The Implosion Of Senator John McCain (UPDATED)
No, the picture above isn’t evidence of the latest GOP scandal.
One day, this campaign 2004 photo will be considered the photo that helped sink a candidacy. Not since singer Sammy Davis, Jr. hugged a seemingly embarrassed President Richard Nixon has a photo be run and re-run so much by so many, usually with derisive motives in mind. It wouldn’t have had impact if McCain’s once stellar image hadn’t taken a nosedive among many voters for varying reasons.
And now, with news that he’s laying off staff and his campaign funds are lagging, the political obituaries are starting to appear for the McCain campaign.
How did it happen? How did John McCain EVER fall so sharply off the tightrope that had made him a national favorite until the past few months?
Prose Not Hos has a MUST READ analysis of the McCain campaign.
Its opening:
After burning through all but 2 million of 22 million dollars raised and the culmination of a failed campaign with the public guillotining of the longtime senior campaign managers and fifty staffers, the political obituary has been written for the once-heralded media darling. In the past week, the media has attempted to retrace the dance steps it took in 2000 with the upstart Senator branded as the brazenly honest maverick. From Salon to the Washington Post, the question posed is what caused the derailment of the famed Straight Talk Express and the once certain McCain presidential bid?
Its last paragraph:
For many, the past eight years have been a disheartening display of McCain’s willingness to sacrifice his credentials in order to please the Republican elite. The edge that McCain once brought – a willingness to take on corporate corruption, lobbyist influence, and the charlatans of the Evangelical movement — has been dulled by a complacency in being a Bush sycophant, willing to suck down the fumes from a disastrous war, an exceedingly unpopular immigration policy, and economically hobbling tax cuts while Bush speeds away from Pennsylvania Avenue. In essence, the media darling turned into another Bush crony, willing to stoop to new and unnecessary lows in a vain attempt to jockey to be the next Commander in Chief. The McCain implosion is one of his own doing, the consequence of doing business in Washington and misreading the Bush orthodoxy as the key to the White House.
Now read all the sections in the middle.
UPDATE: Thomas Edsall, writing in The Huffington Post, reports that strategists in both parties say McCain’s only choice now is to turn his back on Bush and become the anti-establishment candidate:
According to private conversations with political operatives from both parties, John McCain has no choice but to adopt a high risk strategy to revive his presidential bid, a double Hail Mary: Throw one stink bomb at the White House and another at Republican National Committee headquarters.
There is no guarantee the strategy would work – in fact the odds are long against it.
McCain tried to become the establishment candidate and failed. Fred Thompson is now seeking to fill that vacuum, although the value of that position appears to have dropped sharply. “The collapse of the McCain campaign is simply a metaphor for the disintegration of the entire Republican Party establishment,” conservative public relations strategist Craig Shirley noted.
Rudy Giuliani has become the post-9/11 national security candidate. Mitt Romney, in turn, appears to have locked up Iowa, where a victory will turn him into a competitor elsewhere.
The only place left for McCain is to be the anti-Bush Republican. This was his turf in 2000, and it is far more fertile ground today.
There’s more in the article. But if McCain followed this advice, he’d be like a person who committed political suicide committing suicide again. And it’s likely to happen.
McCain’s problem is not only his positions.
Opposition to him on the war and other policies are also coupled with the fact that he was trusted or reviled in 2000 due to what many felt were his strong beliefs that didn’t quite fit into one party. People who liked him considered him not just another party (Republican or Democratic) hack. People who hated him, considered him a loose cannon who could not be relied on to achieve party goals.
In 2007, he faces a problem that many on both sides don’t think he is a “straight talker” at all but someone who scuttles or hedges on past positions — but not with the skill of a Mitt Romney (who has had more political positions in 2006 than Al Gore had wardrobes in 2000). He is now widely distrusted.
If he pursued this sudden political makeover strategy, McCain could certainly say the words but he’d be further distrusted by GOPers, would never win over many of the independents and even Democrats who once liked him but have now written him totally off as just another Republican pandering to his party’s base, and be repeatedly asked by the press about the timing of this sharp transformation.
He’d be as likely to get the Republican nomination as Michael Moore.
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23 Responses to “The Implosion Of Senator John McCain (UPDATED)”
Are you arguing that McCain is faiing in the Republican primary race because he is not liberal enough?
He is failing because he has never demonstrated any conservative political instincts and does not really believe in anything that conservatives actually believe in.
His being one of the author’s of McCain-McFeingold, his backslapping with Senator Kennedy, nad his temper did much to destroy any credbility that he had.
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But don’t you think his foreign policy agenda is appealing to those still backing Bush as described in this article:
Atlantic Community on Rep. Candidates
Or do you think nobody cares enough about “winning Iraq” in order to make his or her electorial decision?
