop?" cries the old man. "I've still got tomatoes, and I only have to hit him once."
Let's check McCain's remaining tomato supply.
There are only three fronts on which to wage a Presidential campaign: foreign affairs, domestic affairs, and the personal.
Since foreign affairs had been presumed to be his strength relative to Obama, it's not surprising that McCain has placed special emphasis on this front. In retrospect, of course, calling out Obama on Iraq has turned out to be a spectacularly bad move. Obama's trip, coupled with McCain's gaffes, have turned McCain's perceived strength into, if not a fullblown weakness, at least a tie.
There's precedent for both McCain's tactics and Obama's response. Richard Nixon tried the same tactic as McCain, painting Kennedy as hopelessly naive in foreign affairs. Their flash point was the People's Republic of China, and specifically Quemoy and Matsu. Nixon staked out a more hardline position than Eisenhower on protecting the two island chains, only to find that Kennedy had already promulgated the same position, and articulated it well in their debates. Nixon's gambit, like McCain's, backfired; Kennedy gained foreign affairs credibility.
On foreign affairs, McCain has little left in his bushel. Obama is now in a position to paint McCain as out of touch on Iraq and Afghanistan, and that view has a good chance of sticking. McCain's sole opportunity would come from a mistake by Obama. That's a lousy position to be in against any candidate, but especially against Obama.
On the domestic side, nothing resonates like the economy, though health care and energy come close. Here McCain needs a Hail Mary pass from the Bush Administration. He can't successfully claim that the economy is Obama's fault, though he is trying. What he needs is an economic uptick, and fast.
Unfortunately, it's hard to identify a recession while we're in the beginning of one. Still, most families know when they are affected personally by the economy, Phil Gramm's dumb comment aside. If we're indeed in a recession, history is not kind to McCain. There have been thirteen recessions/depressions since 1929, counting the big one. Every time we have had a national election either during or within 20 months of the end of a recession, the Presidency has switched parties. Those times:
November 1932 -- peak, August 1929; trough, March 1933.
November 1960 -- peak, April 1960; trough, February 1961.
November 1976 -- peak, November 1973; trough, March 1975.
November 1980 -- peak, January 1980; trough, July 1980.
November 1992 -- peak, July 1990; trough, March 1991.
What can McCain do? Try to change the subject, though on health care he's not offering much, and on energy (really a subset of the economy) the market will continue to move pretty independently of any government action or inaction. Obama, as a Democrat trying to replace an incumbent Republican in a bad economy, has had the upper hand all along here. By dropping his opposition to the housing bill, Bush has done a favor for McCain. It remains to be seen if it's enough. As an aside, Harry Reid should bring the SCHIP bill back for a vote, stat. We should see if Bush is willing to veto it again.
The only serious front for McCain, then, is the personal attack. Here McCain has things to work with, even though we rightly abhor their use: inexperience, race, liberalism, religion... and did I mention race? The problem for McCain is that personal attacks, even veiled, even from surrogates, will dent his maverick image. That image is essential to winning enough swing states to win the Electoral College vote. It's a tightrope for McCain to walk, and his campaign so far hasn't been sufficiently disciplined to do it. In addition, I think that the personal attacks so far against Obama -- Jeremiah Wright, "bittergate," Rezko -- have come too soon for McCain's campaign. All of those, barring new information, are already past their shelf date, and Obama has been pretty successful at neutralizing their effect.
The last refuge for McCain would be the hoary Rovian strategy of attacking Obama's strength. This one's laughable, folks; it's his oratory. What can McCain do? He can claim Obama's an empty suit, and watch as Obama proves otherwise; or he can attempt to match Obama. That is what he will attempt to do in the debates. In other words, nearly all of McCain's remaining tomatoes will be thrown then; if they all miss, he might as well go home.