Branding McCain
Mon Apr 14, 2008 at 09:39:37 AM PDT
Normally, I only mention my LTEs when one is published. Last week, though, I sent one to the Chicago Tribune that illustrates a point I want to make. It read:
According to a story on Sunday's front page, the Republicans admit that McCain's positions conflict with those of most voters, but they hope to win the election on his personality. His personality? Is this the John McCaion with the notorious short fuse? The one whose campaign tried to defend his blunder about Iran supporting Al Qaeda with snips selected from intelligence reports? The guy who left the wife who waited faithfully for him while he was a POW for a younger, slimmer, richer second wife? The poster boy of the Keating Five?
Reasons for bringing this up after the jump.
As long as the Clinton campaign keeps using negative ads, the Obama campaign can't concentrate on McCain.
Daily Kos readers are not constrained by that.
McCain has lots and lots of negatives. I stopped listing them when the letter got too long.
When he was questioned about his chumminess with a lobbyist whose clients received favors from him, he denied that they were having an affair. That had not been on the reporters minds. He changed his positions to win the Republican nomination. He's tied to the least popular incumbent president since polling began. (I'd be interested in seeing how Bush compares to Hoover, but Gallup came along a little too late. Truman got deeper, but not for anywhere near as long.)
America doesn't want an unlimited commitgment to fighting ini Iraq, and it does want a president who knows something about the complexities there.
That issue may be trumped by the economoy, and McCain has no credentials on the economy.
There are lots of things we can say about McCain. Every time he pops up in the paper (or in the national magazines) we have an opportunity to say one of them.
So, put a half dozen different ones in draft, and read your local paper. Every time McCain gets mentioned, send the ledtter most appropriate to that story as a LTE; then delelte it.
If we all do that, the general election will turn into a blowout.
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