McCain is failing because he hitched his star to Bush’s war. Everything flows from that.
I think McCain has failed at more than just jooking his star to the war. His support for limiting campaign speech is a big loser on the right. His support for open borders and unlimiited immigration has a massive downside. His backslapping with Kennedy, etc makes for a worse picture than hugging President Bush. He also comes off poorly on campaign stops and his totoal mismanagement of his campaign spending demonsrates that he does not have the attention to detail needed to be an executive.
I find it odd that the left of center Democrats want to tell McCain that they way to wina Republican primary is to act like a left of center Democrat.
McCain’s Implosion:
“How did it happen? How did John McCain EVER fall so sharply off the tightrope that had made him a national favorite until the past few months?” (The Moderate Voice)…
I don’t agree with SD a lot, but I think he is dead on on this issue.
We’ve done a lot of posts on this site, and what we say still holds. McCain was walking a tightrope. In 2000 he became a candidate who had widespread support due to his independence. That backfired at him with the GOP elite (who backed Bush very strongly — go back and see what Mitch McConnell and other said about him) and with the GOP base. So for 2008 he had to walk a tightrope and reassure the GOP bigwigs, the establishment and the party’s base and — if he wanted to become President and maintain some of the support he needed to win an election — keep some of the appealing qualities of independence from being a party man if he wanted to have general support. It’s difficult to keep an independence image and also be a “real” party man. He walked a tightrope and he fell off — losing his support among independents, leaving many Republicans distrustful of him, enfuriating many on his immigration stance, and becoming one of the least preferable candidates for those (Republicans, independents and Democrats) who want to cast even partial “protest vote” against Bush and the Bush brand of Republicanism. My own analysis has been consistent about this. He was walking a tightrop and he slipped badly. When you’re falling and are about an inch from the ground, it’s hard to go back up again. The irony is the man who in 2000 was viewed as the “straight talk” candidate has now left many on all sides believing he will say what he says to get support. Except on Iraq. But that issue is so deadly now, in realistic political terms, his strong beliefs in the face of political loss on that won’t work to his credit. McCain needed the center and independents but he couldn’t do what he needed to do to mend fences with his own party without a)losing their support and b) creating more distrust among conservatives who felt his immigration policy was one more sign of how they could not rely on him.
AR and SD – W pimped Teddy for NCLB, so don’t only tie McCain with a Kennedy.
Does anyone miss the irony of Mr Porkbuster having financial troubles with his campaign. He is spending money like the drunken sailor instead of a fiscal conservative. If McCain can’t manage a campaign buget, why should Republicans vote for another Bush type spender?
John McCain’s three year implosion?
There’s a lot of talk about John McCain’s presidential bid implosion. Some are saying it’s because he’s not liberal enough, citing his ties to Bush a few years ago. Others, in the same thread, are claiming he’s not con…
It’s a bit of both, but superdestroyer has the important part, since he’s one of the representative primary voters. The primary voters don’t hate him for not being a maverick, they hate him for immigration, McCain-Feingold, etc. The media, though, fell in love with him because he made a good narrative, so when he fell into a sycophant pattern it was too easy for them to write stories about a crushed soul. In truth, he never changed that much, but he’s been around long enough that people can see how he really is.
Contrary to popular belief Republicans haven’t balked at one of theirs spending like a drunken sailor in at least 30 years.
Cutting spending is always talked up as a priority, but once in office no one seems to care when the sailor heads out on liberty.
Davebo,
that one of the reasons that the Republican party is going to quickly become irrelevent is that they just could not stop spending.
If people want pork barreling, big spending politicians, they can alway vote Democratic.
The only time that the Republicans ever tried to be fiscal conservatives was when Clinton was in office because it was easy for them to do it and it keep Clinton from starting any new entitlement programs.
Hahaha… I love this spin
If I were going to vote Republican I would probably vote for McCain, even tho I disagree with him on the war. He’s the only candidate out there on the right that would have the guts to reach out to a Teddy Kennedy-proving that he cares more about getting legislation passed than what Rush and Sean are going to mock him with.
Yes, he’s reached out to the religious right, the same people he labelled as “the agents of intolerance” and hated having to do it to get the nomination. But, you can’t be all things to all people, and who he really is won’t fly with the Republican party. Just the picture of McCain standing with Kennedy is enough to sink him. He has the experience and has worked harder than anyone else with the other side. That’s just what the right can’t stand about him.
Hmmmm, Maybe we can find one where Fred Thompson is standing with his arm around Kennedy from their days together in the Senate, lol.
Just combine what Joe and SD said…
He’s no longer a maverick…and the conservatives never really trusted him…and whammo, no more McCain.
