McCain's campaign contradictory

Peter Beinhart said this morning on Washington Journal that the Republican brand is tarnished, and that the long campaign, with the generation of excitement and infrastructure in so many states, has helped the Democrats. Mike Huckabee said the same thing about the Republican brand being tarnished on Meet the Press yesterday. NPR reported this morning on how Republicans are running twenty points behind Democrats on every issue ("Who do you want running the economy, etc."). But McCain is running ahead of the Republican brand. Was McCain a really smart choice by Republican primary voters?

Bill Kristol had a column in the NYT praising McCain's "exceptionalism." He's exactly wrong. I called into Washington Journal last week to make just this point. What's happening right now is similar to what was going on back in October of last year, when it looked like Hillary was edging out Obama and starting to become "inevitable." What happened then? Hillary stumbled in a debate over a question about illegal immigration. Her campaign put out a silly press release bashing Obama wanting to be president in Kindergarten. There was an overdone media frenzy over a hostage crisis in one of her campaign offices. Obama was outspending Hillary in Iowa, and she was losing ground, ultimately finishing third there.

All of this was nothing, however, compared to the real reason Hillary is going to lose the nomination. And that is her October 2002 Iraq vote. That is the big contradiction of her campaign, and she could just not overcome it. Obama exploited it to the hilt.

The contradiction is this: Vote for Hillary, she has experience. On the number 1 issue of the day, Hillary had a vote, a chance to weigh in when it counted, and she blew it. But vote for her; she'll be ready to lead; she has experience.

It's internally contradictory. Anytime you are trying to make an argument in politics it has to make sense. You can't paper-over a glaring contradiction on an issue people care about. You can emote, you can ask for forgiveness, you can say you're sorry, and that is really the only way to do it. I believe it was the YouTube debate on the Republican side in which Romney was asked about his position on abortion. He began with this: "I don't know how many times I have to say it, I'm pro-life." What a terrible response. Impatience with the audience, with voters, for not believing him that he's had a super convenient change of heart on an issue that the constituency he's after cares about. That was the time to emote, to show his sincerity, to sell his change of heart. Romney might have lost the nomination with that answer. Huckabee killed him by exploiting this contradiction in Romney's campaign--he was supposed to be the conservative candidate, but his record didn't support that.

It was the same way with Bush's Social Security reform plan. "Social Security is in a crisis; it won't be there for young people. We need to spend huge amounts of money to make private accounts." Well, if it's in crisis, then why spend so much money to change it to something different? And if you're in crisis mode, why not focus on Medicare which is in worse crisis?

McCain's argument for the presidency is internally contradictory. He trumpets his foreign policy experience. But he's been in favor of the war all along, and by any measure the war has been a disaster.

In a a speech in Columbus on May 15, McCain said this:

By January 2013, America has welcomed home most of the servicemen and women who have sacrificed terribly so that America might be secure in her freedom. The Iraq War has been won. Iraq is a functioning democracy, although still suffering from the lingering effects of decades of tyranny and centuries of sectarian tension. Violence still occurs, but it is spasmodic and much reduced. Civil war has been prevented; militias disbanded; the Iraqi Security Force is professional and competent; al Qaeda in Iraq has been defeated; and the Government of Iraq is capable of imposing its authority in every province of Iraq and defending the integrity of its borders. The United States maintains a military presence there, but a much smaller one, and it does not play a direct combat role.

"It's not a timetable; it's victory. It's victory, which I have always predicted," Mr. McCain told reporters. This has to grate on anyone who's payed a modicum of attention to the disaster in Iraq. McCain will lose because his argument for why he should be president doesn't make sense on the most basic level. What if the economy was a bigger issue than Iraq? McCain said last December, "the issue of economics is not something I've understood as well as I should." No, national security is all he's got. And it's internally contradictory. The reason McCain isn't hurting right now is that the attention is off of him, and he's benefiting from that.

In other news, following up on my post on electability in the general election, the Miami Herald has this report:

Peter Brown, assistant director of Quinnipiac University's Polling Institute, said Clinton can cite recent polls to bolster her argument as to why she should be the nominee. A Quinnipiac survey earlier this month showed Clinton leading McCain in Florida (49 percent to 41 percent), Ohio (48 percent to 38 percent) and Pennsylvania (51 percent to 37 percent).

The same survey showed Obama leading McCain in Pennsylvania (47 percent to 38 percent), but in a statistical dead heat with him in Ohio and Florida.

Also, The Politico reports on the DNC's new website McCainPedia, which includes opposition research and video footage of the Republican candidate shot by Democratic activists.