The Poo-Flinging Campaign

by dday

Looking back on the McCain campaign’s narrative throughout the election looks a bit like the narrative through-line from Tristram Shandy. The lack of discipline to find a line of attack or a compelling reason for voters to choose McCain, and stick with it, is probably the most surprising element of this campaign. In place of an actual strategy, McCain walks out every day with a different set of cards, and he lays them down and says “Whaddya think about that?!”

This is a great strategy for 24-hour news, and given that McCain is most suited to the role of hothead pundit, it fits. But it’s a terrible strategy when you’re trying to convince people that you’re best equipped to handle the office of the Presidency. Flailing about incoherently from one attack to the next does not inspire confidence. Because the traditional media is obsessively moving from one news cycle to the next, without the time to take a step back and consider anything in context, McCain probably figured he could sneak by and take the advantage by keeping his opponent off-balance. But the Obama campaign actually provided the context in this very perceptive ad.

Above all, this is why McCain’s boxed in right now. When the financial crisis overtook the campaign, he treated it the same way he treated the attacks on Obama – suspending his campaign, supporting the bailout, then opposing certain elements of it, coming out with a mortgage plan, changing the mortgage plan, thinking about adding additional economic steps, postponing the announcement, going forward with it… watching McCain’s campaign is like babysitting a hyperactive child. There’s always something new and it’s exhausting to take in.

There were BRAND NEW lines of attack today. McCain has seized on comments by Joe Biden that the next President will be tested in a crisis, touting that he has “already been tested” – not the POW card this time, but that he was on the USS Enterprise before the Cuban Missile Crisis. So “already been tested” means “awaiting an order,” I guess. But of course, McCain and Obama were tested just a few weeks ago in the economic crisis, and McCain acted like a nut. When he later today suggested that the election is all about the economy (wringing a bit more out of the “Joe the Plumber” nonsense), Joe Biden pounced:

And then there’s this idea that Obama is plotting with those evul librul Democrats and we have to preserve gridlock in the federal government or they’ll just run wild. Yes, I’m sure the whole country has been thrilled with the gridlocked and divided government of the past two years. In a time where the economy needs massive intervention, making sure NOTHING HAPPENS is definitely an argument for its time.

Obama kind of laid this all out in his ad and again today:

“While President Bush and Sen. McCain were ready to move heaven and earth to address the crisis on Wall Street, the president has failed so far to address the crisis on Main Street, and Sen. McCain has failed to fully acknowledge it,” Obama said at a jobs summit his campaign staged in economically precarious and politically significant Florida […]

“Instead of commonsense solutions, month after month, they’ve offered little more than willful ignorance, wishful thinking, outdated ideology,” he said in a steamy gymnasium at Palm Beach Community College, where 1,700 people sat cheering in the stands and at least that many if not more gathered outside to cheer Obama’s appearance.

It comes down to the word that is the name of the ad: erratic. While any Republican nominee faced serious headwinds, one that acted like an adult throughout the campaign would probably fare much better.

The other thing, of course, is that McCain managed to find the only bigger liability than Bush to run with him as Vice President.

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