Amid Sagging Polls, McCain Campaign Readies New Two-Part Obama Attack

In the light of a debate in which some feel Republican Presidential candidate Sen. John McCain came out ahead but didn’t demolish opponent Democratic Sen. Barack Obama, and sagging numbers in the polls, McCain’s campaign is now reportedly-readying a two-pronged attack against Obama after a week in which national economic news dominated the stage:

“The first lesson of this campaign, going back to 2007, is not to be panicky or reactive to poll numbers,” said McCain senior adviser Steve Schmidt. “A few weeks back, we had a clear lead, albeit a narrow one, and there were a lot of people on the Democratic side haranguing the Obama campaign in the sense of panic. We always understood not only would that lead dissipate but bounce back the other way and then bounce back again.”

Schmidt is correct. There is a tendency for new and old media to get sucked into the prevailing wisdom, which can vanish as abruptly as Washington Mutual when a new conventional wisdom surfaces. One fact is certain: the Obama campaign is proving to be a highly reactive campaign mechanism that lets the national political debate be set by McCain. Last week’s economic news took political debate setting out of the hands of both Obama and McCain. Tracking polls (which don’t yet show the full impact of the debate) now show Obama ahead.

But, if a bailout agreement passes, the economic story will still be huge but not in red alert national crisis mode. Will the Obama campaign return to reacting to McCain ads or delaying response until McCain charges dominate the news and campaign ad cycles?

For McCain, the danger is that previously undecided voters will become comfortable that Obama is ready to be president. The longer Obama can hold even a small lead, the more difficult it will be for McCain to reverse it, absent something unexpected happening. McCain’s best hope, strategists said, is for the crisis atmosphere around Wall Street and the credit markets to lessen, allowing the campaign debate to focus on other questions as much as the economy. The agreement reached early this morning on Capitol Hill about a Wall Street relief package may help with that.

The McCain campaign benefits when the race becomes about Obama, versus specific issues. If it can get the focus back on personality, Obama generally loses since his campaign will never confused with the old Bill Clinton “War Room” that responded immediately and went on the offensive ASAP when Clinton defeated the first George Bush.

Schmidt said the campaign will press two arguments as forcefully as possible in the coming days. One is that Obama is not ready to be commander in chief and that, in a time of two wars, “his policies will make the world more dangerous and America less secure.” Second, he said, McCain will argue that, in a time of economic crisis, Obama will raise taxes and spending and “will make our economy worse.”

Can this succeed? Yes on two fronts:

1. Republicans have traditionally rallied their party base and picked up some independents by arguing Democrats are tax and spend. The bottom line argument here is that Obama would be the WRONG KIND of change. Democrats generally loose this argument due to ignoring the charge or by offering bland responses to it, mistakenly assuming that the charge won’t have “legs.” (To assume makes an “ass” of “u” and “me”..)

2. Even though poll numbers show Obama did well among independents during the debate, various news stories underscored how some still feel uneasy about him and unsure about him. This is written from Connecticut where I’m on a trip. During the past few days two people who might be swing voters told me they want to vote Republican but don’t yet trust Obama. Obama assured many independents in the debate but he has not closed the sale and has not connected in personal terms the way winning debaters JFK and Ronald Reagan did.

The McCain campaign’s argument about Obama’s policies and experience could be undercut by the news media and Democrats if the question is posed forcefully about whether GOP Vice Presidential candidate Gov. Sarah Palin is qualified to become commander in chief if something happens to McCain. Republican partisans will answer “of course!” but this might not play well with swing voters — if Palin doesn’t provide yet another McCain campaign surprise and hit a homerun during her debate with Democratic Vice Presidential nominee Sen. Joe Biden this week. Right now the conventional wisdom is that she won’t do well — NOT a good sign for the Obama campaign, if the shelf-life of conventional wisdoms is accuracy recalled…

Obama signaled yesterday that his focus will be on painting McCain as out of touch on the economy. Appearing at a rally in Greensboro, N.C., Obama ripped into his rival’s remarks about the economy during the debate — but more for what McCain didn’t say.

The bottom line still remains: in most cases when the McCain campaign has gotten aggressive and gone negative its poll numbers go up — and the Obama campaign stumbles until it responds. If the bailout passes and the economic crisis is not the number one news story of the day, the McCain campaign could well veer the campaign back into a mode of its own choosing — and liking.

UPDATE II: There’s a lot of weblog reaction, but here’s one from skippy, who write in lower case and who invented the word “blogotopia”:

here at skippy international, we are of the opinion that, tho it seemed like a tie (ie, no tko’s on either side), the fact that obama looked far more presidential than people who listened to mcmuffin’s “he’s not ready” ads expected, plus the fact that mcmuffin is supposedly the “expert” on foreign policy and should have knocked it out of the park but didn’t, gives obama the winning touchdown.

if we may mix sports metaphors.