Will We Make It Easy or Hard to Beat McCain

by: Mike Lux

Fri Apr 04, 2008 at 14:04


It's remarkable how many big vulnerabilities McCain has, including but not limited to:

-His 100 years in Iraq comment
-His "I don't know much about economics" comment in the face of our economic downturn
-His age
-Stories about his temper
-His incredible hypocrisy regarding lobbyists, contributors, and favors done for both

With the economy in the toilet, the situation in Iraq flaring up again, 81% of Americans thinking we're on the wrong track, a dispirited and uninspired Republican base, and with only a quarter of the country willing to call themselves a Republican, McCain should be easy to beat.

Don't believe all the crap being thrown around about all the reasons why either Obama or Clinton (depending on who the candidate is making the case) can't win in the general. There are only two ways we can lose this race- although unfortunately both of them are very real problems right now.

The first, of course, is if this nomination fight gets so ugly that it spins out of control so much that there is no way for the divisions to heal. I don't think we are there yet by any means, but we could get there.

The second is that if, in the midst of the nomination battle, the Democratic Party and outside efforts (including organizations and the blogosphere) are unable to successfully define John McCain on our terms. This is a huge fear of mine simply because the big progressive donors who would normally support these kinds of efforts are really kind of checked out right now- they are frozen by the nomination race, not sure if they want to play if their candidate doesn't win. They also seem, in my conversations with them, appallingly mellow about the prospect of McCain, saying they don't think he's so bad compared with the other nominees the Republicans could have had.

McCain is a bad guy- so pro-aggressive military action it is truly scary- and just as conservative as Bush on the economy. We need to get this message out about him both to the public and, it seems, to our own donors. The odds are in favor of us winning this race, but we are a long way from resolving these big problems on our own side of the aisle.

Mike Lux :: Will We Make It Easy or Hard to Beat McCain

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Will We Make It Easy or Hard to Beat McCain | 29 comments
What are our wedge issues? (0.00 / 0)
What divides McCain from traditional Republican bases?

Is it possible to attack him through his friendship with Joe Lieberman?  I'm sure we on the left are happy to take a stick and smack around Holy Joe's pinata head a few more times.  At the same time, some conservatives can't be happy to see McCain  hanging around with someone who holds some of Lieberman's positions.  This obviously isn't something strong enough to be a front-line of attack, but piling on several negatives on this level will demoralize some Republican voters.

Things You Don't Talk About in Polite Company: Religion, Politics, the Occasional Intersection of Both

Since we are fighting him for Independants (0.00 / 0)
and Independants care more about global warming than Republicans (but not as much as Democrats), we need to get the truth about his record out on that issue.

John McCain vetoes every Environmental Bill already.
[ Parent ]
He is also 100% anti choice (4.00 / 2)
His "maverickness"  protects him there. It must be that when he votes for anti choice legislation and for anti choice judges he doesn't really mean it.

He's just pandering...but he has to be forgiven because it's okay when he panders to the right. he won't really do anything to pursue that agenda...of course he will.  

"Incrementalism isn't a different path to the same place, it could be a different path to a different place"
Stoller

Lay economic groundwork now. (0.00 / 0)
We know he is going to try to use Iraq.

We have to tie him down to the economic crisis which will be big. We should start assembling that narrative now.  

We won the Battle. Now the Real Fight for Change Begins. Join MoveOn.org and fight for progressive change.  

We need a angry Macca moment. (0.00 / 0)
McCain is one of the most ill-tempered people out there. We need to have everything he says on videotape and I think sooner or later he will explode and give us some nice tape.

We know he explodes a lot, all we need to do is to get him to do it in public and on tape.

We also need to hammer his horrible economics.

John McCain: Beacuse lobbyists should have more power

We think alike: We also need to hammer his horrible economics. n/t (4.00 / 1)


We won the Battle. Now the Real Fight for Change Begins. Join MoveOn.org and fight for progressive change.  
[ Parent ]
if you want anger, provoke him (0.00 / 0)
Assail his manhood and honor.  I would start by digging into his military record and see if he has any skeletons in his closet.  For all we know, he may have gained fame as a POW only because he was a lousy pilot.  Look into what sort of man divorces his wife then marries another woman almost two decades younger a month later.  Bring up Tom Gosinski and Cindy McCain's pain pill addiction.  Eventually, he'll take the bait.

