Faceplant: Rick Davis tells Wapo the campaign is “not about the issues”
McCain campaign manager Rick Davis, who recently won my award for Best Obama Surrogate by accusing Barack of playing politics with Hurricane Gustav has outdone himself today. Sitting down for a chat with the editorial board of the Washington Post, he uttered a line he will likely be choking on all through dinner tonight.
Rick Davis, campaign manager for John McCain’s presidential bid, insisted that the presidential race will be decided more over personalities than issues during an interview with Post editors this morning.
“This election is not about issues,” said Davis. “This election is about a composite view of what people take away from these candidates.”
Davis added that issues will no doubt play a major role in the decisions undecided voters will make but that they won’t ultimately be conclusive.
The issues, particularly when it came to energy, education and the economy, were the strongest points that McCain had to run on. And for a time in early August, he was doing well with them and closing the gap on Obama. This staggering statement would normally send me into a tailspin of bombastic polemics for you, but I seem to have reached burnout stage on my political fuse box. Instead, I’ll just send you over to LOL Cats.
16 Responses to “Faceplant: Rick Davis tells Wapo the campaign is “not about the issues””
I can certainly understand why they would NOT want it to be about the issues. Still, it's amazing this would actually be stated. Maybe it can be passed off as taken out of context, a slip of the tongue, etc. rather than a rare glimpse of the truth, a Freudian slip, etc.
Yes, camp McCain…. please run on personalities… Way to go!
Who cares what the campaign manager of someone who has zero chance of winning says. It was apparent from day one that McCain was unfit to be president and everyday his staff does something to prove it.
The only important question now is how bad will the few remainng downticket Republicans be affected by the debacle at the top. My guess is that the Democrats will get their sixty seats in the SEnate and that the Republican Party will be officially irrelevant.
Accidental honesty.
As alluded to by someone under Joe's poll post, the only individuals with a say in the outcome of this election are those honestly undecided voters in a handful of key electoral swingable states. Everyone else is baked in and rendered irrelevant in voice and vote.
And, if someone remains honestly uncommitted to this date, they are either waiting on someone other than bloggers and the media to define something further for them or they are relatively politically apathetic. Either way, this parsing is irrelevant to the outcome as well.
Those LOLCats are shrill!
This thread is pretty high-minded.
When has an election been about the issues? Rick Davis is absolutely right – this is a contest of who does the public like and trust.
Always has been, always will be.
What are the issues?
Energy was brought to the table by Palin.
I suspect issues will get drawn out in any fourth coming debate, however to date it has been about which democrat that in fact had very similar stances on issues.
Now that the Republican base has come alive, you are going to get some issues going.
The War, energy and energy dependence, healthcare, taxes, and the environment.
Since these matters require in-depth analysis, it is and has been personality in presidential races since as long as I can remember.
I wish it was devoid of persona and all about proposals and counter proposals, in writing. But many would fall asleep reading them, they want campaign button and rallies to chant at. They want feel good speeches, that make them…feel good?
McCain will not do well with Obama in debate, Palin may against Bidden? She seems very Bush like in ideology (scary) but she does not read off a script, in fact so far she has been very visceral. Be very careful with that, likable is hard to damage.
The campaign to me has become physiological, Palin brought that.
I think the Dems are way over confident. The average voter DOES vote on personalities. If the Dems blow this because they underestimates Palin's appeal to the base…. She may well appeal to Dem white working class vote as well. She is EXTREME. But we are only hearing about her teen daughter and her hair and how lightweight she is. The voting public seems pretty lightweight too. Is it possible that the Republican contempt for the voting public (at least the Bush supporter end of it) is justified?? Yes. J. West is right. Political blog readers are not the general public. The general public thinks Larry King Live is sophisticated debate. Read George Lakoff's piece at Huffpo about political metaphor. If they spin her the right way, she wil be so popular with a certain type of voter.
sorry about all the typos. really angry at how cocky all these Dem bloggers are. Palin is dangerously underestimated.
Oengus : “Now that the Republican base has come alive, you are going to get some issues going.”
I'm not sure why they would suddenly start now… beyond the standard lip service that is.
crosspit : “Palin is dangerously underestimated.”
The GOP is clearly hoping so. I haven't seen much evidence to support it. This is from McCain's campaign manager :
“Davis demurred when asked when Palin will sit for interviews with major news organizations, pointing out that now would not be the right time given the “combative” attitude the media has seemingly adopted toward Palin.”
So someone who is supposed to be capable of stepping in and taking over as President of the United States of America is too fragile to handle interviews??? That doesn't sound much like a “dangerously underestimated” person to me. I see they've reached the blame the media stage too. Right on schedule.
Yes Crosspit, you've clearly revealed the Republican's devious scheme: to run a totally incompetent, seat of your pants campaign, featuring a septuagenarian with a history of cancer, whose back up (during this time of war, we've been repeatedly reminded; though not recently, curious, by our President) seems strikingly unqualified to go eyeball to eyeball with Peg Bundy, little less Vladimir Putin. BWAH HA HA HA HA.
Seriously though, I don't doubt that Palin is as evil a shark as swims in the murky waters of the GOP. You're right she may show herself to be a formidable campaigner. I still find her entirely unprepared to be a heartbeat away from the top job.
Crosspit, I completely agree with you. I spoke with several of my close friends this weekend who were on the fence. With Palin on the ticket they are locked in as McCain supporters. They see Palin as an outsider, a reformer and a “normal” person, not a typical politician. They also like her executive experience. My friends pay attention to an extent but they aren't digging very deep beyond some basic mainstream media and internet sources.
But I think the electorate as a whole pays about that much attention, particularly suburban voters who lean conservative but are really just moderates. It's a key demographic, who got behind Regan, Clinton, and Bush. McCain is close to winning them over completely, particularly if he's able to make the shift to the “old” McCain.
Also, how many times have the R's been able to lower expectations to the point where any success equals a win. When will the Dems figure out that they have to figure out the expectations game in order to reverse the recent losses?
APR, you make that “key demographic” sound like quite the celebration of low standards. Unfortunately that group can be enough to swing elections… as we discovered in 00 and 04. In any case, I don't see any evidence that McCain is “close to winning them over completely”.
Michael Beschloss made the observation tonight (after watching Joe Leiberman's speech at the R convention) that despite all of Leiberman's generous praise for McCains ability to accomplish great things by reaching across the aisle, and Leibermans belief that McCain is the only one capable of uniting the parties, McCain wasn't even able to be effective when it came to getting his first choice for VP – which of course was Leiberman. No small irony there.
crosspit : “Palin is dangerously underestimated.”
If that's the case then why do the Republicans say that Palin may not have any foreign policy experience, but that she will learn from the master. Then the next day the Republicans say that she does have foreign policy experience because Alaska borders Russia? It seems to me that the Republicans don't know how to present Palin.