by Damozel | The New York Times has a 10-page piece (officially for Sunday, but available now) by Robert Draper called The Making (and Remaking) of John McCain. It's for posterity and I'm definitely going to get round to reading it for my own good. Definitely! Meanwhile, at WaPo, Chris Cillizza at "The Fix" has the nutshell version. He says:
You really should read the entire piece. But, you should also eat vegetables and The Fix himself doesn't do that. So, the best of the best from Draper's opus is below. Enjoy!
The keynotes of what is gearing up to be McCain's loss to Obama, as explained by Cillizza-summarizing-Draper, seem to be his reliance on Steve Schmidt's Rovian tactics, over-delegation of the management of his campaign, and an inability to keep his own sense of rightness/self-righteousness in check. Most of all, there's this:
In attempting to adapt to the constantly-changing (and worsening) political environment, McCain has tried on a series of themes -- "a fighter, a conciliator, an experienced leader and a shake 'em up rebel," writes Draper -- which has contributed to the average voter losing his/her sense of who McCain really is. "In constantly alternating among story lines in order to respond to changing events and to gain traction with voters, the 'true character' of a once-crisply-defined political figure has become increasingly murky," writes Draper. This is dead on. The key for any campaign is to be able to sum up what their candidate means/embodies in one word. For Barack Obama that word is "change." Try doing the same for McCain. Tough to think of just one word. (The Fix)
Conservative Ross Douthat asks:
I don't think it's a coincidence that McCain's successful sales pitch to GOP primary voters was built around a specific policy - namely, his support for the surge. And I suspect that his unsuccessful general-election sales pitches have suffered badly from being untethered to specific popular policy proposals that the candidate himself was interested in defending. Think about 2000: George W. Bush's brand identity, if you will, as a "compassionate conservative" dovetailed perfectly with his near-obsessive focus on education policy and his promise to work across the aisle on a prescription drugs bill. Whereas the McCain camp's stabs at crafting a brand identity only beg the question: He's a maverick ... who'll do what? He's a bipartisan reformer ... but what reforms will he deliver? Etc.
Conservative Andrew Sullivan responds:
We've been told over and over again that the Bush administration always put politics before policy - and then made Karl Rove its policy czar! This is how they approached something as grave as war.
We will see a serious conservatism again when Bill Kristol and Karl Rove are banished from the Republican party and from the conservative media. The Republican implosion is primarily their doing, their achievement, their legacy. It was when McCain ceded his campaign to Schmidt and Palin (creatures of Rove and Kristol respectively) that he threw it all away. As long as they are given any credence, Republicanism will not recover.
Yeah. Read Kristol's latest if you want to laugh. "We stand with him. — It's always darkest before it goes totally black. This is one of John McCain's favorite remarks, ascribed (apocryphally, it seems) to Chairman Mao. Well, with 10 days to go before the election, it's getting pretty dark out there."
Yes, perhaps it is. Ambinder has taken a look at who in the GOP is likely to be left standing when the dust settles.
To the extent that geography correlates with ideology among congressional Republicans, a major sweep by the Democrats could really be in a position to completely break the gluons that bind the broader party together. The GOP will lose a disportionate number of seats in the Northeast, Midwest and West and keep a disrportionate number of seats in the South. So the remnant of the party, as it were, will be right-wing Southern conservatives.... even more so that it is now.
He also takes up a couple of the might-have-beens (what if the party had chosen Giuliani, what if McCain had picked Ridge?)
We'll never really know, of course. One of Ambinder's commenters says:
As an independent, I'd like the GOP to go off into the wilderness and purge the crazy Christianists, and the neo-cons, and the money people who have no larger grasp of the economy than lookin' out for number one. A party of social moderate, fiscal conservatives would be a good counterbalance in the new center-left country. Sign off on gay marriage and adoption but emphasize a limit to state assistance for those messing up their lives with stupid choices, for example.
But they may go the other way and purge the reasonable people who are already streaming through the exits; I don't know what happens then.
I personally believe, without being able to prove it, that McCain had the chance to build a party around a more moderate form of conservatism and threw it away with both hands. I will be interested to see whether Draper's article supports or contravenes this admittedly gut-level conviction.
Prior to the end of the primaries and the beginning of "the general", I always took McCain for a moderate Republican. I never looked at or thought about his voting record (which would have refuted this assumption); my sense of where he stood rested on my perception of certain of his policy stances that bucked the GOP. I assumed he won the primaries because moderates in his party thought the same thing. (Perhaps this wasn't the case and it was all down to support for the surge as Douthat argues. I don't know.)
But there really isn't any doubt that he did reverse himself. Cf. Steve Benen, "It's a Delicate Dance, and McCain is Liable to Break a Hip" (June 19) and Late Edition McCain Flip-Flop Flashbacks at Crooks and Liars (June 28).
Here are some of the "for instances" lined up by Bill W. of C&L:
McCain has now flip-flopped a gazillion times on almost every issue under the sun. To summarize just a few of Steve Benen's list of McCain flip-flops:
- McCain was against the repeal of Roe v. Wade before he was for it.