Things You Don't Talk About in Polite Company: Religion, Politics, the Occasional Intersection of Both
[ Parent ]
Were is good 'ole Mike Stark (0.00 / 0)
When you need him?

John McCain: Beacuse lobbyists should have more power
[ Parent ]
I dunno (0.00 / 0)
I don't like the idea of going after his POW/personal life, because that could backfire and look like mudslinging, and then he'd be justified in being angry.

What we need is to connect him to things/people his base likes but he hates, like Rumsfeld, as someone suggested before.

[ Parent ]
That doesn't make any sense (0.00 / 0)
Connecting him to things he hates?  You should connect him to things that he likes that his base hates.  As I noted early, we can connect him to Joe Lieberman while stressing the things that parts of the Republican base may hate about Holy Joe. To the left, we point out that McCain is hanging around with Traitor Joe, cheerleader for Bush's war, while to the right we point out that McCain is hanging out with a guy who's way more liberal than the Republican base on several issues.  Hating Joe Lieberman can be a bipartisan stance that we can all agree on for our own reasons.

Things You Don't Talk About in Polite Company: Religion, Politics, the Occasional Intersection of Both
[ Parent ]
The idea was to get him angry (0.00 / 0)
I agree with you that your strategy is good to get his base mad at him.

Both approaches can work in different ways.

[ Parent ]
Attack the things he cares about (0.00 / 0)
It's easy for him to shrug off attacks based on things he doesn't care for.  He'll just laugh and chuckle and call you "my friend," then field the next question.  Repeatedly putting him on the defensive about things he cares about, pressing him on things he is passionate about, that's how you make someone angry.  What and who does McCain care about? What are the core elements of his personal identity, the person he sees in the mirror each morning?  That is what you take the sledgehammer to and try to demolish.  

We saw how Obama reacted to attacks on his link to Rev. Wright.  If you could find a line of attack through someone of an equal personal significance to McCain, I don't think that McCain will be as cool about it.  Inciting McCain into a testy response in defense of Joe Lieberman will win him no fans.

When I suggest looking into his military career that may not have happened without his family connections, that's looking into possible attacks on the part of his past that gives his life meaning in his eyes.  We've seen Bill Clinton go berserk because of attacks that are unfavorable towards his legacy.  If an opening exists, we should find a way to cast aspersions on McCain's military and political legacy, the things he is most famous for that are given a positive spin.

Things You Don't Talk About in Polite Company: Religion, Politics, the Occasional Intersection of Both

[ Parent ]
One other way for us to lose (0.00 / 0)
It is important to keep in mind the truly infinite outside events and personal catastrophes that could effect the election.

While it strikes me that most crises will help the Democrats, and the two major current problems (Iraq, economy) will not magically resolve to help McCain, it is still possible. We have to keep in mind that we are still out manned in terms of message discipline and ability to control the overall media narrative. If there is another terrorist attack, they will very likely be able to make it a partisan issue that will work for them.

I think the spectacular failure of Democrats to deal with Petraeus last time he spoke in front of Congress proved how unready we are to communicate to the American people around foreign policy. This time, I bet we will see an equally embarrassing spectacle in which he gets lots of glowing coverage on whatever he says, no effective counter narrative is pushed by Democrats, and then Democrats try to desperately change the subject.

Our failure to deal with this guy will really bite us in the ass if he is picked as John McCain's VP candidate, which seems very possible to me.

I support John McCain because children are too healthy anyway.

Go after Republicans as a brand (4.00 / 2)
I don't find any of your listed lines of attack as compelling as the fact that Republicans have proven they cannot run the government. Tie Bush and the actions of the Rep congress around his neck and don't let him shake them off.  With 81% of Americans thinking the country is on the wrong track, we should not need to yammer about McCain's age and anger issues to win this election.
Framing: We must sharpen our headline knives (4.00 / 1)
There has been so much talk over the last few years about the importance of framing. I'm bothered when I cruise around the progressive blogosphere to see how many writers and editors fail to do this effectively with the headlines on their stories. It's as though activists are writing partisan, left-wing advocacy and journalism, but the headline writers are trying to be plain-vanilla objective journalists.

