McCain and the Third Term Tag
McCain’s chances of remaining competitive in this 2008 presidential election hinge on his ability to distinguish himself from the wildly unpopular President Bush, and so far, McCain is failing miserably at overcoming this crucial obstacle.
To be fair, here is the McCain speech that most closely addresses this third term label, and you should read it for yourself.
McCain begins to fight this toxic label with this line: “I have worked with the President to keep our nation safe. But he and I have not seen eye to eye on many issues.” But then he provides no real distinguishing features. Two of the biggest factors that separated Bush and McCain were offshore drilling and climate change – Bush recently announced his shift to recognize climate change and fight it, and he also closed the gap with McCain by calling for an end to the ban on offshore drilling. Perhaps the only real issue that still separates the two candidates is treatment of detainees, but they have only small differences. McCain has always been a genuine opponent of torture, and I applaud him for that; however, he still agrees with Bush that blocking detainees from fair trials is good policy.
The third term tag is crucial for several reasons. First of all, it is largely true. McCain and Bush advocate similar policies on almost every single issue with few minor exceptions. Second, Obama’s campaign and its allies have latched onto this message, and it is already airing in commercials all over the country. Third, the media is giving it a lot of attention and scrutiny, and they aren’t finding cause to overturn the label. Last, the tag is taking hold with the people. A July 1 Gallup poll shows that 68% are “concerned that, as president, John McCain would pursue policies that are too similar to what George W. Bush has pursued.” Only 15% are not concerned about this possibility at all.
With Bush’s approval sinking below 30%, his image is in shambles. His major policies were clearly repudiated in the 2006 midterms, but McCain seems to have not picked up on that warning shot. If McCain wants to be competitive in this election, he needs to find a lot of really good and loud ways of distancing himself from the most unpopular president in modern history or else he will lose badly.
McCain a genuine opponent of torture? Ha. Unless its the CIA doing it.
I still don’t think that this election is going to have much to do with John McCain. All of the fundamentals say Barack Obama, and if he can make himself seem an acceptable choice then he is going to win. Whatever apprehension voters may have with McCain, he is well enough known and appreciated that he is a reasonable choice. Its all about Obama. As long as he keeps his policy platform near the mainstream (which he has), all he has to fear are character attacks.
I agree with you that this is more Obama’s to lose than McCain’s to win, but I chatted with a big time McCain supporter earlier and made me try to think of what McCain could possibly do to improve his chances.
McCain would have been a “reasonable choice” if people didn’t feel like we have already been making those choices for 8 years and if they didn’t feel so burned by them. 14% say the country is going in the right direction. Change is the winning message this year (that’s why Clinton very quickly gave up on the experience argument in favor of her own version of change rhetoric).
Really, you don’t think Mccain is legitimately anti-torture?
No, I do not. He’s better than most Republicans in that he seems to recognize its morally degenerative quality (I would hope so) and did support measures to prevent the military from torturing, but he was instrumental in preserving the CIA’s ability to torture.
When I talked with Blake yesterday, he seemed to think that the third term story won’t stick, so McCain doesn’t need to worry about addressing it yet.
I told him that I didn’t think that ignoring it was going to make it go away.
I am also skeptical as to whether the third term tag will stick. If Dems put all of their eggs in that basket I think they run the risk of starting a media narrative like “liberals smearing war hero maverick man”. McCain can throw out enough instances of him being different from Bush that I think it won’t work. I think they would do better to focus their attacks on promoting the idea that McCain is an intellectually incoherent crazy man.
Riiiight, because that doesn’t sound like a smear at all. It’s a perfect plan.
The Bush-McCain comparison won’t be seen as a smear, I don’t think. For one thing, it is largely true. For another, a lot of it is subtle – like pictures and passing references – rather than just coming out and using the “third term” line.
What can McCain throw out that separates his policies from Bush? Political people know that they don’t get along all that well, but McCain seems to have lost a lot of that “maverick” image.
Its not about how they are actually different, its about how the brain dead campaign media perceives it and how that perception helps frame the tone of the coverage once people start actually paying attention. The campaign press (especially on television) are functionally incapable of appreciating nuance. They don’t question McCain’s maverick straighttalkiness because, well, everyone knows those things are true. You focus too much on how things actually are. Which candidate has flip flopped more? Its obviously John McCain (though Obama is hardly pure on the subject). However, which candidate has been getting most of the flack on cable news recently for flip flopping? Its unquestionably Barack Obama. This is the same press corps that decided that the most important thing about the 2000 campaign was that Al Gore was stiff and exaggerated things.
On the vast majority of issues, McCain is clearly intent on continuing Bush’s policies. However, he can wave around climate change, torture (where he is better than Bush, but not good enough), and spending as shiny objects to distract the press from the fact that they are the same on taxes, Iraq, social security, et al (not to mention that McCain promises to be much much worse on non-Iraq foreign policy). It would be quite a feat for the Obama campaign to be able to instigate a media narrative about McCain being the next Bush. I hope they can pull it off, but I doubt it.
I wonder if the McCain campaign will find a way to make Obama seem too “flip-floppy” on the issue of Iraq.
I agree with the notion that Obama is under the media’s scrutiny and his ability to navigate, politically, is dissected meticulously under the microscope. Despite Obama’s insistence that his position on Iraq hasn’t changed much, most disagree. Obama’s hitting the reality wall and realizing that the 16 month withdrawal timetable isn’t a viable argument, anymore.
Things are “significantly” different in Iraq. Much different than in 2007, when Obama took his definitive withdrawal position on Iraq. Obama’s shift on the issue is rational and correct, in my opinion. The way in which the media portrays it and the way the people interpret it, is the primary question. How the McCain campaign handles this may perhaps be crucial to the election (perhaps not) — we’ll shall see.
The McCain campaign was smart to, at the onset of their effort to paint Obama as a flip flopper, predict (through a much noticed conference call with surrogate and religious moron Sam Brownback) that a flip flop on Iraq from Obama was forthcoming. It was obvious that Obama was going to have to moderate his tone (if nothing else) on Iraq, and they did a nice job of preemptively putting Obama in a box.