There has been a lot of dKos energy, both positive and negative, focused on potential Democratic candidates for '08. I would like us to focus a bit of that energy on dissecting the front-running 2008
Republican presidential candidates.
Consider this a starting point for discussing their strengths and weaknesses, and figuring out how to use use their weaknesses to cast doubt about their strengths. This is Part One, featuring John McCain, Bill Frist and Rudy Giuliani.
Part Two will look at Cheney, Pataki, and Allen. Feel free to nominate Repubs for Part Three.
We begin, below, with John McCain.
John McCain
Strengths:
- Hero from a long line of heroes. As a Vietnam vet, he was nearly blown up, shot down, imprisoned for five years, tortured, beaten, and has truly earned America's gratitude, and every medal he was conceivably eligible for. His father and grandfather are both buried in Arlington.
- McCain is an old-school republican rather than a neocon - believing in personal accountability, fiscal prudence, and a distain for corruption. He is figuratively and literally the successor to Barry Goldwater, having replaced him in 1986.
- Straight shooter. McCain generally says what he thinks, rather than what his PR team has manufactured in a centrifuge.
Weaknesses:
- John McCain is old - He will be 72 by the 2008 election. This makes him nearly three years older than Reagan was when he ran for his first term. It means that by the end of his second term, McCain would be 80 years old.
- McCain is divorced. While this is a perfectly valid lifestyle, it cuts against the
breeding family values of the Republican Party.
- McCain does not always toe the party line. He has been a thorn in the side of the Bush dynasty, and does not always play nice with the Christian Reich.
How to use his weaknesses to defuse his strengths:
McCain is a maverick. In the mountain west, that can be considered to be a strength, but if we talk about him as unpredictable and a bit daft, that will also ring true. His single status, advanced age, history of physical and mental trauma, all of this comes together in a picture of someone who should be admired, but perhaps no longer trusted behind the wheel of a Buick, much less with the presidency. McCain is in some ways the Republican's version of the Democrat's John Glenn - an admired figure from our past who lingers on. A living legend who has already done his duty for our country. His time is past. We should not criticize him - we should honor him, and be mildly amused at his growing eccentricity in his final few years among us.
Bill Frist
Strengths
- Surgeon. This says several things: Intelligence, hard work, compassion, and devotion to something other than purely a political career.
- Public Spotlight. As the Majority Leader in the Senate, Frist has the chance to speak directly to the public whenever he chooses. He will lose this platform in the spring of 2007, but that gives him 18 months to make an impression.
Weaknesses
- Frist has a ten senator advantage on Harry Reid, which means that every win is expected, and every loss is a major embarrassment. The House and the Executive Branch generally drive the initiation of a bill, and the Senate could end up getting viewed as either just a rubber stamp for the president, or as the red tape maze where conservative legislation goes to die.
- Booooooooooring. Frist is not an inspiring figure. He can't even seem to motivate his own 55 Senators, which means he'll have trouble motivating 55 million Americans to vote for him.
- Inhumane and deceitful. As a medical student, Frist used to adopt cats from shelters, pretending to take them home as pets. He would then experiment on the animals and eventually kill them. Frist admitted this in his book Transplant and referred to himself as "a little crazy."
- Frist has lost the enthusiastic support of the Christian Reich through his limited support for stem cell research. He needed an issue on which to disagree with Bush, in order to show that he is his own man. This is as good an issue as any, due to his authority as a doctor, and the support for stem cell research from mainstream America. But this will cost him in the Republican primary in the South. And to those who feel remorse about destroying embryos, this will dovetail with the cat story.
How to use his weaknesses to defuse his strengths:
Americans will know Frist, and it will be easy to cast him either as a rubber stamp for the house and the president, or as the ineffective leader who couldn't pass the president's bills, even with a 10 senator head start. The Roberts nomination will be a key moment that will decide which way this will turn out, but either approach will be equally effective. Frist, like his fellow Tennesseean Al Gore, can be painted as robotic and stiff. The addition of the cat story can make him seem like a creepy robot, not a fun robot. Frist has said he would be fine with leaving politics behind and going back to performing surgeries. America needs good doctors, and will probably oblige him.
Rudy Giuliani
Strengths
- Most Americans know Giuliani purely from the aftermath of 9/11. The nation unanimously supported New York, and its figurehead. He therefore has very low negatives.
- During his stint as mayor, crime in New York fell measurably. Critics say that the trend started before he came to office, and continued after he left. But Giuliani generally takes (and receives) credit for it.
- As a pro-choice Republican, and as a popular, re-elected official from one of the bluest regions in the country, Giuliani has legitimate credentials as a moderate.
Weaknesses
- Giuliani has never held higher office than mayor, and does not appear to be running for governor, house or senate in 2006. No one has ever been elected president without holding statewide or national office, or attaining the military rank of general.
- By 2008, 9/11 will be seven years in our past. Giuliani needs to accomplish something between now and then to prove that he is an active, vital member of public life.
- Giuliani began his political life as a Democrat, switched to independent, and then to Republican.
How to use his weaknesses to defuse his strengths:
We don't know Giuliani. We appreciate his ability seven years ago to minister over our grief and shock. But he should establish a bit more of a track record before attempting to run the country. His path from liberal to moderate to conservative, and now to socially-liberal Republican, underscores the fact that we do not have enough of an idea exactly what kind of man Giuliani is. Any attempt by Giuliani to personally profit from 9/11 would be a mistake. Has he truly been waiting around for seven years to run for president? Based on what? We all grieved, and any true American in his place would have known what to do - mourn the fallen, praise the heroes, wave the flag. That is not enough to earn the presidency. That was merely his duty. To have done otherwise would have been idiotic.