Headlines matter because they are the first imprint of the idea you are trying to communicate: Imprint the idea enough times and it starts to stick in voters' heads. For activists, the more these points imprint, the more quickly they will occur to you when you're talking to people in the community or when you're out knocking on doors.

I'm posting fairly frequently to the Quick Hits section right now, which is--beyond choosing the actual stories that you're going to link--essentially a headline writing exercise. I have no idea what anybody else's criteria are, and other Quick Hitters have other interests, but when I Quick Hit I'm looking to frame stories to tear down the Republican candidate, discredit the Republican party to help our people up and down the ticket, and destroy the Conservative brand. (There are other stories that I link to that I figure are of interest to readers here that don't have to do with fighting the Republicans, such as the Obama-Clinton match, and what I'm saying here doesn't so much apply to those.)

I have two up there now which I've framed to point at Republicans: The Gary Brecher piece and the IED story. The Brecher story headline at Alternet says, "How the U.S. Just Got Schooled by a 'Rag-Tag' Neighborhood Army in Iraq." The only thing that headline accomplishes is saying that the US lost in Iraq. It needed to go the extra distance and attribute the loss to Republicans and their failed policies. When US policy fails, we need to highlight the Republican source of those policies. I improved on the original Alternet head by pointing out that it is Republican warmongers and their policy, not the "US," that got beaten.

The original IED story is from USA today and their headline writers are obviously journalists, so they're not going to point our that the spread of IEDs is a direct result of the 'War on Terror,' and shows how the 'War on Terror' is making us less safe. When we pick up these stories and plug them into the progressive blogosphere amplifier, we need to work them over to make sure readers make the connection to the Republicans.

Right (0.00 / 0)
Sort of what I was trying to get at above.

From an institutional standpoint, part of the problem is that even if everyone in the Left Wing media gets it, the relevant communication channels are nonexistent. Ideally we need a progressive foreign policy apparatus to figure out the solution to a given problem and why the conservative take on it is a wrong, we need to work with the party in developing a narrative around that, then the progressive media plays its part in pushing the frame into the mainstream. Right now, though, there is no communication, the Left Wing foreign policy apparatus is a pathetic shadow of the Right's, and the party still seems not to have developed any kind of rapid response procedure for developing and pushing their narratives.

I support John McCain because children are too healthy anyway.

[ Parent ]
I see this pattern too in his global warming image (0.00 / 0)
versus actually showing up to vote:

That's a sore point with McCain, who has skipped 42 votes this year and hasn't been closely involved in the "comprehensive immigration reform" deal for months, even though he is a sponsor of the plan.

McCain blew his top after Cornyn brought up his worsening Senate attendance record.

He shouted at Cornyn in front of a bipartisan group of senators and aides who had gathered in ornate meeting room, according to several people who were present.

"I know more about this stuff than anybody in this room," McCain added.



John McCain vetoes every Environmental Bill already.
[ Parent ]
Can you explain (0.00 / 0)
What is Quick Hits, where is it, and how can I help?

John McCain vetoes every Environmental Bill already.
[ Parent ]
Great Post - couldn't agree more strongly (4.00 / 1)
McCain is every bit as bad as Bush for all the same reasons, and more dangerous because the media is so reticent to make fun of him.

It's critical to destroy him as soon as possible, not only to keep him out of the White House, but to improve the chance of major gains in other elections.

I have an idea! (4.00 / 1)
Rather than coming up with ways to tear each other down, lets have a cage fight of ideas. And may the best ideas win. Now there's an idea.

Clinton in '08. Or give Carter a 2nd term. Vote for Obama!
To put it another way (0.00 / 0)
There's a very real chance of McCain winning and it would be tragic. On the other hand, there are several very real scenarios where the McCain campaign absolute implodes, leading to a 1964-esque landslide, which is really the only thing that's going to turn this country around.

So for reasons of both fear and greed we need to take this post to heart and get to work.

