mccain

Rumor is that Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska (yes, Alaska) will be McCain’s running mate, and some “sources” are starting to confirm this.

On the surface, it looks like a good pick.  You’ll hear the pundits say that Biden can’t go for the jugular, that it may take Hillary people away from Obama, helps solidify McCain’s persona as an independent…

But three things, quickly:

1. It undercuts any and all of the “Obama = not ready to lead” messaging.  Done, kaput.
2. I don’t buy the “Obama can’t say she has no experience!” thing. Obama has a lifetime of experience when compared to a governor of ONE YEAR.  And before this, she was the mayor of a town of approximately 8,000 people.
3. People know John McCain is really, really old.  People want to be assured that, should his health decline, we’d be taken care of.  What it ends up doing is that it makes McCain seem like a risky pick, too.  Any and all indications that I’ve been getting suggest that people go to McCain because they view Obama as risky. Add this to the mix, and everyday people will see this as a risky move, too — they’re gambling on McCain’s health.

The McCain campaign has just doubled-down on McCain’s age, which is a huge concern for voters.  I don’t think it’s smart, and I think this “hail mary” is going to backfire.

John McCain is quite the cranky old man in a TIME interview published today.  But more importantly, this interview needs to be shown to as many journalists as possible.  Read it here.

This is quite the exchange:

Q: Do you miss the old way of doing it?
A: I don’t know what you’re talking about.

Q: Really? Come on, Senator.
A: I’ll provide as much access as possible …

Q: In 2000, after the primaries, you went back to South Carolina to
talk about what you felt was a mistake you had made on the Confederate
flag. Is there anything so far about this campaign that you wish you
could take back or you might revisit when it’s over?
A: [Does not answer.]

Q: Do I know you? [Says with a laugh.]
A: [Long pause.] I’m very happy with the way our campaign has been
conducted, and I am very pleased and humbled to have the nomination of
the Republican Party.

The theme of late is that the press knows McCain’s a good guy, and they’re not so sure about Obama (perfect example is CNN’s John King). They’ll cite Obama’s restricted access to the press corp, as compared to what they perceive as tons of access to McCain.  That’s exactly why the press makes it seem like this election should largely be a referendum on Obama — because they’re sure that McCain is a “maverick.”  They know McCain, is what they’d say, so there’s no sense in reporting that he might not be quite the maverick he claims he is.  Well, I’d contend that they know the old McCain, but this new McCain is a separate entity unto itself, and this interview proves it.

If the press starts re-evaluating whether this is the McCain that they’ve come to respect, you better believe that such a narrative will be played out in the media.  They don’t like being played, betrayed or locked out, and you better believe that it’s exactly what the McCain campaign is doing right now.

Andrew Sullivan points to a superb anti-McCain ad that is sincerely compelling.

It’s far and wide the best ad since the general election began.  It’s extremely professionally done — great, vivid imagery with standard “washed-out” effects, great added shakiness to cameras to trigger emotions of uneasiness.  It also features the best “McCain=Bush” line of comparison that I’ve heard so far — that not only has McCain voted with Bush, but that the percentage has increased almost as steadily as the public’s opinion of Bush has declined.

As I watched, I was eagerly awaiting an end with the normal “I’m Barack Obama and I approve this message” jargon…but none was found.  Nope, it’s not from the Obama camp, but from a normal YouTuber.

Kind of sad.  I love the Internet (clearly!), but I know that there’s a limited audience when YouTube is involved.  It won’t reach the people who really need to see this, which is disheartening, because it should be seen by all.

It looks like the McCain camp is solidly convinced that the “Obama = Celeb” meme seems to be working.

They’ve released their third — yes, THIRD — ad on this subject:

Yes, it’s easy to hit McCain for not being “the original maverick,” but for being “the original celebrity.”  Check out his IMDB profile, for instance.  Look at that, he was on “24,” and was even in The Wedding Crashers.  How nice of him.

But how’s this answer?  With a framing like this, we’d stay “positive,” but also go for the jugular:

“There’s nothing wrong with capturing America’s imagination. John McCain seems to be forgetting why Americans are hoping for something new.  He doesn’t give Americans enough credit — he takes us for fools, and thinks we’re supporting for Obama because he’s a ‘celebrity.’  The simple truth is it’s John McCain and George Bush’s policies that are causing Americans to dream for something better.  And now he has the audacity to blame us for wanting more?  He’s telling us not to be dreamers. He’s telling us ‘No We Can’t.’  It’s the ultimate pessimism.  That’s not the American spirit, and that’s not what we stand for.”

Clearly this stuff is riling me up, as you can see by the last three posts, all on this subject.

