McCain seems cut off from both the administration and the GOP veterans. Why?
I grew up around Republicans and some of the more senior statesmen of them in the post WWII era. Granted there aren't many of those, nor their world views, left in the GOP, but there were things about how they operated together, especially in campaigning, that have survived thru Viguerie, Gingrich and the Bushes' eras.
They used the government well, and in concert with one another and they used information well. But not this time, not for McCain. Not at all. How can this be?
Since before the Republican convention it's seemed clear (to me...) that McCain has not had access to current information from the government, foreign policy updates, economic data and state-by-state issues and trend lines that was seamlessly woven into the background of the campaigns of previous presidential contenders. Even W., whether he could make good use of it or not, had a big line of current, even fresh, information from Republican congressional sources.
It's been looking to me as though the McCain campaign has been cut off from operational information, and also from campaign wisdom of a lot of Republican veteran pols. It can't just be that his campaign operatives have turned their backs on the Republican establishment, can it? It looks to me as if he's been cut off from 'above', so to speak, left to cull data from news sources.
This was highlighted in painful relief at the gov't's introduction of the first Paulson Plan. McCain was clearly
not in the loop, was not informed of the plan nor of the timing of any gov't response to the crisis. McCain's
ill-fated 'cavalry charge' to Washington ostensibly to participate in the gov't action was clearly not the act of a man who'd been briefed at all about what was to come down from Treasury.
And when the pundits of the right assert that McCain "wasn't allowed" his own choice of VP candidate, WHO IS IT who forbad him that choice? Certainly any senior Republican Senator, almost any party veteran, would have advised agains the choice of Palin, even if they couldn't stomach the choice of Lieberman. It's very difficult to imagine that the choice of Palin would have met with any approval from Republican veterans, if only because she is such a rookie, not even considering all the weird baggage that came with her.
Elsewhere here Obamaco has written about the fantasy that McCain might be tanking his campaign on the basis of his conscience over the plague on the nation that Palin would become. My paranoid fantasy is different, but still linked to the poor performance of the McCain campaign: I wonder if the GOP cut McCain loose, left him without critical information and expertise and allowed him to make this dumb, dumb choice of running mate, and if so, why?
To me, the close numbers haven't anything to do with the campaign, but show A) the nation is still pretty well divided philosophically on many issues, as it has been for quite a while, and B) the positive Obama trend lines change that because of Obama's and the Dem party's intelligent approaches to issues, coupled with the abject failure of the Bush admin. and the storm of current events. (I do think that America is 'bluer', that is, more 'liberal' than we vote, but operationally, in electoral politics, the country is effectively evenly split.)
McCain is not up to the job of the presidency, and his campaign is not up to its work, either, having made, time after time after time, really dumb mistakes. But where are the veteran Republicans whose expertise could have prevented or softened those failures? Is someone sandbagging this thing, tossing McCain onto the trash heap of history or some other reasons? Yes, I've been called a raving paranoid, but this McC campaign is just too outlandishly bad... How can they let this be? And why?
Finally, the measure of the last two national elections has been taken at the last moment. Some could say "stolen" from the popular vote by Republican manipulations of the polls. It's worked twice, can we dare to think that we won't see a major Republican effort to disenfranchise enough votes to achieve a Republican victory?
Does the absence of deep and serious support from the Republican veterans suggest an ambush being laid elsewhere?
A note from comedian Chris Rock's recent HBO special: 'I worry about Barack Obama. He thinks that all he has to do to win is get the most votes! Ask Al Gore about that!'
stv