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Quote of The Day: Have McCain And Palin Peaked?

September 16th, 2008
By JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief

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The political quote of the day comes from former Democratic strategist Robert Shrum who contends the GOP Presidential campaign ticket of Sen. John McCain and Gov. Sarah Palin may have peaked.

A word first about Shrum. He has been a favorite TMV whipping boy since we started the blog in 2003 due to his poor track record in winning campaigns. Our first wisecrack about him came when eventually-defeated 2004 Democratic Presidential candidate Senator John Kerry picked him as his chief strategist. But, since then, he has written a delightfully blunt and lively political memoir and been an utterly-charming and often-perceptive talking head on some popular cable political shows.

Shrum first notes how the McCain campaign is coming under fire for being factually challenged:

Maybe the Obama campaign should just fire all their fact checkers. Why vet your ads or even your resume when the McCain campaign keeps proving it doesn’t matter? Right now, the Straight Talk Express is hurtling down a highway of lies. If there are fact checkers hidden somewhere in the back of the bus, they’re like the old Maytag repairman with nothing to do. It’s hard to single out just one lie…. But it’s not just McCain’s attacks that show disdain for the truth.

Then further down (read it in full after you read this post) he gives us our political Quote of the Day:

McCain’s deceptions advance a strategy of campaign as camouflage. He’d rather talk about anything—including whether his ads are deceitful—than have to address the economy, health care, his misjudgments on the war, or all the other issues that were driving him down until that dog sled pulled up in Arizona.

[David]Frum thinks McCain has found a path to the White House. I think McCain and Palin have peaked. The debates are coming—where their camouflage will be stripped away. Recession, McCain’s echo of the Bush-Cheney policies, his admitted ignorance of economics, his indifference to 47 million Americans without health insurance and his bellicose unilateralism will all come home to roost. Palin will remain interesting, but become increasingly irrelevant—unless she memorably reveals her vacuity. If Obama does his part—and he will—the voters will figure things out.

Is that wishful thinking — the kind of thinking that got Kerry defeated by ignoring “swiftboating” until it was too late? MORE:

Obama’s victory won’t be a triumph of clean politics; it’s just that McCain doesn’t have enough mud to cover reality all the way to November 4. Afterwards, Palin can go back to hunting moose; maybe she can invite Dick Cheney along and teach him to shoot straight. And McCain—well, he can stand in a corner of the Senate with Joe Lieberman. And maybe he’ll wish he hadn’t lied quite so much. Because the way he’s headed, he’s going to lose more than an election.

Shrum does make a good point.

What’s certain now is events have overtaken campaign planning. The news from Wall Street is catastrophic and forced a campaign dialogue shift from the vital national issue of lipstick and pigs to the lousy economy….to a history-making corporate bankruptcy, the sale of a major financial institution and — apparently coming soon to a city near you — either the closing or sale of one of the country’s biggest banks (WaMu). And scare ripples and financial and economic consequences will likely follow the ongoing bad news.

Meanwhile, Shrum is correct about the potential for the debates to change perceptions (one way or another) once more.

Both sides will over prepare their candidates.

Both candidates will be armed with polished one line zingers, ready to use them at a moment’s notice.

Both sides will likely be looking for a Reagan-esque “there you go again” moment — but when Reagan did it it was fresh. Trying to re-do Reagan would be like Chris Rock getting up and saying “Take my wife. Please!…A friend of mine wears a girdle. I asked him how long have you been wearing a girdle? He said ‘Ever since my wife found it in the glove compartment of my car.”…

…I know a band that was so bad it played Tea For One.” Rock would be as convincing and fresh doing Henny Youngman as Obama or McCain would be doing Reagan.

Or, some might say, as John McCain 2008 is doing John McCain 2000…

But the debates will give voters a chance to see both Presidential and Vice Presidential candidates side-by-side, there will be unscripted moments — and voters will get a chance to visualize each of them in higher office without their own campaign’s positive packaging and their political foes’ negative packaging.

Could Shrum be correct? It has been easy to dump on Shrum — he became an easy target since he became to winning presidential campaigns what Dick Morris has become to solid and reliable political predictions. But keep in mind that, when his book came out, he shocked a lot of people by his passages on Sen. John Edwards which some considered a bit difficult to believe….then..:

Robert Shrum, the veteran Democratic strategist who worked on John Edwards’s 1998 Senate campaign in North Carolina, does not remember his onetime client very fondly.

In his new memoir, “No Excuses: Concessions of a Serial Campaigner,” Shrum recalls asking Edwards at the outset of that campaign, “What is your position, Mr. Edwards, on gay rights?”

“I’m not comfortable around those people,” Edwards replied, according to Shrum. He writes that the candidate’s wife, Elizabeth, told him: “John, you know that’s wrong.”

Edwards was quickly defended:

Edwards’s pollster, Harrison Hickman, who was in the room during the discussion, says Shrum “is sensationalizing and taking out of context what was an honest discussion about [Edwards’s] lack of exposure to these issues and openly gay people. I don’t remember anything that expressed any kind of venom or judgment about gay people.”

