In the GOP convention’s third act, Republicans took another 180 degrees turn, abandoning the hard-hitting attacks with which they sought to ridicule Barack Obama to portray themselves as a party that can rise above partisan rancor.
If Tuesday’s speakers tried to make the country forget that they were watching the Republican convention and Wednesday’s speakers tried to convince viewers that the GOP had not been in power over the past eight years, John McCain did not resort to such illusory tricks, tackled the challenge of his party identification and took the only path that can save Republicans this year: persuade the electorate that McCain can belong to the GOP while still representing a true break from the past eight years.
McCain’s strategy was the right one given what he needed to accomplish, and his speech was written with the solemnity his plan required. But McCain did not go far enough. The speech lacked the scope and the delivery to make a lasting impression. It had enough moments to give McCain a boost, but not one to durably alter the race.
McCain’s speech was a striking change of tone from Giuliani and Palin’s primetime addresses last night, and perhaps too contradictory a switch for McCain’s post-partisan pledge to be fully credible. But that was the challenge that was awaiting the GOP this week, both rally the base and not look like typical Republicans. The McCain campaign knows that before making any other argument it first needs to show that McCain passes the change hurdle, that he is enough of a break with the Bush Administration to even merit being considered by voters.
To achieve that, McCain channeled his maverick reputation, faulting his own party for abandoning the principles of the 1994 revolution. He did not hesitate to include himself among those who have strayed away from conservatism. “We were elected to change Washington and Washington changed us,” he said, before launching in a litany of issues on which both parties - including the remnants of the Gingrich revolution - were responsible for the country’s failings:
We lost the trust of the American people when some Republicans gave in to the temptations of corruption. We lost their trust when rather than reform government, both parties made it bigger. We lost their trust when instead of freeing ourselves from a dangerous dependence on foreign oil, both parties and Senator Obama passed another corporate welfare bill for oil companies. We lost their trust, when we valued our power over our principles.
This was the connection to Wednesday night: the election ought not to be an election about Democrats versus Republicans but a choice between the establishment and reformers. “I fight to restore the pride and principles of our party,” McCain said, before launching into all-out populist rhetoric, “Let me offer an advance warning to the old, big-spending, do-nothing, me-first-country-second Washington crowd: Change is coming.” McCain professed that his allegiance was solely to the country. “I don’t work for a party. I don’t work for a special interest. I don’t work for myself. I work for you,” he said, in a speech that was essentially a call to service: “Nothing brings greater happiness in life than to serve a cause greater than yourself. I’m going to fight for my cause every day as your President.”
What was truly fascinating about McCain’s speech is how closely it echoed Obama’s post-partisanship in the original form which he has quieted over the past few months. Obama’s quintessential argument has always been that partisan bickering aggravate the country’s problems and that all recent Administrations from both parties - including Clinton’s - are to blame. While Obama moved away from his pure post-partisanship last Thursday, Lieberman channeled this argument that changing parties is not enough and the discourse must be changed, and McCain picked it up today.
McCain was not looking to feed the base, Palin already took care of that yesterday. Sure, his reform argument did not really resonate with the audience, but that only meant it had even more potential to resonate with the targets of McCain’s speech - independents watching at home. One particular theme that is sure to appeal to independents is the emphasis on accountability, a value that voters have been emphasizing this year. Given that McCain hit the right points, he will surely be boosted by his willingness to take direct hits at the Bush Administration for its failings.
Yet, McCain’s challenge was to durably transform his image as an anti-Bush Republican, and he did not do go as far as he should have. His connection to Bush is the central theme Democrats will be using as they make the case that McCain is just “more of the same.” An incumbent party had not been this unpopular in 28 years, and voters want the opposition. Both candidates have hurdles to overcome. Obama’s biggest opportunity will come at the debate, where he will have to show that he is qualified enough and strong enough that voters would not be taking too much of a risk. McCain’s biggest opportunity was tonight, as he could have shown that he was enough of an agent of change that voters would not be voting for four more years of Bush.
Tonight was the moment for McCain to take a dramatic step to distance himself from Bush, a step so radical as to surprise voters and pundits and commit it to their mind in the weeks ahead, no matter what Democrats throw. As McCain was apparently not interested in the one-term pledge, he could have taken a surprising policy step that is completely at odds with the President’s Administration - perhaps on torture, perhaps on something voters feel even more strongly about. Perhaps this sounds like too drastic a move, but it was no small challenge McCain was facing tonight.
He took the first steps in that direction, but stopped way short. His strategy was sound but it could have been pushed further. And that’s just for how the plan looked on paper, for it was also plagued by problems of execution. The same was true on Tuesday, when Lieberman’s message was clouded by the fact that it was Bush who opened the primetime hour and the possibility that Lieberman has some of his credibility among independents. Today, it was McCain’s uneven delivery that might have damaged its impact.
He has delivered some solid speeches in the past, but public speakers who are not natural orators need to rely on the energy of the crowd even more, and McCain’s script was not one that was going to inflame the crowd tonight. The speech’s first part sounded flat, and some of the strongest lines were undercut by too forced a tone. Take, for instance, one of the speeches’ most crucial lines: “I will reach out my hand to anyone to help me get this country moving again. I have that record and the scars to prove it. Senator Obama does not.” That McCain delivered the punch line with his trademark smug grin followed by a snicker limited its impact.
