WASHINGTON — Senator John McCain’s campaigns have long been defined by internal squabbling and power plays, zigzagging lines of command and a penchant by the candidate for consulting with former advisers without alerting current ones, always a recipe for disquiet.Look at the campaign he's run so far: messaging about how you can't trust Obama's message of hope, how voters should choose experience over change, and how he's braved physical danger in
After a period of relative calm on that score, it is becoming clear that his campaign is once again a swirl of competing spheres of influence, clusters of friends, consultants and media advisers who represent a matrix of clashing ambitions and festering feuds. The cast includes the surviving members of Mr. McCain’s 2000 campaign, led by Rick Davis and Mark Salter; a new camp out of the world of Karl Rove, led by the recently ascendant Steve Schmidt; and on the periphery, the ever-present Mike Murphy, Mr. McCain’s strategist in the 2000 presidential race who has been dispensing advice to the candidate to the annoyance of the other camps, and is the subject of intensifying rumors in Republican circles that he is about to re-enter the campaign.
By my count, we'll hear McCain talk about his appeal with "hard working, white voters" sometime in October. By the eve of the election, we'll be told that "anything can happen, we all remember how William Henry Harrison died after his inauguration..."
Fun fact: John McCain actually remembers William Henry Harrison's inauguration.**
*Yes, it's an overused phrase.
**Okay, he probably doesn't. Don't be a spoilsport.
1 comment:
The differences between the McCain campaign and the Clinton campaign are that Clinton had more charisma, money and competence than McCain, but McCain has more friends in the media than Clinton. And Chris Matthews really, really hates Clinton and really, really lurves him some John McCain. That's a powerful advantage that Clinton never had.
Also, as Obama makes his predictable and inevitable rhetorical shift rightward for the general election, it will be easier for McCain to make the case against hope and change than it was for Clinton to do so. And again, the press will air those complaints from McCain more favorably than they did from Clinton - where the general take seemed to be mocking her position of having to argue against "hope". When McCain's doing the same thing they'll all sagely nod and talk about "politics as usual" and turn the whole thing into horserace nonsense.
So I don't see this as the slam dunk that you seem to be seeing (though I think predictions of a McCain victory in November are still long-shot status).
-- NonyNony
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