As Obama’s latest national numbers are rising, Republicans are clearly worried that Obama significantly shifted the electorate’s impression of him. I explained two nights ago that McCain’s increasingly negative tone, his new ad and his attacks on Obama’s character indicate that his campaign is worried that it needs to up the volume to play on voters’ doubts about Obama and cut whatever advantage he might have gained this week.
Yesterday, McCain continued in that vein by focusing on foreign policy and stepping up his attacks on Obama’s trip. On ABC, he harassed Obama for having canceled that now (in)famous visit to wounded troops in Germany: “Those troops would have loved to see him, and I know of no Pentagon regulation that would’ve prevented him from going there.”
This was the main novel attack of McCain’s ad released on Saturday. I still question how effective this charge could be for voters who just see the ad and have no idea what the canceled visit is referring to. Can the ad’s sarcastic’s tone (”It seems the Pentagon wouldn’t allow cameras…”) appeal to those who don’t have a prior sense of what is going on and don’t already share the contempt of McCain operatives? And I am still amazed that this is being made into a controversy given the clear evidence that the trip was canceled when the Pentagon intervened at the last minute to tell Obama that he could not take the staff he has wit him because they were part of his campaign. First Read confirms that this had nothing to do with the press:
NBC’s Andrea Mitchell reports that there was never a plan for Obama to take the press to Landstuhl. The plan was to go with his military aide, retired General Scott Gration. The Pentagon said Gration was off-limits because he had joined the campaign — violating rules that it not be a political stop. Obama had gone to see wounded troops in Iraq earlier in the week, without even confirming he’d been there. No press, no pictures. He has done the same when he goes to Walter Reed — never any press.
Senators Reid and Hagel were quick to denounce McCain’s line of attack today and the Obama campaign accused McCain, an “honorable man,” of running a “dishonorable campaign. (On a side note, Chuck Hagel’s increasingly prevalent role as an Obama surrogate confirms Hagel’s growing hostility towards his former friend John McCain and Obama will be able to benefit greatly from this given Hagel’s profile as a conservative Republican who has shown few signs of hostility towards his party beyond the Iraq issue. In fact, the fact that Hagel hasn’t even endorsed Obama makes his rebuking McCain an even more powerful weapon in Obama’s arsenal.)
In an instructive article published today on Politico, Ben Smith and Jonathan Martin take a closer look at McCain’s character strategy and the GOP’s increasingly powerful temptation to play on the online smears that have been circulating about Obama. McCain’s latest ad evokes a recent debunked e-mail recanted by its author sent around accusing Obama of having “shunned” the troops in Afghanistan. The article also quotes a Clinton voter saying she could not support Obama because she questions the fact that he is “a true American,” perhaps because “of his name.”
As McCain steps up his attacks on Obama’s character, however, his attacks on Obama’s Iraq policies are getting increasingly muddied because the Arizona Senator is shifting his argument on the issue. On Friday, McCain called a 16-month plan a “pretty good timetable.” On Sunday, he denied that he had endorsed an Obama-style timetable. What gives? McCain no longer appears to be focusing on the argument that withdrawal would lead to chaos and civil war (Maliki endorsing Obama’s timetable makes that claim politically more difficult).
McCain appears to be downplaying his opposition to timetables (which is by itself a victory for Obama); his argument is reduced to the claim that he would be attentive to conditions on the ground whereas Obama would not and would stick to 16-months no matter what is happening in Iraq. Thus, McCain both fudges his position to imply he favors some kind of withdrawal plan (as Heather Wilson suggested last week and as McCain did too on Friday by talking about a “pretty good timetable”) and he plays up the contrast between pragmatism and ideology.
This ignores most of what Obama has said on the subject, as the Illinois Senator talks about these ground conditions just as much as McCain and seems more willing to adapt his timetable than the anti-war movement would like him to be. (You might remember that he joined Clinton and Edwards in refusing to have all troops out by 2013 at a Democratic debate this fall.)
Practically, then, McCain is leaving increasingly little space between himself and Obama on the one issue that is supposed to define him the most, the issue he is the most comfortable talking about - a turnaround that would have been quite unpredictable just a few months ago. With McCain ceding so much ground on Iraq, what does he have left to draw a contrast between himself and Obama? By taking issues like the appropriateness of talking about withdrawal off the table, McCain will be forced to spend more time on issues like Afghanistan and the economy. Unless, that is, his plan is to get issues out of the way and make the election entirely a contrast of character and biography. McCain’s comments over the past week are certainly a step in that direction.
Republicans have long been looking to make the election a referendum about Obama, and it looks like the McCain campaign has decided to embrace that strategy. How far will they go - and how far will McCain (who did denounce the Swift Boat ads in 2004, after all) take this?
Why couldn’t obama have gone by himself to visit the brave men and women who are serving our country? Maybe he is uncomfortable around US troops? doesn’t want to be face to face with them? he doesn’t take campaign staff with him when he sits down with journalists. Finally FINALLY McCain is doing what he should be doing.
