Are the GOP money men entirely happy with their candidate? Or do they find his positions as confused and incoherent as they look to... well, to little old me.
My headline is the actual title of an Op-Ed piece in yesterday's Wall Street Journal: Is John McCain Stupid?
In his lead, Daniel Henninger points out:
Is John McCain losing it?
On Sunday, he said on national television that to solve Social Security "everything's on the table," which of course means raising payroll taxes. On July 7 in Denver he said: "Senator Obama will raise your taxes. I won't."
This isn't a flip-flop. It's a sex-change operation.
After reviewing further flipflops on Social Security, and several more such severe policy reversals, Henninger asks the money question:
What I'm asking is, does John McCain have the mental focus, the intellectual discipline, to avoid being out-slicked by Barack Obama, if he isn't abandoned by his own voters?
I hope questions like this, from the conservative WSJ, might encourage some of the Chicken Littles at Daily Kos.
It looks as though the GOPers are asking the same things we are about McCain:
The one thing -- arguably the only thing -- the McCain candidacy has going for it is a sense among voters that they don't know what Barack Obama stands for or believes. Why then would Mr. McCain give voters reason to wonder the same thing about himself? You're supposed to sow doubt about the other guy, not do it to yourself.
Essentially this remark seems to concede that Obama's main task is simply to introduce himself and his positions to undecided voters who "dont' know what Barack Obama stands for or believes in." Obama has made these things pretty clear, but some voters aren't yet paying attention. A lot don't plug in until the Conventions.
So, while the charismatic Obama is introducing himself to independents, McCain is trying desperately to firm up and energize his turned-off base.
The generic Democratic presidential candidate should win handily. Barack Obama, though vulnerable at the margin, is a very strong candidate. This will be a turnout election. To win, Mr. McCain needs every Republican vote he can hold.
BTW, who is working harder on turnout, in this "turnout election"?
In response to Kossacks who are worried that McCain's lame recent attack can win the election for him, let me just leave the final words to the WSJ. I think they're more worried than we are:
In this sports-crazed country, everyone has learned a lot about what it takes to win. They've heard and seen it proven repeatedly that to achieve greatness, to win the big one, an athlete has to be ready to "put in the work."
John McCain isn't doing that, yet. He's competing as if he expects the other side to lose it for him. Sen. McCain is a famously undisciplined politician. Someone in the McCain circle had better do some straight talking to the candidate. He's not some 19-year-old tennis player who's going to win the U.S. presidential Open on raw talent and the other guy's errors. He's not that good.
There is a reason the American people the past 100 years elevated only two sitting senators into the White House -- JFK and Warren Harding. It's because they believe most senators, adept at compulsive compromise, have no political compass and will sell them out. Now voters have to do what they prefer not to. Yes, Sen. McCain has honor and country. Another month of illogical, impolitic remarks and Sen. McCain will erase even that. Absent a coherent message for voters, he will be one-on-one with Barack Obama in the fall. He will lose.