Republicans Concerned Over McCain's Attacks Against Obama

Posted by Ashish on 07.04.2008

Same problems as Hillary...

The New York Times has an interesting article up on how the Republican party is a bit concerned with how John McCain's attacks on Barack Obama thus far have been very unfocused, with many on the right comparing McCain's struggles to Hillary Clinton's.

Like those unleashed by Mrs. Clinton's team in the winter and spring, the McCain camp's attacks on Mr. Obama have had a lurching quality for weeks now, several Republicans said in interviews. Some days Mr. McCain or his allies have gone after Mr. Obama's relative youth and inexperience, other days they have criticized his shifting positions (on public campaign financing) or policy stands (on guns and gasoline prices) or even his and his wife's patriotism.

The articles continues...

McCain advisers say they have plenty of time — four months — to derail the Obama candidacy, yet acknowledged that running against a "movement candidate" — in the words of one McCain aide — had been challenging even for deft politicians like the Clintons.

These advisers said that they had been studying Mrs. Clinton's approach and her failings, and that they were confident that general election voters would be more concerned with matters like experience than the Democratic primary electorate, which embraced Mr. Obama's early opposition to the war in Iraq and his message of change. McCain aides said they would be increasingly zeroing in on the experience question and making rhetoric vs. reality attacks on his record and speeches — though they admitted that this, too, had proved insufficient for Mrs. Clinton.

Mr. McCain has also sought to make an issue out of Mr. Obama's refusal to meet him for weekly debates around the country — a bone that Mrs. Clinton picked with Mr. Obama before the Wisconsin primary in February, including in television advertisements she blanketed the state with. Mr. Obama won Wisconsin by 17 percentage points.

It's an interesting position to be in for McCain. He more or less HAS to do what Hillary Clinton did against Obama and hope that it works in the general election even though it didn't in the primaries. What other options does he have? If general election voters don't care about experience more than change, does McCain have a shot? Probably not. If general election voters don't care about national security more than the economy, does McCain have a shot? Probably not. We saw Clinton go after Obama relentlessly on experience, national security/commander in chief stuff, her belief that he has been inconsistent on Iraq, etc. and we can expect all of this stuff again from McCain.

The thing that seems to be frustrated Republicans the most about the McCain campaign thus far though is the fact that he has wasted so much time.

While the shake-up of Mr. McCain's campaign strategy team on Wednesday was heartening to several Republicans, they also noted that President Bush's re-election campaign had already settled on an effective argument against Mr. Kerry by late spring of 2004 — branding him daily as a flip-flopper and inauthentic. That months have passed without the McCain campaign similarly defining Mr. Obama somehow has frustrated Republicans more than, say, Mr. Obama's strong fund-raising or Democratic Party unity.

Another problem for McCain is that Obama isn't simply taking attacks like Gore did in 2000 and Kerry in 2004.

Yet Mr. Obama, one month after securing the Democratic nomination, and his advisers have proved defter and more fleet-footed at counterpunching than Mr. Kerry or Vice President Al Gore in 2000, Republicans said. They noted that Mr. Obama was not cowed into apologizing for recent remarks by Gen. Wesley K. Clark that appeared dismissive of Mr. McCain's war service. Mr. Obama has maintained steady leads over Mr. McCain in most national polls.

The good news for McCain is that putting Steve Schmidt in charge should fix a few problems. One, Schmidt will bring focus. He is in the Karl Rove mold of strategists and knows how to attack consistently and efficiently, and McCain needs that. Two, we can assume that Schmidt will put the same type of emphasis on organization and grassroots that Rove did.

But enough cannot be said about how big a blunder it was for McCain to waste the last four months and not set up massive organization in all the swing states like Obama has done. In states that could be decided by less than 1%, ground organization, volunteers, and get out the vote programs usually are the difference between winning and losing. We saw this in 2000 and 2004 with Bush's powerful organization out hustling the Gore and Kerry organizations.

I'd be surprised to see the McCain camp go forward with the "Obama is a flip-flopper" line of attack as their main attack. McCain is not Bush. Very few people considered Bush to be a flip-flopper in 2004 while over half the country thought Kerry was. This year, more people view McCain as a flip-flopper than Obama, according to a CNN poll. If Bush could only win by 3% in 2004 despite such a huge gap in the flip-flopper area, it would be very hard for McCain to win the election based on that even if he successfully labels Obama as a flip-flopper because he has changed position in very obvious ways on major issues like taxes and torture. This year's political playing field isn't even, it favors Democrats right now as they have a roughly 10% advantage in party ID. That means that if the country views BOTH Obama AND McCain as flip-floppers, Obama will still win. McCain has to pull a net plus out of his attack line, not a net neutral.

There is one line of attack that CAN swing elections and that is patriotism. This is the line I would expect Schmidt to push. It's one that speaks directly to a certain class of voters and one that can tie right in to McCain's strongest areas -- national security and personal sacrifice.