We were frequently reminded, by the campaign of the fact that John McCain is a former POW and a hero. This is a fairly risky thing to do. A hero lets his or her deeds speak for themselves. Second, it's not such a great idea to show 40-year-old film clips (black and white ones, at that) when competing against a man 25 years younger for a job that is taxing, physically and psychologically. A typical response might be: "What have you done for me lately? Why do you have to go back 40 years to find something positive to say about McCain?"
McCain also smirked in comparing his experience and judgment to Obama's.The problem is that the public had two basic types of input on which to directly compare the two: their reaction to the financial tsunami and the debates. McCain unilaterally suspended his campaign, did not really distinguish his position from Obama's, and came to the debate empty-handed for all his efforts. In essence, this largely neutralized the experience argument. Obama seemed to be cool and disciplined under the circumstances and came to the debates well-prepared, held his own and looked the part--Presidential. On the other hand, McCain looked impulsive and weak as a leader: the Senate Democrats said they already had an agreement without him, he didn't articulate a strong position at the White House meeting, and he really didn't have a plan to mediate the differences between the House Republicans and the Senate majority.
McCain also came to the debates perhaps overconfident and underprepared, given the fact as he repeatedly pointed out, Obama was ducking him in joint townhall appearances. He didn't seem familiar with some of Obama's more nuanced positions (e.g., capital gains tax for small businesses); he was far too predictable (any major league slugger is going to own the pitcher if he knows what and where the next pitch will be). For example, McCain went on a predictable rant on earmarks, and Obama quickly slammed back that the total amount of earmarks was a very tiny percentage of the federal budget. When McCain raised, as widely expected, the Bill Ayers question, Obama quickly dismissed his contact to a handful of joint appearances with other people, hardly Palin's charge of "palling around with terrorists". McCain was left with Hillary Clinton's prior argument that Obama needed to disclose everything about the relationship. Obama's responses were entirely predictable, but McCain appeared befuddled. In fact, if you watch the debates, Obama frequently flashes a grin at McCain's rhetoric, as if McCain was following a script prepared by Obama's debate team.
The bottom line is that Obama only needed to play for a tie, to look calm, cool and collected ("Presidential") and look like he was a plausible alternative to McCain; McCain lacked Obama's resources, he was too tightly linked to a highly unpopular Bush's positions on taxes, Iraq, and other policies, and economic downturns often favor the candidate in the party out of power (e.g., 1932, 1980, 1992, and 2000).
In probably one of the weirdest swerves I've ever seen in politics, when McCain famously retorted if Obama wanted to run against Bush, he should have run for the White House in 2004, the Obama campaign, not the flatfooted McCain campaign, seized the initiative by rushing a "yes, but" commercial.
Having wrapped up the nomination early, McCain ran a quixotic campaign, initially promising to run a battle across all 50 states, returning to Iraq, conceding no voting group, not even minorities. He ran more Ayers ads than health care ads during the final weeks of the campaign, although Obama was mischaracterizing McCain's health care plan and health care was among the top 2 or 3 issues affecting voters. Initially there was no response to heavy Obama spending in battleground states like Florida, where McCain once held a two-digit lead. Yet even when the selection of Palin seemed to fire up the conservative base, and despite Obama's recanting his earlier promise to accept public financing of the general campaign, McCain was willing to keep his word and settle for public financing, knowing that this provided Obama with the advantage from the outset. Nobody would have blamed for McCain for backing off his public financing commitment given Obama's politically expedient breach of his own promise. Granted, McCain was no match for the Obama fund raising machine. But Obama's superior fundraising and organization not only kept McCain from launching a counterattack in the blue states, but could run McCain ragged playing defense simply by announcing ad buys, for example, in McCain's own home state.
Here are some of the lessons I see coming from the 2008 Presidential election:
- The choice of Vice President matters. I realize that Sarah Palin has a hardcore group of followers among certain Republican groups, including a new anti-Obama sticker saying, "Don't blame me--I voted for Palin." I have written several critical posts against Sarah Palin, and I won't repeat those arguments here. I simply note this: When a 72-year-old Presidential candidate chooses a Vice President, and he has been running a campaign based on his experience advantage over Obama, it is not smart to pick a 2-year governor, never mind one under suspicion for abusing her power to fire a public official over personal reasons. Her media interviews were a public relations disaster, made her a laughing stock on late-night shows and SNL and put John McCain's own decisionmaking process into question. In addition, Sarah Palin was chosen at a time people were still smarting over $4/gallon gasoline, but when the financial tsunami hit, she brought nothing to the table. Romney is well-vetted, has extensive business experience, is highly articulate, and has a strong following among media conservatives. Now, we don't know what's going to happen over the next 3 years, but Romney would have to be regarded as the frontrunner. However, he needs to develop a more positive campaign message than he did in 2008. If he maintains his conservative social views, they will be seen as less politically expedient.