Edwards spokesman Eric Schultz says Shrum “has a very casual relationship with the truth. Bob is obviously more interested in selling books than reporting honestly and accurately about what happened.”

But Shrum’s description of a cynical, self-absorbed candidate perhaps even more full of himself than the usual matter that politicians are often full of gains credence in light of the Edwards affairs scandal and all the rumors that continue to swirl around it. For instance:

While praising Edwards as a man of “many innate political gifts,” Shrum says he hoped the senator wouldn’t run for the White House in 2004: “I was coming to believe he wasn’t ready; he was a Clinton who hadn’t read the books.”

Indeed. Perhaps Edwards emulated Clinton too closely…AND:

When Shrum called to say he had decided to join the presidential campaign of another former client, Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), Edwards was angry. “I can’t believe you would do this to me and my family. I will never, ever forget it, even on my deathbed,” he quotes Edwards as saying.

We don’t usually quote an entire news story here, but Howard Kurtz’s story helps put the bottom line into context.

Shrum is no dummy and he’s probably correct:

The initial glow may be off the McCain Palin ticket in light of recent events, and some recent polls do show McCain now on a slow decline from his post-convention bounce — which doesn’t necessarily mean the Obama-Biden ticket is now shining.

But when the camera lights shine on Obama-McCain and Biden-Palen in the debates, voters will get a chance to see less glow and perhaps more X-ray.

And the game could change again.



This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 16th, 2008 at 8:20 pm and is filed under John McCain, Democratic Party, Newsweek Blogitics, Sarah Palin, John Edwards, Barack Obama, 2008 Elections, Democrats, Republicans, Politics. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Viewing 11 Comments

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    Well, I give Shrum a "does not mince words" award. While I look forward to the debates, I would be surprised if Obama runs away with it. He's good in debates, but not great. I just hope, since I think he's better for our country, that he can run away with 1 more electoral vote than McCain....
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    Neither candidate is very good in debates. Hillary Clinton is one of the best in the business and Obama improved a lot by sparring with her.
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    While I am not a fan of McCain-Palin, I think Shrum is engaging in some wishful thinking. Palin seems to be like Ronald Reagan -- coated in teflon.

    Today her campaign announced that she would not appear at the Alaskan ethics investigation of the firing of her brother-in-law unless it was passed on to a state board whose members she appointed. That's chutzpah, and it was hardly mentioned on cable news.
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    kritt: Today her campaign announced that she would not appear at the Alaskan ethics investigation of the firing of her brother-in-law unless it was passed on to a state board whose members she appointed. That's chutzpah, and it was hardly mentioned on cable news.

    I suspect it is also one gift that keeps on giving, at least for another month. Add to that Ted Steven's trial. And, unfortunately, add to that the difficulties the economy is likely to experience between now and election time. That makes some pretty hard sledding for the GOP. But here's a wild card: what's going to happen with the energy debates? Those could be a very, very big deal.
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    Well, I imagine it is wishful thinking, but it's also grounded in good sense. I think the initial euphoric reaction to Palin may once again become a worry - at least for those republicans who were initially aghast at the choice, and while this may not be reflected in polls so much now, I wouldn't be surprised to see the numbers move either by or after the debates. I know both sides will be as prepared as possible for those debates, there may be some surprises, and I don't expect particularly brilliant moderation, either... but it's hard for me to believe either McCain or Palin is looking forward to those debates with lots of enthusiasm. Of course the hope (among dems) is that the debates will peel back the layers of facade and reveal what is important. We shall see...
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    I rather suspect both sides partake of wishful thinking. The polls before Palin's selection used to read 49 Obama 41 McCain. 47 Obama, 43 McCain. 48 Obama 41 Mccain.

    Get the picture here? 10 percent uncommitted. Now the polls are 49/48 McCain to 4748 Obama with 2 percent going to Barr and Nader. In other words roughly the entire electorate has now committed. Its a done deal.

    Debates are wishful thinking. The only thing that could work for either candidates favor is a huge blunder by either side. McCain has been doing this for 27 years. Hes most likely not going to mess up. Biden will not mess up. Palin is the only wild card and she could mess up. However. I believe that as with Hillary and now with Palin this country So desperately wants change. They wanted a woman in the White House and with McCain and his age and a committment to 1 term, they just might be getting their wish with Palin.
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    Right, elrod, and the flipside is that where Obama had Clinton to sharpen him, McCain competed with the Great Plastic Romney and "Noun, Verb, 9/11" Giuliani (not the best debaters) for the spotlight.
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    Ricorun-- It SHOULD be the gift that keeps on giving-- but the RNC will put it out that she is cooperating, but doesn't want to participate in a "tainted" proceeding, that is obviously politically motivated. (the investigative board is split 8R-4D! so this is disingenuous)

    Their voters will buy it, because on Fox they won't report the damaging nuance----- that she will only appear before a state commission full of her own toadies, who were appointed mostly on the basis of their loyalty to her. Hmmmm, who is that sounding like?
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