The Needlessness of McCain's Misdirectio

Posted by Andrew Tobolowsky on 10.09.2008

It's not the negative, it's the poorly aimed negative.

Watching the collapse of the McCain campaign—assuming no "October surprises" for Obama—brought me to the thought that, really, I think most people will be relieved on some level when this whole thing is over.

Really I don't mean this in a condescending way. I have and will continue to espouse my belief that Republicanism has many virtues. But it must just be getting really hard for some of you out there to have to defend McCain.

The latest absolute ludicrousness—putting Cindy McCain up there to call Obama's campaign "the dirtiest in American history" like it isn't her husband who has 100% negative campaign ads to 33% for Obama—just kept bringing me back to the same point. It's not that McCain's campaign is so dirty—it is, but not exactly the worst ever—or so false—it is, but, again—it's that they're just so stupid.

I watched the mainstream media try so hard not to be liberally biased and fawn over McCain's "bold" choice of Sarah Palin…how could anyone avoid thinking "that is the dumbest thing I've ever heard. Up till now your entire campaign has been about experience and you pick someone with as much experience as the socks I am currently wearing."

Like nearly all of his other campaign choices it isn't that the choices themselves are that bad—why not have a go-getting, attractive, charismatic VP?—it's that they're so stupid strategically. If it's about experience, you should probably do what you can to keep that going.

Who knows? Maybe the McCain campaign believed its own hype about Obama, that he's clueless and inexperienced, saw his success, and thought they could get someone just like him. Without remembering that they'd made up the stuff about Obama not being capable. Or maybe they thought they had it covered, that their post-Palin sexist blitz would scare away anyone from pointing out her extremely obvious flaws.
Either way, just terrible judgment. And that means McCain is only lying in the bed he himself made.

Oh, and if you're going to "suspend your campaign" you MAY want to do something that actually looks like "suspending your campaign." Nobody made him do that. It was totally unnecessary, and stupid, but he could have at least stuck it out.

I guess the point I want to make is just that there's nothing that Obama said or did that hurt McCain worse than he hurt himself with this ridiculous, schizophrenic campaign.

Watching the debate the other night I could not help but say to myself nobody is making you work this hard,
John, but you. If you would just give up that ridiculous "Obama is going to raise everybody's taxes" schtick, you would find yourself in a position to talk about why your tax plan is better ANYWAY. IF you would just give up that stupid "Obama's not going to let you choose your own health care," since his plan clearly calls for letting anyone who likes theirs to keep it, you could then talk about why your health care plan is better.

He put himself in the position of not being able to address any real concerns by spending all of his time fabricating fake ones. And not just fake ones but easily answered fake ones.

He did all of this to himself. And he could still have undone it, even up till last night's debate. He could have, at any point, said "I realize that it looks like I'm more of a friend to big business than Obama, but that's because I believe tax breaks for big business create jobs. I am very strict, however, about giving them anything else, anything improper, and Obama is not." But instead, he let Obama point out that McCain wants to give oil companies more tax breaks than he (Obama) does, because for whatever reason, he had decided trying to show Obama up as a friend to big business was the way to go.

I mean just think of it. If he'd just given up that "Obama was against the surge" nonsense, which is to say Obama was against committing more troops to a war he didn't think we should be fighting, he wouldn't have to constantly try to explain away how he entirely misjudged how the whole war would go. The arrogance of it is somewhere in my top three things I hate about the McCain campaign, but I'm not sure where. He thinks "Obama was against the surge" is a winner, no matter what the polls have said about it. He keeps going with it.

And that in itself might even be fine, except that Obama's no dove. He wants a surge in Afghanistan. His argument is that being in Iraq doesn't make us safer. McCain, if he could help himself, could answer that question. But he hasn't.

But that's how it's been for months. Making the wrong decisions, sticking with the wrong things, heading in the wrong direction. I don't know if it's arrogance—buying their own hype; cynicism—thinking the American people are just that stupid; or plain incompetence, but it doesn't matter. It's almost over. And then no one will have to try to defend McCain-Palin any more.

And SNL will be much the sadder for it.