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Why McCain Became “McNasty”
Cross-posted at The Square Deal:
Reading a lot of the blogs, the most common complaint about John McCain is that he has gone negative.
“Why O, Why isn’t he the McCain of 2000?” People ask.
Alex Massie and Ezra Klein give a very plausible answer.
Klein shares an article from Politco that talks about how McCain tried to be a “different kind of Republican” going on poverty tours and giving substantive speeches. The result? No one cared:
“We recognize it’s not going to be 2000 again,” McCain spokesman Brian Rogers said, alluding to the media’s swooning coverage of McCain’s ill-fated crusade against then-Gov. George W. Bush and the GOP establishment. “But he lost then. We’re running a campaign to win. And we’re not too concerned about what the media filter tries to say about it.”
Rogers, who hung tough with McCain through the dark days of the primary and has lived through every high and low of this turbulent and unpredictable race, argues that they tried to run a high-ground campaign and sought to keep the candidate in front of the media in the fashion he enjoys. His point: No one paid any attention.
“We ran a different kind of campaign and nobody cared about us. They didn’t cover John McCain. So now you’ve got to be forward-leaning in everything,” he said.
Klein shares this observation:
Earlier this year McCain made poverty tours and offered policy speeches. No one cared, Obama retained his lead. It was only when he began offering vicious attacks and daily controversies that he began setting the pace of the coverage. The McCain campaign learned something important about the media: It’s an institution that covers conflict. If you want to direct its coverage, give it more conflict than your opponent. And so they have.
The thing is, I would have loved a campaign on the issues, but let’s face it, when McCain was going to places where Republicans feared to tread, no one was paying much attention- even those who are now tut-tutting his decent into mud-throwing.
Centrists generally bemoan such mud-slinging. We want to see politics as a gentlemanly sport, something akin to the philosophers in Athens debating various topics of the day. We want to see it as a rational endeavor, where we discuss the facts of the issues.
But something that I am learning, is that politics, regardless of whether it is on the Left or the Right is ever a rational endeavor. Politics isn’t a debating club, it’s a full contact sport. If you are going to run for something like President, you either play big or go home. It’s not the way I would like it and no doubt, a lot of centrists don’t want that either, but that’s how the game is played.
Massie says, that politics isn’t about “losing with defeat.” This is what he says about McCain’s pick of Sarah Palin as his second in command:
Still, a super-qualified running-mate is not much use if they don’t help the ticket win in the first place. And that’s why I ask: what was John McCain supposed to do? The front-running candidates for his Veep would each, I think, have guaranteed his defeat. Mitt Romney? Please! Tim Pawlenty? What a snooze. Joe Lieberman? You have to be kidding. none of these men could have had Sarah Palin’s impact upon the race. None of them would have been a potential game-changer. They were – Lieberman excepted – safe picks who would have helped, I believe, McCain trundle along to a worthy, honourable defeat. (Lieberman, of course, would have been a disastrous choice.)
And that is what many of Palin’s harshest critics would have wanted. Better for McCain to lose with honour than prevail after an ugly, unpleasant, malicious campaign. And there’s something to that. Most of us, when we’re asked whether the ends justify the means, tend to reply, “Well, it depends, doesn’t it? What end? What means?”
But one may also understand why the McCain campaign doesn’t see it like that. Politics is, if you like, war by other means. And just as the logic of warfare can demand – when you get right down to the bloody essence of the matter – total war, so you might conclude, if the prize is big enough then politics has to be total politics too. Otherwise, why get involved in the first place?
Different folk will draw the line in different places, of course. But negativity campaigns work.
The result of going dirty? McCain is now posting some leads against Obama.
Now, I agree that McCain has been playing dirty and it would be nice if we had the McCain of 2000 instead of the McCain of 2008.
But the thing is, the McCain of 2000 lost. He didn’t win. He lost to a pretty dirty campaign by then-Governor Bush. The thing is, politics is about winning. And let’s be honest, while he hasn’t sullied himself as much, Obama has also played dirty at times as well. You play aggressive to win, no matter the party.
The fact is, the general public and the media ignored McCain this time around when tried to be the honorable politician. We want conflict. Look how much the media focused on the whole “lipstick on a pig” fluff. We want to see the mud fling and then turn around and start yapping about how mean politicians act toward one another.
McCain is to blame for playing below the belt. But some of those fingers pointing at McCain also need to point back to the rest of us for making the rules.
21 Responses to “Why McCain Became “McNasty””
this rings pretty hollow. mcCain started with the bush-speak when — like 2004 or so?
but now it's: “i can't win if i play nice, so i'll play dirty.” realpolitik is just a lousy excuse for doing what you wanted to do in the first place. how will pres. mcCain play it when his white house polls are low? appoint a neo-nazi to SCOTUS? “gotta win that next election to keep the world safe for democracy, you know.”
there'll always be a 'good' reason for doing whatever you want to do. we've seen it for seven years. what a dirt-bag.