McCain's intelligence (0.00 / 0)
One thing that we should push is that McCain just isn't very smart.  Really, McCain is like Bush, except with more war and less brains.  Just asking if McCain is smarter than Bush opens up people to the notion that possibly John McCain doesn't have the level of intelligence we would expect from someone we install as Commander in Chief.

Things You Don't Talk About in Polite Company: Religion, Politics, the Occasional Intersection of Both
happy things (0.00 / 0)
Consider: it's the first week of the baseball season. The election doesn't happen till after the world series. We have lots of time to define Mr. Magoo.

Also, once we break out into the daylight of the general election campaign, there will be two giant overriding issues: the economy and Iraq. McCain will be running on more war and doing nothing on the economy. Obama will be running on ending the war and trying to fix the economy. The contrast is gonna be really, really stark. And really, really unfavorable to Magoo.

You're half right (0.00 / 0)
Unless the place blows up (and Bush will make sure it doesn't), Iraq is off the public's radar screen.  People just don't want to think about it.  Obama's 2002 speech only helps him in the Democratic race. It won't mean squat in the fall.  That election will be all about the economy and its attendant issues (like health care).  
[ Parent ]
Bush will make sure it doesn't? (0.00 / 0)
Bush knows he has no legacy. He's going to be known as the worst president since Buchanan. And his control over Iraq is not great - the US military can crush any military formation that sticks its head above the parapet, but it can't control Iraq.

Indeed, I would be very surprised if the October surprise this time round is not on a military issue.

McCain needs national security front and centre to win. The president can create national security issues, particularly if he lacks anything resembling scruples. And Cheney's just been itching to invade another country or three...

Forgotten Countries - a foreign policy-focused blog

[ Parent ]
Agree, and "bipartisanship" will be a problem: (0.00 / 0)
"fixing Washington" is the weakest part of Obama's competing with McCain: we need to destroy the mavericky "35 years of experience fixing Washington" with all the bipartisan bills like McCain/Lieberman, McCain/Feingold, etc that are household words.

That is going to be hugely difficult. Thats where we must attack him. Undo that public record.

John McCain vetoes every Environmental Bill already.

[ Parent ]
Attack his STRENGTHS (4.00 / 1)
Turn Rove's strategic brilliance against him.  McCain wants to make military service a cornerstone of his campaign?  Excellent.  Highlight the hypocrisy of his having been tortured for 5 years and voting against restricting the CIA to military standards for prisoner treatment.  Make sure to remind voters every week that he abandoned his moral authority on the torture issue in order to gain favor among the same extremists that 80% of the country have turned against due to their staggering incompetence and criminal negligence.  Drive home the unforgivable reality that McCain's refusal to rule out torturing America's enemies places every single soldier in theater at greater risk of mistreatment.  Make it obvious to even the densest of undecided voters that he doesn't possess the character that Americans want in their Commander in Chief.    It will be downhill from there.
There is another way for Dems to lose that has been overlooked (0.00 / 0)
And it is something deep in the DNA of both Obama and Clinton, both DLC Democrats to the core, although Obama has declined to be openly identified with the DLC since we called him out on it back in 2003.  And that way is for  the Democrats to move ONLY to the right, in order to appeal to and keep voters who would  otherwise vote Republican.  

If they follow this time-honored DLC type advice, rather than looking to the dienfranchised who  are in many cases to their left, as both Clinton and Obama are to the right of most Democrats, they could give the election to McCain.
 

"If you want that good feeling that comes from doing things for other people, then you have to pay for it in abuse and misunderstanding..."
Zora Neale Hurston

We Could Make It Easier (0.00 / 0)
Just like Hilary and Bill were dogged about their tax returns and the press ran with it, somehow we could go after McCain about his health records.
All the candidates have to submit their health records.
I am under the impression that McCain has yet to submit his records. Is this true? Does he still have cancer? I think we have a right to know. And a responsiblity to let the public know.  We dont need a candidate like McCain as Mike pointed out, and certainly we could go after him with the health issue. How do we do this?
Will We Make It Easy or Hard to Beat McCain | 29 comments
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