I’ve hesitated to call John McCain out on his age, because I don’t like to be age-ist.  I never like to say that a person can’t do something.  But after some recent evidence, I’m beginning to think that there’s certainly something to be said about higher cognitive functioning and what happens to the human brain after we reach our mid-70’s.

We know that Reagan wasn’t “all there” when he was serving as president while at the same age.  I wonder the same about McCain, and really, anyone who’d be serving at his age — and I’m not the only one.

Then I watched this video a few minutes ago.  It’s a collection of McCain’s strangest and weirdest senior moments…and there seem to be plenty of them:

Kind of scary. Seems to diminish any argument about superior judgment, no?

I’ll give you the truth — over the last few days, I’ve become slightly anxious about the presidential race.  I’d say that I think the “Obama = Celebrity”/”Obama = Messiah?” attacks are troubling to me.  They’re the kind of personal attacks that build a narrative that sticks.  They’re emotive enough to elicit responses — it’s got powerful imagery (you can just picture it), and it’s new enough (fresh arguments tend to permeate the most due to a psychological principle called sensory adaption.  It’s like when you’re in a smelly room long enough.  Eventually, you just don’t smell it any more).

And what’s most troubling is that we, as Democrats, don’t realize that always use nuance and logic to argue against it.  Sure, it might win the argument — maybe — but it doesn’t even matter.  It’s repeated too much.

Think about situations like the Obama “keep your tires tire inflated” suggestion.  Of course, it’s true..making sure your tires are inflated would save energy.  McCain’s charge that it’s Obama’s entire energy plan, and his campaign’s handing out tire gauges is of course an oversimplification.  But you need to explain nuance to dismiss it.  Meanwhile, it’s worked to build McCain’s narrative about Obama — that he’s out of touch with everyday Americans.  And while it comes from the guy who says he hasn’t pumped gas in a while and “(doesn’t) see how it matters” that he doesn’t know the price of gas (his defense was that he has Secret Service protection and it had been a while, but in reality, he had only been under protection for a mere two months before that point) somehow it’s Obama that’s “out of touch.”

It then becomes, like Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, legend.  And as the quote goes, “when the legend becomes fact, print the legend. (By the way, I did a paper, back in the day, on Swift Vets.  It covers a lot of these psychological principles, and has an interview with its creator about the concept and design of the campaign, so please feel free to take a look.)

So, how does Obama attack McCain?

Up until now, the Democrats have been working to pair McCain with President Bush.  And of course, that makes sense.  That’s a logical argument, and can totally be made — in a video I’m posting below, McCain himself says he at that point had voted with Bush 90% of the time (and it’s more like 95% of the time now, according to an independent source).  Not to mention such line items as giant and unnecessary man-bear hugs and rounds and rounds of talk show promotion of nearly all of the Bush Administration’s Iraq strategy.

But the truth is that the Democrats were going to pair any Republican nominee with Bush.  Thus, it’s just not personal enough.  It’s not unique…and it’s just not as down deep into the psychology of the candidate for it to really resonate.

Most of America still seems to think that McCain’s the “maverick,” so it’d make sense to bring that down — after all, that does go with the Rovian strategy to pull the carpet from underneath a candidate by attacking their core strength — and the Obama campaign has already started to do that with this video, called “Original”:

But I think this again misses the point.  There’s one key argument that remains for McCain even if you tear that down.  “Okay, so he’s not the maverick he says he is,” it might go. “So, he’s a regular politician.  But he’s still a politician that I can trust in these strange times.”

So, I started pondering a bit — is the “maverick” label really what has made McCain successful in this election?  I’d argue no — because McCain was the maverick when he was down in the polls a year ago and was branded “washed up.”  It was, actually, his gamble on the “surge” that brought him back to life.  And he’s still talking about it, because he plays it up as a strength. So far, the success of the “surge” has worked as a benefit for McCain.

But I thought about it for a second.  The campaign seems to be arguing that because the surge has worked, our national foreign policy over the last 7 years — which McCain actively promoted and endorsed again and again on television — has been, in his own words “worth it.”

So why not ask the American people if the surge has made the Iraq War worth it?  The lives, the dangerous world we now live in — and especially the economic costs.  Run an ad on the latest news that the Iraqi government will have a $79 Billion surplus and yet we’re funding the reconstruction — but yet, McCain says the war has been “worth it” for the American taxpayers.  How out of touch is that?

The “surge” is the biggest empty suit that exists.  And it’s the entire foundation of McCain’s campaign — all arguments about his superior judgment point towards it, in fact.  Without the surge, McCain would’ve been nowhere in the Republican primary, and I wonder where he’d be without it in the general election.