McCain Could Win
Sun Jan 27, 2008 at 04:20:58 PM PDT
... And I don't mean the nomination, I mean the election.
I mean this diary as a "wake-up call", lest we get too confident. We need to be as prepared as possible.
Of course we don't yet know if McCain will win the Republican nomination. But let's assume for the moment that he does. And let's face it straight on: this guy has a great personality. He can be charming and disarming, and he's got the media on his side. And whether or not it's justified, he is in fact seen as the "straight talker" of politics. He has branded himself that way, and there's certainly some truth to it. He does speak more bluntly about certain things (such as, for example, manufacturing jobs in Michigan not coming back). As politicians go, he is fairly straightforward. That goes a long way with a lot of people, especially in the current climate of disgust with "politicians".
Now let's assume for the moment that Hillary is our nominee (not saying she will be, or that I want her to be, but ... let's just assume it for the sake of bringing up what I'd consider a "worst case scenario" as far as public perception of the candidates is concerned). I contend that there's no way Hillary can compete with McCain as a personality. He is and will continue to be the media darling. She has been type-cast as devious, calculating, and scheming, and she will not come off well next to him -- we need to face this.
Let me quote George Packer in his article on Clinton and Obama in the current issue of the New Yorker:
A few hours before Clinton’s rally in Hampton, I watched John McCain’s masterly presentation before a packed middle-school gym in Salem, which included many skeptics and independents. An accountant challenged him on his willingness to make Bush’s tax cuts permanent while claiming to be a deficit hawk, telling McCain, "You’re in Purgatory." The candidate shot back playfully, "Thank you very much. It’s a step up from where I was last summer." He was witty, combative, humble, and blunt (while embracing Republican orthodoxy on almost every position). Unlike Clinton, he engaged questioners in lengthy back-and-forths that showed he was capable of a respectful disagreement. After hearing Clinton that evening, I thought that she might have a hard time beating McCain in November.
I think so too -- which is one reason I am not supporting Hillary. But there is certainly more than an even chance she will get the nomination. I don't mean to suggest McCain will be an easy opponent for ANY of our candidates, but Hillary/McCain may be the least auspicious pairing from the Democratic point of view. So ... how should Hillary (and by extension, anyone) handle McCain?
As I say, she can't compete with him on personality -- she shouldn't even try. She needs to draw the attention AWAY from his charm and onto his weakest point: his almost total embrace of conservative orthodoxy -- and by extension, the almost TOTAL FAILURE of conservative orthodoxy in the past 20 years.
Yes, I feel that this is the election where Democrats need to take on the bogeyman of conservative ideology -- stop being afraid of being labeled as "tax-and-spend liberals" and actually call a spade a spade: actually ILLUSTRATE to the American people that Republican policies have been a disaster.
Here are a couple of McCain issue positions, taken from his web site:
- "John McCain will permanently repeal the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT)" -- clearly an overreaction. Repealing the AMT will cost the treasury millions of dollars of needed revenue. It needs to be modified so it is indexed to inflation, but it should remain in place. This is a giveaway to wealthy Republican contributers.
- "John McCain believes it should require a 3/5 majority vote in Congress to raise taxes" -- an unnecessary limitation on the flexibility Congress needs, and a potential disaster for the country.
- This is a doozy -- "John McCain supports supplementing the current Social Security system with personal accounts -- but not as a substitute for addressing benefit promises that cannot be kept. John McCain will reach across the aisle, but if the Democrats do not act, he will. No problem is in more need of honesty than the looming financial challenges of entitlement programs. Americans have the right to know the truth and John McCain will not leave office without fixing the problems that threatens [sic] our future prosperity and power." Here he is hitching his "straight talk express" to the bogus issue of "Social Security crisis". He will go all out and say he is the only candidate who is "telling the truth" about the mess Social Security is in. We MUST counter this effectively.
The fact of the matter is, conservatives are in a very bad position. They have painted themselves into a corner -- the ONLY arrow in their economic quiver is the "cut taxes" mantra. There is no way that any Republican candidate can advocate raising a tax, however obviously necessary it may be. Surely there is a way for Democrats to turn this to their advantage, to assert that only Democrats have to flexibility to handle the myriad economic crises that are heading our way. Democrats should be swooping in like vultures on the tatters of the conservative agenda!
This is not a "here's the answer" diary. This is a diary that would like to hear people's ideas on how to, finally, confront the behemoth of conservative orthodoxy in an effective way. Democrats have been way too timid on this issue. We MUST start undoing the thinking that while Bush was bad, conservatism itself as practiced since Reagan is a viable option. If we don't, John McCain could certainly win.