McCain is doing something that he must in order to win this election, which is to attack Obama’s character, backed by the viral emails and the lack of knowledge Americans have of him. McCain can never win this election based on issues, he loses almost all of them hands down. Its on the character issue where he can get the upper hand, and no matter how much McCain personally dislikes it, it’s apparent he rather be nasty and possibly severly damage his chances at being a effective president with a Democratic congress for the sake of becoming President himself than being civil and keeping his reputation, but not being able to win.
Also Pat’08, Obama probably could have just visited the troops by himself with no cameras, but as only Iraq and Afghnistan was a Senate/Public financed trip and I think the Israel, Jordan, and European trip were paid by the Obama campaign, he probably felt it would be innappropirate to visit the soldiers, even without cameras and by himself.
Pat ‘08, please do some reading on the subject. Obama’s planned trip was canceled because the Pentagon told him it would be inappropriate. Obama was planning on goign *without* press, but the Pentagon claimed that because the trip would be funded by his campaign it would be considered a campaign event. McCain’s ad is specious, muck-raking BS and anyone with half a brain will see right through it. So much for “straight talk” and running a respectful campaign! You don’t see Obama taking out ads that hit McCain on his horrendous hypocrisy (calling out Obama for hosting a campaign event outside the US only days after having held a campaign event in Canda, for instance), his many, many flip-flops (You know that he recently said that a 16-month timetable sounded pretty good, right? And that he endorsed the idea of a timetable, then denied it) or his pure inability to articulate a coherent opinion (Check out his indecipherable babbling on the gay adoption issue, not to mention his flipping and flopping!). Frankly, I kinda wish Obama WOULD stoop to that level, because more people need to see through McCain’s “straight-talk” facade, but I suppose those kind of negative, personal attacks are usually the sign of a desperate campaign, like McCain’s.
And, amusingly, today we also find a study from a *conservative* media group that bias in the news media has been for *McCain*. It must be really hard to be a McCain supporter when the facts seem to prove him more and more wrong and more and more useless every day.
Pat’08 - Obama is damned if he does and damned if he doesn`t by the right wing press. As Taniel says Obama has visited troops without any press involvement OR knowledge. Plus seeing troops doesn`t mean you care for them - Bush sees troops and the families of dead soldiers all the time but still he puts 150000 troops in harms way.
Taniel, I liked your website better when your bias wasn’t so evident. I’d appreciate it if you could make a more concerted effort to suppress it. Unless you aren’t interested in objective analysis, which was the primary draw of this website in the first place.
Otherwise, I really appreciate this website!
John,
I certainly have my candidate in the general - just as I did in the primaries - and I don’t doubt that it is entirely obvious who I am supporting (though everyone accused me of a different bias during the primary…). And thanks for calling my attention to any changes in tone… I would disagree however that these past few posts ought to be described as biased or different than my other efforts at objective analysis.
I don’t see it as a matter of bias to point out that McCain’s claims on the canceled trip are factually false, that Obama had indeed visited troops in Iraq without the press just a few days before, that McCain is shifting his position on Iraq much more than Obama is in a way at this point in a way that is reducing the space between the two candidates (if anything, I thought I was being kinder than most to McCain by suggesting that his talking about a timetable on Friday was part of a deliberate effort to muddy the Iraq question rather than a gaffe) or that McCain is now attacking Obama’s character (in fact, conservatives have been urging him to do just that for months!). Just as I don’t believe it was biased of me to insist last month that Obama had flip-flopped on FISA or Heller v. DC.
It would make for a duller read (and for a duller campaign season) if I were to ignore facts because they favor one side’s perspective or if I toned down my analysis of the race’s dynamics. Am I putting the emphasis on these issues rather than others because of who I am supporting, and is my analysis shaped by partisan opinions? Probably. But I do think pointing out all of this is necessary to capture the election’s dynamics, where I think the race is heading, etc.
But you are right that the point of the website has been to have fun with objective analyses of all these races - almost as I would cover a sport, which I admit is not necessarily a good thing - and that is still my objective here! On a related note, I hope the new dropdown feature of race-categories organized by state (at the top of the sidebar) will be more useful to go through archives of a particular race than the previous design and organization model was!
It’s not Taniel’s fault that reality has a left-wing bias.
John - Taniel is perfectly correct at putting verifable facts out there and if they point out inconsistencies with one candidate or the other then that is just life. If I wanted to see facts supressed when they are critical of one candidate and to see fake facts to attack another candidate then I would go to FoxNews.com
Taniel, thanks for your response. I am not talking about presenting facts or ignoring facts - I am referencing the tone used, comments made, and adjectives used to describe the facts. It is tough to see the bias when it plays right into one’s beliefs. Same thing for you, Guy. I am requesting the suppression of obvious bias, not of facts.
Thanks again for the website.