MEMO
To: Senator John McCain
From: Mark Daniels
Re: Unsolicited Advice
It’s over, Senator. You know it and I know it. Karl Rove knows it and has fairly well admitted it. So does anybody who knows how to count. And the debate didn’t help. Bitter as the pill is for you to swallow, it is over. In 2000, you were downed by the scurrilous Bush campaign. This year, you’re being mowed down by a political phenomenon and, more significantly, a financial earthquake.
Whatever merits or flaws you and Senator Obama may have, American voters are turning to their default mode in 2008.
Since the election of 1932, voters have predictably elected Democrats in times of financial crisis. That was true in 1932, with the election of Franklin Roosevelt in the face of the Great Depression. It was true in 1976, when Jimmy Carter was elected in the face of an intractable inflation insusceptible to President Ford’s WIN (Whip Inflation Now) program. It was true again in 1992, when Bill Clinton, who understood that “it’s the economy, stupid,” turned out President George H.W. Bush.
In the same seventy-six year period, voters have just as predictably elected Republicans to deal with national security crises. It happened in 1952, when General Eisenhower was elected to extricate the country from Korea. It happened again in 1968, when Richard Nixon was elected to get us out of Vietnam. And it happened in 1980, when Ronald Reagan was elected largely because of President Carter’s troubles with the Iran hostage crisis.
The irony is that had the economy not become the preeminent issue of this campaign, you might have had a chance to win, even among those who are dubious about the wisdom of this administration’s decision to go to war in Iraq.
But, barring some cataclysmic revelation about Senator Obama, the election is his. With each new day, American voters, in spite of whatever misgivings they may have about him, are adding to Obama’s momentum. There is no reason to expect, at this point, that Obama will receive less than 55% of the vote or that his advantage in the Electoral College will be less impressive.
You’re not the first major party nominee to feel the rumblings of an electoral tsunami twenty-seven days before an election. Your Arizona mentor, Barry Goldwater, certainly knew that all was lost by this time in the 1964 campaign. Bob Dole, who wore your POW bracelet, knew, at some level, that his campaign was through by this time in 1996. Jimmy Carter and Michael Dukakis can certainly identify with what you’re feeling right now.
All of those candidates went down swinging.
In some cases, the losing candidates in recent elections undertook vicious assaults which soiled their reputations more than those they went after, at least for a while.
Senator, you must avoid doing this. You must, for the sake of the country you love, end this campaign magnanimously. You must pull the attack ads. You must refrain from disdainfully referring to your opponent as “that one.” You must stop insinuating, either indirectly yourself or through surrogates, that Senator Obama is less than patriotic. You must, at some point, acknowledge both the extraordinary thing that’s about to happen with Senator Obama’s election and help the next President of the United States to address the great issues that he will confront when he is inaugurated on January 20.
Senator Obama, after all, is not just another Democratic candidate for president. To state the obvious, he’s an African-American. That means that millions of Americans will regard him warily, some involuntarily and subconsciously. Their economic concerns will, on November 4, trump their wariness. But that wariness will remain nonetheless. But the president who takes over in January must enjoy the confidence even of those who have opposed him. The country can’t afford to play politics as usual, the kind of politics you have always hated, in the next four years.
You can help President Obama by, for the balance of this campaign, calling off the attack dogs in your own party and by specifically repudiating anyone who implies that Obama is “different” from us, that he doesn’t “share our values,” or that he’s a secret Muslim, every spurious allegation a code word, a Trojan Horse, for the issue nobody wants to acknowledge. That issue is that many Americans, even well-intentioned ones, are conflicted about having an African-American as their president. Some, perhaps five to fifteen percent, depending on the polls you read and how you read them, may be unrepentantly racist in their sentiments, even those who will vote for Obama, but will be inclined to withdraw their trust or support on the flimsiest of pretexts.
So, should you just roll over and play dead for the balance of the campaign? By no means! I think instead, that you should show that patented courage of yours and make a statement like this:
My friends, if trends continue to move in their current direction, my opponent, Senator Obama, will be elected president on November 4. I have profound differences with the senator on a variety of issues. Throughout the balance of this campaign, I intend to talk about what I believe are the best prescriptions for our country’s economic challenges, for helping Americans who worry about making their mortgage payments, finding affordable health care, and enjoying economic security, for ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan successfully, for fostering energy independence, and for protecting our nation from terrorists. I will also talk about my record of achievement as someone who has served his country my entire adult life.
But, I will not attack Senator Obama. I won’t attack his record. I won’t question his judgment. I won’t speak of him pejoratively. I have ordered all of my attack ads to be pulled. I will tell you why I think that you should vote for me. I won’t give you reasons for not voting for my opponent.
The reason I do this is simple. On November 4, one of us, Senator Obama or I, will be elected President. It’s commonplace during election seasons to describe the vote at hand as “the most important election of our lifetimes.” But, my friends, this really is the most important election in seventy-six years. The next president will confront a major financial crisis, a continuing terrorist threat, and other hugely important issues. Whether that president is Senator Obama or me, we will want to hit the ground running on January 20, without the memory of another divisive election season poisoning the atmosphere, hampering the bipartisan cooperation we will need to grapple with our great national issues.
I realize that my campaign has, too often, been negative and partisan. For this, I apologize.
But from this moment forward, I intend to conduct my campaign as many had expected me to conduct it at the outset. Win or lose, I want history to show that in the last twenty-six days of my campaign for the presidency, the old John McCain, a committed conservative who worked with liberals, a man who loved his country more than his party, and a guy who chose fairness over divisiveness, re-emerged. Whether this change of approach will win your votes, I can’t say. I can only turn away from campaigning in ways that I have always found reprehensible and instead, do what I think is right.
Finally, let me tell you that while my announcement today may turn out to be shrewd, it is also genuine. As I have said before, the life story of Senator Obama, the son of a single parent without any of the economic advantages I enjoyed as the son of an admiral in the US Navy, is remarkable. That the senator has become the nominee of a great political party for President of the United States is something in which all Americans can take pride, no matter what their party. Senator Obama is a person of great intelligence, tenacity, and judgment. If he is elected president, I may not agree with him on every issue, or even most issues, but he is a loyal American who loves his country and I will respect him, as I have respected every one of our commanders-in-chief. When I can, I will, just as I stood with President Clinton when he proposed normalizing relations with the Communist regime in Vietnam that held me captive for five-and-a-half years, stand with President Obama. I know that he will make the same pledge of support and loyalty if I am elected president.
In 1861, Abraham Lincoln became president. At the Inaugural ceremonies, it’s reported that there was an awkward moment when the new president didn’t know what to do with his hat. Stephen A. Douglas, his lifelong political rival, whom Lincoln had defeated the previous November, came forward and told Lincoln that if he couldn’t be president, he could at least hold the president’s hat.
In the remaining days of this campaign, I intend to fight for every vote in every state. I believe that America’s best days are ahead of us and that I can lead the nation to victory over economic uncertainty and victory over terror. But Senator Obama is not my enemy, my friends, and he is not your enemy either. I will be honored to hold his hat, win or lose.
Let me be clear that I see the final days of this campaign as a contest between two Americans who love their country and who, in spite of their differing visions and views, will do their best to do what’s right and best for you.
You may not win the election with that speech, Senator. Indeed, I don’t think that you can win at this point. But you will gain millions of hearts and you will make it easier for the next President of the United States to govern. In ways that no probable losing candidate in history has been able to do, you can exercise huge influence over how your opponent’s presidency unfolds. You can help to give him a good start, which would be good for all of us!
[I also blog here.]