I’d be surprised if it’s the war. Whoever wins the Republican nomination will definitely support the war in some context, whether it be “We went in for all the right reasons, but poor management screwed us” or “We went in for all the right reasons with good plans, but the Iraqis just didn’t want to work as hard as we did.” Combine that with a strong support for not withdrawing at all, or at the least not withdrawing “as much” or “as fast” as the Democrats, and you’ll wind up with a candidate that appears sufficiently more hawkish than the Democratic nominee to keep the strong conservatives happy.
This is, after all, “The Liberal Voice,” were there truth in advertising.
Absolutely. Even those of us who are moderate, non-liberal (though hardly mushy about our positions, unlike those with less substance) can immediately say McCain is hardly a conservative, nor is he anything close to being a standard, or serious, Republican.
He’s a wacky Western version of Arlen Specter [gag].
McCain-Feingold, an attack on the (real) First Amendment, disqualified McCain completely.
To many Americans before that, there was Keating Five.
It’s no surprise that McCain has had the RINO label affixed to him time after time after time.
As to the photo at the start of this thread and the comments related to it: Hardly anyone has seen this photo before, and Bush-bashing is stupid here. I’m surprised Shaun, who is our pathological (or merely pathetic?) repetitive Bush-basher-given-any-excuse-no-matter-how-nonsensical had found and misused this photo before.
The only intelligent remark about this photo is that it’s remarkable how both individuals, who are weak and who are flawed, are going down fast as the 2008 elections are approaching. But even then, the depth and rapidity of Bush’s fall is more surprising to intelligent people than McCain’s. (We knew both would go down, but this far and this fast was never known.)
Maybe he should ask Keating’s son or grandson for some extra cash.
Correct again!
The GOP Old Guard gave us Bob Dole in 1996 against what would and should have been a doomed Bill Clinton, respected by nobody decent or normal after the health care and other outrages.
The Republicans in Washington have been perfectly happy with Big Government, a federal government far too large, that intrudes illegitimately into what should only be state and local affairs (constitutionally as well as logically and sensibly), that amasses far too much power and influence, which (as we’ve long seen with Democrats, and as we saw recently with Republicans, which along with Iraq was the reason for the 2006 election results) often are for sale.
And while we’re subdued about the borrowing rather than spending that the GOP likes to do (hiding the bad things, postponing them for future politicians and generations to worry about, just as with Social Security and Medicare), simply because the Democratic spending and activities will usually be worse, we don’t like the deficits that accompany the too-large spending.
K. Ritter, Liberal (R) [no pun intended], said:
> If I were going to vote Republican I would
> probably vote for McCain
Voila’!
DLS- I get it. Conservatives see McCain as a liberal, lol. To me he is anything but, but he has demonstrated he can work with anyone. For me he was always way too close to Bush and his policies for comfort.
I guess you conservatives are stuck with Thompson, his pro-abortion lobbying history and his trophy wife!
I had to smile while reading the comment chain as it was further evidence that whatever we believe, we all think we are moderate.
Well, I’m more conservative than liberal, though moderate (I’m no far righty, obviously, and I even will make concessions to the lefties where it is practical, given the alternatives — such as with Medicare for everyone). Our “center” in the eyes of the liberal media and others (including so many on this site) is shifted well to the left of true center. It makes most true centrists or moderates appear and be accused of being righties. GOP is the lesser evil, conservatives do less harm than liberals have done since the 1930s (welfare state, federal explosion in place of constitutional federalism) and especially since the 1960s (bad changes in and out of government). Conservatives at least are less likely to do us harm. Etc. Typical age-and-maturity-and-wisdom right-shifting, same as when adults outgrow their strong liberalism and radicalism when they didn’t know better. (If you’re well into adult years and liberal, I take you seriously if you’re not merely regurgitating mantras or wanting a return to 1950s-1960s Northeast elitist government fiefdoms and naive, terrible social programs. My friend in DC is a near-vegan, PETA member and animal rights activist, GLBT supporter and activist, pacifist, self-professed radical, and “provincial Northeastern intellectual snob,” to quote her specifically. She likes Kucinich, thinks Hillary has gone too far to the right, and is mulling Obama.)
Nobody I know has accused McCain, literally, as being “liberal” or “a liberal,” but McCain is hardly a real conservative and (this is not as important to me but is on my radar screen because of “GOP = lesser evil, don’t destroy the defense it provides”) he’s also been often intentionally defiant toward GOP positions on various issues, and has been long before he was seeking the Presidency — often siding with Democrats. It may be an ego problem, trying to get attention drawn to himself, which perhaps was due to presidential aspirations several years ago.