The Making (and Remaking and Remaking) of McCain

Charles,

This is long, my friend, but it's a pretty fascinating look at a campaign that, with just a few days left before Election Day, is still struggling to find a narrative. As someone who considers himself a part-time writer, I can sympathize. But for a political candidate, it seems, this type of editing and re-editing can sink a campaign.

Here is the article that will appear in this Sunday's New York Times Magazine.

Ryan

The Ballad of the "Good Soldier"

Hey Ryan,

Did you love McCain's response to Biden's comments yesterday about how Obama will be tested in the first six months of his presidency? Biden basically said that Obama would, most likely, come up against some sort of test like the Cuban Missile Crisis in the early part of his first term.

Here's what McCain told a crowd of McCainiacs in response:

"I was on board the USS Enterprise," McCain, a former naval aviator, said in the capital city of Harrisburg. "I sat in the cockpit, on the flight deck of the USS Enterprise, off of Cuba. I had a target. My friends, you know how close we came to a nuclear war."

As the crowd of several thousand began to swell with cheers and applause, he added with dramatic effect: "America will not have a president who needs to be tested. I've been tested, my friends."

Don't you just love the semantical arguments made in election cycles? You know, I used to work with a guy (a Republican, oddly) who, when he knew he was losing a political argument, would resort to breaking down each and every little word, trying to roll it into something he could build a new argument on. He never could mount a new argument, but it did serve as a nice (for him) distraction that usually made his opponent give up and walk away.

Of course, in Captain Caveman's case, you really have to be drinking the Kool-Aid to fully buy what he's saying. The fact that he was on the USS Enterprise during the Cuban Missile Crisis, with orders, waiting to go on a bomb run really doesn't mean he's been tested as the...well...LEADER OF THE FREE WORLD! There's a marked difference in getting orders and giving orders.

Besides, if he had gone on his ordered bomb runs, Ol' Johnny probably would've crashed the plane anyway. I know, it sounds cruel, but I'm just saying...his batting average for missions isn't all that impressive.

Also, there's the issue of how the word "tested" is employed by each candidate. After eight years of The Idiot Era, the next president is going to be "tested" no matter who wins the election! It's pretty obvious that's what Biden's getting at.

But, John McCain never lets context get in the way of stroking his own ego. To him, the "tested" means that the rest of the world sees Obama as a huge question mark, the kind of newbie leader they can mop the floor with. And, that thought process shows McCain's projection issues.

Ol' Johnny knows now that the only recourse he has left is to point out his own failures as he sees them in his enemy. (Make no mistake, no matter what McCain says about Obama, he only sees his younger opponent as an enemy.) McCain's carrying his own (and much more damaging) domestic terrorist baggage. He's got his own (and much more pronounced and dangerous) experience gap. And, most importantly, in the context of the recent economic crisis, McCain has already been tested and failed miserably.

The only thing that McCain's presence on the USS Enterprise that day in 1962 tells me is that his mindset and his methodologies are old and obsolete. He doesn't realize that passing the commander-in-chief test isn't simply a matter of donning a flight suit and waiting for orders. There are plenty of good soldiers out there who were never cut out to be leaders. They are only adept at following orders and doing what they're told, no matter how idiotic those orders might seem at the time.

In his campaign and his response to the recent economic turmoil, McCain has shown himself to be a good soldier, going wherever his managers and aides (and other assorted lobbyists) tell him to go, and saying what they tell him to say once he gets there, no matter how erratic or out-of-touch their orders seem to be.

He's even covered for every dirty trick they've pulled, though such "old politics" supposedly goes against his maverick nature.

Yes, throughout all of this, John McCain has shown that he's a good soldier...he's just not cut out to lead.

And, quite a few of "reliably red" voters are starting to figure that out.

Charles

McCain Has Something In Common With "Undecided" Voters

Hey Ryan,

If you recall, a few posts ago, I wrote about the willful ignorance of "undecided" voters. Looks like maybe McCain, at least, has that quality in common with them, if nothing else.

Charles

Why didn't he quit him?

Another great piece from Frank Rich, who, in anticipation of the G.O.P.'s "long night of the long knives," delivers his own analysis of what went wrong with the McCain campaign.

Frontline: The Choice 2008

For those who missed it this last week, here's the PBS Frontline doc The Choice 2008, about Senators Barack Obama and John McCain. A great, eye-opening film that clocks in at just under two hours.

The "I Know" Strategy

Hey Ryan,

You've hit the nail on the head with your take on the candidates' respective rhetorical approaches. I've been drawn to Obama's approach all along for the very reasons you cited. But McCain's was tougher for me to pin down.

I knew I didn't like the close-the-deal portions of McCain's debate performances and speeches, but I just couldn't put my finger on what bothered me, not in the way you did.

To me, every time McCain says the words "I know how to", it feels like a flashback to the playground or summer camp. You remember the kid who always said he could do stuff, only to be humiliated when it actually came time to step up.

None of us are qualified to be the President. I know I'm not. Nevertheless, most of us have mental conversations with these candidates when we hear them speak. When they debate each other, in our minds, we're in there, too, our inner voices calling back to them.

And, every time McCain says, "I know how to get bin Laden," my inner voice says, "Then why haven't you caught him?" Sure, McCain's not the President, but his party still resides in the executive branch. It's not like Repub McCain would have to go a Dem president and offer unwanted advice about catching bin Laden.

So, why hasn't he worked with his love-hate partner Bush the Junior on this task? And, if McCain truly knows the way to catch bin Laden, doesn't the fact that he hasn't shared that plan with the Bush Regime make him a traitor? Or, a terrorist sympathizer? Or, by extension a terrorist himself? So, then, is Sarah Palin the one who's actually "pallin' around with terrorists"?

I'm not making accusations here. I'm just asking. We can still do that here in the good ol' U.S. of A., right?

For the thinking voter, simply proclaiming that he knows how to do something isn't good enough. McCain needs to show that he has the complex thought process to accomplish it. He hasn't done that. This is all he has done (and it's not for minors or weak hearts):



When you think of this man and all of the bloodthirsty savages he has been rallying as of late, do you see any reason to believe him when he says he knows how to do something?

I don't.

Charles

Looking through a glass Onion

Charles,

This is downright amazing. Check out this Onion story from January 2001 and the start of the Bush Administration. Besides boasting some of the funniest satirists around, our favorite fake newspaper evidently has a crystal ball somewhere in the newsroom. Wow.

Ryan