- McCain was against torture before he was for it. Really for it.
- McCain was against crazy right-wing preachers like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson before he was for them.
- McCain was against Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy before he was for them.
- McCain was against shady Bush "Pioneer" Texas billionaire swift-boat financiers before he was for them.
- McCain was for the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law before he was against it and began breaking it.
- McCain was against Grover Norquist, whom he called "corrupt, a shill for dictators" before he was for him.
- McCain was against BJU because of its "hateful," "racist and cruel" policies before he was for it.
- McCain was against ethanol before he was for ethanol and then he was against it again.
- McCain was against a Martin Luther King holiday before he was for it. ...
And that's not all. There's many many more. In fact, here's an even longer list. McCain has reversed his former positions to fall more in line with the Bush administration so many times now it's really hard to tell Bush and McCain apart (can you beat my 3 out of 5 on the first try?). It might actually be easier to list the issue(s) McCain hasn't (yet) flip-flopped on, although I can't think of a single one right offhand. (C&L)
Whence, then, I asked myself, the sudden neocon swagger, the hawkishness, the right-wing talking points, etc., etc.? Was that who he'd always been, and I just hadn't noticed? One reason I want to read Draper's piece in full is to find out exactly where I went wrong in my assessment of John McCain. I was very happy when he beat out Romney/Giuliani/Huckabee and the rest of the GOP stable o' wingnuts.
I said to myself, "Well, if we get stuck with another Republican, this is definitely the one I dislike the least." In fact, I liked him. To the extent that it's possible to distinguish between McCain the man and McCain the GOP candidate for president, I still do.
Matthew DeLong writes:
If Sen. John McCain loses next month, Draper has already explained why. If he somehow manages to pull it out, this piece will be studied for clues as to how McCain did it.
If he pulls it out, we'll know how he did it. See above.
I mean: come on.
The McCain campaign has authorized another vicious robocall that claims Barack Obama and Democrats would cut off funds for the military, have accused American troops of "war crimes," and pose a threat to national security.
Two readers from Wisconsin reported receiving the call, narrated by Orson Swindle, a fellow POW and McCain friend, mid-afternoon Friday.
"Democrats attempt to cut off crucial troop funding," goes the script. "They accuse our troops of war crimes. And Senator Biden predicts Senator Obama will be tested. A weak president will indeed be tested. Obama and Democrat's politics endanger American lives. They are not qualified to lead our military and our country. When you vote, vote for the team that puts leadership, character and country first. John McCain." (HuffPost)
Digby comments:
Conservatives are starting to feel very, very freaked out. And they tend to be the type of people who believe violence is the best answer for everything. You do the math.[Republicans] are going postal and saying that you will die if Obama wins."
Fortunately, sane Americans don't seem to be buying into the fear-of-Obama tactics.
But suppose--just suppose--McCain wins the election through such tactics. Or because he scares people out of voting for Obama with dog-whistled insinuations or outright character assassination?
Suppose he wins. What, exactly, will he have won? How does he think he can ever bring the country together again? Does he plan to be president only of "Rove's America"? I don't think that'll work anymore, do you? Nothing has been more distasteful to me than the various proofs his campaign has given that "Country First" applies only to that hand full of far right Republicans who think that they are the only "real" American.
Or...what does he want to happen if he loses?
Memeorandum has reactions to the Sullivan piece.
(A FEW) RELATED BUCK NAKED POLITICS POSTINGS
WSJ Market Watch: McCain Would be A Mediocre President
A Review of McCain's Flip-Flops
McCain Wants Tax Cuts---for Himself
How Uninformed is John McCain About the Economy?
ABC Goes for McCain on Economic Flip-Flop: "A Conversion of Convenience"
A Great Fall: McCain Votes Against Bill to Ban Waterboarding
Oil Executives Approve McCain's Awesome Drilling Plans
CNN Inquires: "[IS] OBAMA THE ANTICHRIST?"
RECENT BUCK NAKED POLITICS POSTINGS
What to do With All Those Prisoners in Iraq?
Oversight Committee to Hold Hearings on Fannie & Freddie
They Won't Get Fooled Again: "Backwards B" Girl Admits to Hoax
AIG Spent Most of $100+ Billion in Bailout Funds, Still Might File Bankruptcy
Cilizza says, "The key for any campaign is to be able to sum up what their candidate means/embodies in one word."
But in McCain's case, there's an abundance of riches. Choose from "hypocrite," "panderer," or even "whore." What else can one say about a man who was tortured, who stood against torture for decades, and then flipped in an instant when it meant getting George Bush's approval? What do you call someone who complains that Obama is fighting dirty when his own campaign is calling Obama a terrorist-lover? What do you call a veteran who came back wounded and enjoyed the best medical service the VA could provide but would deny medical benefits as well as educational benefits to veterans?
Posted by: Charles | October 25, 2008 at 10:50 PM
Check out this interview to see the real McCain (via Digby):
openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=9365
Posted by: Charles | October 25, 2008 at 11:37 PM