- In a change election, bring fresh ideas to the table. To a large extent, John McCain was selling himself to the American people: his judgment on Iraq, his 26 years in Washington and expertise on military and defense policy, his bipartisan record, and his reform credentials. However, 26 years in the federal legislature can be seen as more of a problem than a benefit in a change election, because it reinforces the view you are part of the status quo, the problem. To a certain point, the maverick image helps, but it also tends to detract from being a leader at the table with the Dems and saying he can deliver the GOP vote. True, McCain could show a number of differences with Bush, but during the election he was still pushing a lot of the same ideas promoted by Bush: stay the course in Iraq, Bush's tax cuts made permanent, private accounts for social security, extending tax benefits for health insurance for all Americans, etc. One way was to focus on fiscal conservatism and of using the veto more than Bush did. However, McCain could have focused on other ideas as well, e.g., getting out of the business of nation building (after the Iraqi debacle) and scaling back our extensive international commitments (which we can scarcely afford given huge twin deficits); a growing risk to our economy in terms of structural dependencies on foreign suppliers, China owning a disproportionate amount of American debt, foreign-developed energy supplies, etc., meaning finding a way to make American manufacturing and resource development vs. offshoring financially attractive; updating our laws to accommodate the legal and ethical dilemmas associated with new technologies, including advances in cloning, and new, unregulated financial products and services; noting that medical bills are the leading reason for household bankruptcies and focusing more on spreading the risk of catastrophic expenses; etc. John McCain seemed more intent on demonstrating the risks of Obama's approach than "more of the same".
- Provide a more positive view of conservatism. Some people are afraid of seeing their doctors or dentists for fearing of hearing bad news; similarly, voters are often put off by a negative-sounding politician or campaign. Ronald Reagan's optimistic conservatism, i.e., "it's morning in America...", and good humor reached the mainstream more than Barry Goldwater's dogmatic approach. Towards the end of the campaign in particular, we saw more of an anti-Obama focus (with his worrisome associates), than a pro-conservative standpoint. McCain should have focused like a laser beam on maximizing growth by opening new markets (free trade), providing less of an uncompetitive tax burden on business to grow domestically, etc. It is true McCain promoted his business tax plan, but part of the problem was that he didn't contrast investing inbusinesses to grow job demand vs. Obama's counterproductive approach of punishing successful businesses (e.g., windfall profits taxes) or those pruning unprofitable operations.
- Do not cede a structural advantage to your opponents. I mentioned the fact that McCain stuck to public financing, which left Obama a free hand to raise money for heavily outspending McCain in battleground states and for paid workers, as well as volunteers, to get out the vote. McCain repeated Hillary Clinton's mistake of not building up a competitive organization across the states, even though he had several months of a head start on Obama. I do not think the McCain camp wanted this by design; Obama simply tapped into the imagination of idealist youth and others in a way Hillary Clinton and McCain couldn't. In large part, that's because Obama did not have a substantive track record of votes to defend on national issues. But the Obama campaign strategically beat the McCain across the board, not just in manpower and voter registration, but in information technology as well. If the McCain campaign had a strategy to meet the Obama challenge, it wasn't obvious. Other than a futile attempt to wrestle Pennsylvania from Obama, for the most part the McCain campaign was on the defensive, with the Obama campaign seemingly launching attacks at will, even within red states, leaving McCain only very limited and improbable paths to victory.
- Do not let key attacks or positions go unanswered. Well, the McCain campaign did have a "rapid response" team. I'm referring to things like Obama's harping on the fact that his tax plan left the vast majority of voters better off in terms of tax burden/benefits; McCain really never responded to the 95% charge or even pointed out that a large percentage of Obama's 95% in fact didn't pay federal income tax at all. It wasn't until the sheer coincidence of Obama meeting an Ohio plumber intending to take an ownership interest in a plumbing company that Obama made an unforced error, talking about how good it is to spread the wealth around. The fact was that any due diligence in analyzing Obama's long-hyped tax plan would have made the point far before Joe the Plumber served up the issue to the McCain campaign on a silver platter. I've also noted how the McCain campaign all but ignored the health insurance issue, even when the Obama campaign falsely claimed that many (if not most) current employees holding health insurance through their jobs would find themselves paying more taxes under the McCain program.
