Adam Weinberg
Goldwater Republican
I think if there's something this campaign has shown, it's the value of defining yourself and really trying to get the voters to feel comfortable with your candidate as President. In this sense, it's a very long job interview and we sort of get to see the candidates molded by different pressures as they would be in office. Campaigning and governing are not that different in many ways.
We've come from the point where Obama was "risky" or "not ready to be President" or had Jeremiah Wright type associations that cast doubt on him with working class whites, to the point where most people feel that he's credibly ready to be President in a very, very difficult time. And through it, while Obama has been resilient to criticism, he has not fundmentally changed what his campaign was about. It was a consistent strategy.
Meanwhile, with McCain, this campaign actually diminished the public's perception of him as prepared to be a President of the United States, which in many circles was considered a given for years. And what, when it comes down to it, was McCain running on most of this time?
Everything is too little too late. It often seems his campaign will employ a tactic that may have worked earlier in the campaign, but that no longer applies today. McCain wasted everyone's time on the Bill Ayers and ACORN subject yesterday. Not only do most people take offense for that waste of their time, but none of the people who matter in the voting equation care about this. Not to mention it is further indicative of his inconsistency and poor timing. The time to cast doubts on Barack Obama the man is long gone. There is no credible argument that people don't know who Barack Obama is. Most of us know more about Barack Obama than we do about our neighbors, even if we came to the campaign later.
It has been a strange and confusing campaign on McCain's part. Everything that he needed to address about his own weaknesses, that extreme partisans will foolishly say he tackled in last night's debate, he is too late to really change. People don't think he has the temperment. People don't think he's that different from Bush. These are all things that needed to be understood by the public the time of the convention, if not earlier. And they needed to be addressed consistently. Not as token mentions against the incumbent President.
Perhaps at the beginning to even have the sitting President's endorsement was unwise and seemingly useless even with his own party. Many other Republican candidates who could form substantive disagreements with Bush would not have sought his endorsement.
I remember very specifically after the slaughter of the 2006 primaries that a certain Arizona Senator did the rounds on the cable shows. His makeup was perfect, he looked ten years younger, and he calmly explained that the reform principles had been abandoned and they needed to be recovered by elected leaders for the sake of the country and its future. It might not be "Yes We Can", but it could have been useful to at least stay on that message and really work all of its angles.
As I've said in the past, the Republicans were nearly destined to lose this election, but they did have a better shot with McCain than probably any of the candidates. Electorally, not ideologically of course.
But if there's anyone who blew his fighting chance, it was McCain by failing to at least continue to make a good go at "Playing the President", which seemed to end somewhere around the convention. John McCain had an advantage for being a moderate and facing an inexperienced and non-traditional candidate and his inconsistency prevented voters from being able to really trust him with the problems of the country.
I don't think I've seen McCain look Presidential in quite a long time relative to the many events that occur in a major Presidential campaign. And I think it's nearly impossible at this point that he would have anywhere in his reach the chance to actually become President.
We've come from the point where Obama was "risky" or "not ready to be President" or had Jeremiah Wright type associations that cast doubt on him with working class whites, to the point where most people feel that he's credibly ready to be President in a very, very difficult time. And through it, while Obama has been resilient to criticism, he has not fundmentally changed what his campaign was about. It was a consistent strategy.
Meanwhile, with McCain, this campaign actually diminished the public's perception of him as prepared to be a President of the United States, which in many circles was considered a given for years. And what, when it comes down to it, was McCain running on most of this time?
Everything is too little too late. It often seems his campaign will employ a tactic that may have worked earlier in the campaign, but that no longer applies today. McCain wasted everyone's time on the Bill Ayers and ACORN subject yesterday. Not only do most people take offense for that waste of their time, but none of the people who matter in the voting equation care about this. Not to mention it is further indicative of his inconsistency and poor timing. The time to cast doubts on Barack Obama the man is long gone. There is no credible argument that people don't know who Barack Obama is. Most of us know more about Barack Obama than we do about our neighbors, even if we came to the campaign later.
It has been a strange and confusing campaign on McCain's part. Everything that he needed to address about his own weaknesses, that extreme partisans will foolishly say he tackled in last night's debate, he is too late to really change. People don't think he has the temperment. People don't think he's that different from Bush. These are all things that needed to be understood by the public the time of the convention, if not earlier. And they needed to be addressed consistently. Not as token mentions against the incumbent President.
Perhaps at the beginning to even have the sitting President's endorsement was unwise and seemingly useless even with his own party. Many other Republican candidates who could form substantive disagreements with Bush would not have sought his endorsement.
I remember very specifically after the slaughter of the 2006 primaries that a certain Arizona Senator did the rounds on the cable shows. His makeup was perfect, he looked ten years younger, and he calmly explained that the reform principles had been abandoned and they needed to be recovered by elected leaders for the sake of the country and its future. It might not be "Yes We Can", but it could have been useful to at least stay on that message and really work all of its angles.
As I've said in the past, the Republicans were nearly destined to lose this election, but they did have a better shot with McCain than probably any of the candidates. Electorally, not ideologically of course.
But if there's anyone who blew his fighting chance, it was McCain by failing to at least continue to make a good go at "Playing the President", which seemed to end somewhere around the convention. John McCain had an advantage for being a moderate and facing an inexperienced and non-traditional candidate and his inconsistency prevented voters from being able to really trust him with the problems of the country.
I don't think I've seen McCain look Presidential in quite a long time relative to the many events that occur in a major Presidential campaign. And I think it's nearly impossible at this point that he would have anywhere in his reach the chance to actually become President.