An excellent post.
Onleyone said: “mcCain started with the bush-speak when — like 2004 or so?”
You forget that Bush-Rove blew McCain out of the water in the one of the nastiest campaigns ever in South Carolina in 2000. McCain ran what folks generally regarded as a decent campaign . . . and he LOST!
I think Dennis is totally right: Had McCain run a repeat of his 2000 campaign against Obama, he would have lost . He would have been Bob Dole redux.
McCain might still lose . . . but now he has a chance.
Obama had (past tense) the luxury of playing nice . . . as the MSM was in his camp.
Look at the current controversy over Jill Greenberg's deliberately crafting the worst possible cover photo for McCain in “The Atlantic”. Liberals here at TMV regularly dismiss claims of MSM anti-GOP bias are ridiculous and without proof. In this case, however, Greenberg goes “off the reservation” . . . and her story is revealing of the bias against the GOP. One can almost hear liberals shouting at Greenberg:
“STFU . . . you're underming our bogus meme that the media is in the tank with McCain!” Greenberg professed amazement that “The Atlantic” would even ask her to do McCain given her “hard-core Democrat” views (that was, of course, THE reason she was asked). But the MSM cannot win this for Obama. Only Obama can.
I believe Senator Obama can still win.
The GOP is target rich. Obama should focus on issues…and leave the negative BS to the GOP. Focus on (1) the economy; and (2) the legacy of domestic incompetence of the Bush administration.
(1) the economy is a disaster zone. The Fed under Bush is slow in intervening (it is not like people have not seen the overextension of major banks as an issue). This is a bread and butter issue for Americans (foreclosures, job losses). McCain offers more of the same . . . Obama should hammer this. (Recall Clinton's 1992 obsessive focus “It's the economy, stupid.”)
(2) I cannot believe Obama has not invoked the appalling case of Katrina. Bush's administration of FEMA was a disaster. The United States looked like Bangladesh in its response. This was truly appalling! Yet Obama has never referenced this national humiliation in hammering the GOP.
This election remains, regardless of McCain's negative campaigning, Obama's to lose.
Dennis:
You my friend are an alcoholic or drug addicts best friend. An enabler! McCain told his share of lies, distortions and contradicted himself on a regular basis in 2000. He even hired some pretty sleazy people to run his 2000 campaign. There's the press's version of the Maverick of 2000 and then there's the real McCain of 2000. I don't buy the idea that McCain was an honest Straight Talker in 2000 nor in the late 80s and 90 as part of the Keating 5 or in the 70s when he cheated on his wife and 3 kids with Cindy and others. John McCain's an adulterer. The Reagans, who were friends with John's first wife, refused to speak with John for years after that moral lapse. And more currently, who can forget last year when he claimed one could walk freely in the Green Zone, when in fact, a video showed him walking through the Green Zone wearing a flak jacket and surrounded by something like 50 heavily armed soldiers etc.. John McCain has always been willing to lie or do whatever it takes to get what he wants and if that means cheating on his wife or lying about a war or pretending to be a moderate or surrounding himself with lobbists or choosing an unqualified VP with no National Security experience or lying to the American poeple he will do it. Lastly, you bring up McCain's poverty tour. And I have to ask, what policies did McCain design to help those in poverty? Tax cuts for the wealthy? The Poverty tour like the speech he gave at the NAACP were for show. It's like were all suppose to applaud John McCain because he graced them with his presence. How about are Vets? Did you agree with his opposition to Webb's GI bill? John McCain is a staunch conservative and one would find little compassion in his policies or voting record. Forty years ago John McCain was heroic but since returning from Nam many of his actions and behavior have been less than heroic.
I think that what you are saying is that Republicans can only win by being both nasty and deceptive–if they play it straight they lose bigtime. What does that tell you about their platform? It tells me that their policies and record won't stand on their own merits, and that the GOP has abandoned the poor and middle class and has to rely on support from evangelicals and on operatives like Karl Rove in order to succeed.
kim, apparently the Dems also believe they can only win by being nasty and deceptive, if you look at the Obama campaign (and all the advice he's getting which is telling him to get even nastier and tougher.)
To which the usual response is “But they started it, what is Obama supposed to do?”
But that's the point here, and Dennis has laid it out very plainly. McCain too felt he had no choice because to run a clean and high minded campaign meant certain loss. Does anyone here even remember that he really did begin this campaign with a speaking tour in impoverished communities, and reaching out to minorities who'd usually been ignored by the GOP? The MSM barely noted it, and to my recollection the coverage here at TMV wasn't extensive either (certainly not the 18 posts a day like the current “Palin-watch”.)
That was exactly the kind of campaign that folks here say they crave, and that they'd reward candidates for running, yet no one did so. And when McCain attempted to reach out to Obama to hold a series of town hall events, no one here felt that it was important to put pressure on Obama to accept.
Folks here may prefer to get Obama elected rather than really fight for the kind of change in political tone that you say you really want- but at least be honest about what your real goals are.
Interesting deconstruction, even to the point of holding voters partly responsible for McCain's descent into the dark side of politics. In the end though, whether he wins or loses, he made a deal with the devil and nobody made him do that but himself. This is the man who publically declared he would rather lose than compromise his integrity. Apparently that was never intended to be more than a soundbite.
If that's your take on it, JSpencer, then how do you rationalize supporting Obama when he says he's 'taking the gloves off'? Obama too declared himself as a postpartisan candidate who wasn't going to run that kind of campaign, so who is responsible for his turn to the dark side?
CStanley, if someone sneaks up behind me and tries to incapacitate me with a bearhug, would I be justified in elbowing them in the ribs? I think your rationalization depends on accepting a false standard of accountability and on ignoring matters of degree and context.
Likewise, JSpencer.
It's very simple. McCain has, in the interim, privately sold out to BigOil and the GOP talking-head platform, while he publicly waves a flag of “change” that rides atop the pole of his now defunct past maverickism.
This political gaming isn't really rocket science folks..
Excellent article Mr. Sanders. Clean campaigns that only stress issues and policy differences would be nice, but very few people would pay attention – which isn't necessarily bad. If we had a campaign like that and only those people who paid attention voted then we'd most likely end up with a decent President. But I'm afraid that if we ever saw that campaign between the two parties a third party populist candidate would rise up and compete for all the uninterested voters – imagine what that could be like. Blame the media for covering conflict, blame the advertisers for supporting that media, and blame the people for focussing on it. Don't blame the candidate simply because he/she understands the game and wants to win.
We have the government we deserve.
So was it unfair that the media didn't pay attention to McCain when he was “playing nice”? I don't think so. The media wasn't paying attention to him because when he's not lying and sneaking around and making rediculous choices for VP, the man is BORING. When Obama went and gave his speech in Germany and McCain went to a German restaurant in the States, was the media (and public) supposed to be interested in McCain? When Obama was the first politician to ever talk to the American public about race like we were actual, uh, adults, and McCain was doing, well, nothing, were we supposed to pay attention to McCain?
Anyway, it looks like the only thing that can make McCain interesting in any way is when he's acting like an *sshole. It's working, obviously, which is really sad. I'm having flashbacks to my dad lecturing me on the difference between attracting “positive attention” and “negative attention.” But maybe I'm the only one who got that lecture as a kid…
Too long the GOP has been on the defensive and submitting meekly to abuse from the other side. The abuse is growing, not diminishing, because McCain actually is not the mere darling of the media for defying GOP leadership (something completely ignored at the GOP convention, making McCain's speech odd in that sense), but now the GOP's nominee. And now, he has chosen someone for VP with broad appeal (Obama's VP choice was simply filling in Obama's foreign-policy and experience holes, and getting the Establishment more behind him than before). No wonder the hatred for Palin as well as for McCain (who is hardly as bad as a typical Democrat!) is so extra-strong and so very ugly so far, in the media, in the entertainment industry, and on this Web site too often, sadly.
Was that before or after they painted John Edwards as gay? Obama as a Muslim terrorist? Kerry as a dishonorable soldier? Hillary Clinton as a lesbian?
DLS- I'll admit that I don't agree with Palin's stands which are far right– but I have already stated the things about her which I and so many others find scary— she has lied about her international travel, lied about her position on earmarks and lied about The Bridge to Nowhere. She refused to ask Sen Stevens to step down- even after he was indicted– despite her rep as a political reformer. She billed taxpayers for 300 days spent at home. Finally, she is the subject of several serious ethics' investigations over abuse of power.
Do you think if the GOP found that Biden had done any of that they wouldn't be jumping on it? Instead, they use distortions and lies to make fake issues to scam the voters.
CS- If its wrong when Obama does it, its wrong when McCain does it. Obama is slipping because he hasn't gotten tough enough– he doesn't have Karl Rove on his side.
I humbly submit that Obama is slipping because Palin rallied the conservatives around McCain for the first time. That gives him a single digit bump and so that's where we are.
Absolutely true, paca!
Prove it. Just quit lying like McCain and prove the claim that the Obama campaign is being as nasty and deceptive as the McCain group is. Show where they are even getting close to it.