The speech’s last part, devoted to his years as a POW, was delivered with more emotion; after all, we have seen many times before (including at Saddleback) that McCain can deliver powerful anecdotes about his years as a POW. Despite what an MSNBC journalist claimed after the speech, McCain has seemed perfectly comfortable talking about his POW years for more than two decades now. Even so, it is remarkable that the campaign chose to make McCain’s POW years a focus of McCain’s speech after they were described at length by so many other speakers - including (in primetime hours) by Thompson (21 million people) and Palin (37 million).
From a purely tactical standpoint, is it safe for a campaign to bank so much on one period of its candidate’s life - especially after it backfired on Kerry? Today, McCain actually put a new frame on the story, one we had not heard at past events nor in the previous days’ speeches: he made it into a story about his own turn to service, his evolution from a selfish young man who thought only of his career to an ardent patriot devoted to serving America. Yet, even the most casual of convention watchers were bound to have heard McCain’s stories as recently as yesterday, so at what point do they lose its effectiveness?
In one final characteristic disconnect, the speech’s final crescendo - marked by fast-paced sentences urging people to “stand up” and “fight” were drowned by the crowd’s cheers over which McCain chose to speak. This dramatic finale was an encore of McCain’s 2004 convention speech, and that version of this pulsating call to service has been part of McCain’s promotional videos this year. But what was intended as an apotheosis celebrating McCain’s warrior-like resolve (”stand up, stand up, stand up and fight” is the speech’s last line) was barely audible.
In short, McCain took the path he ought to have taken, but he did not go that much further than the minimum. For a candidate who remains the underdog however much he has gained over the past two months, the safe minimum might not be enough.
My nightly convention analyses available here.
This is a very contradictory party, the GOP. First they are hitting Obama especially hard, then they suddenly accuse him for lack of bipartianship. I think this strategy won’t succeed, because it is presenting McCain as someone more interested in winning to cap his political career than to better serve the country. The fact that Oama raised over $10 million (according to their latest statement) after Palin’s speech demonstrates the danger Republicans are about to encounter: that Americans’ mood is not the same as it was in 2004 and that, being used to the partian attack of Bush, voters will see this as the old, same Bush party.
Insightful analysis, and again, an even-handed summation of an event that would challenge people like me to be as dispassionate.
I’ve been a Demo all my life but historically respected McCain’s refusal to toe the party line. There are bits and pieces of it that still show through, but the real problem is two-fold: his party, and his failure or refusal to apply his change algorithm to it.
The party has become an ugly repository of chauvinism, divisiveness and economic elitism. When Reagan first knit together seemingly-disparate economic Tories, evangelicals and neocons, many of us assumed it would never hold together, and in fact, in recent years it has shown signs of fraying. This year, it’s back in all its glory with a message: “If you’re not with us, you’re the enemy both of the party and of the country.”
Well, the first part is always true in politics, but the current GOP has personalized the enmity and transmuted it from vicious attacks on ideas to vicious attacks on the people who hold those ideas. I walk away from the last few nights convinced that people like Romney, Giuliani, Thompson and Palin would gladly create a gulag for those of us who don’t buy into their programs. McCain has hitched himself to that, and has made no discernible effort to mute it or force change, and that is an acid test of his commitment to bipartisanship.
(Please don’t cite Lieberman as an example of bipartisanship - Joe is a bitter and very strange man who is exacting revenge on the party for not discarding Lamont the way the GOP abandoned Schlesinger.)
After all of that, how can McCain use the word ‘bipartisan’ without evoking gales of laughter from anyone listening dispassionately? You’re not going to get much understanding from people you’ve accused of intellectual treason and heretical personal behavior.
Let me be clear - I am a Demo, and even on his most objective day, I wouldn’t accept McCain’s substantive position on taxes, for instance. But had he behaved with a shred of personal integrity during this campaign, I would have retained a perception that he was a politician of some personal honor and integrity. That is no longer possible, for me at least.
How will this play? For the short term, I suspect it will eliminate most of Obama’s post-convention bounce. The Palin strategy, which looked impulsive and crack-pot to me at first, has given him some purchase even with independents. From the political perspective, all of this is apt to be successful, and will throw the race back into the standoff it’s been recently. I can’t make sense of the difference between the CBS and Gallup tracking polls from yesterday.
Longer term, it’s harder for me to guess - the economics and the market are still sour, and we have yet to evolve a coherent international policy (Lord knows what Cheney is edging us towards in the Caucasus).
Can the GOP divert voters away from the fundamentals with the side show they’ve treated us to for the last few days? It’s worked in the past, and I wouldn’t bet against it in 2008, so I say 6-5 pick ‘em.
I think Obama’s “bounce” is actually pretty solid. The Gallup tracking is steady at 49vs43 and this includes Palin’s announcement and half of the convention.
Obama sealed the deal on party unity during the Democratic convention - the number of “Hillary” voters who are certain of voting for Obama went from 47 to 65%. A solid base of support.
Obama will now have two advantages - a) he will be able to outspend McCain during September and October which is a change thus far. b) he has more newswoprthy surrogates - Obama,Michelle, Biden, Hillary and Bill where as McCain has himself and Palin. Possibly Cindy (at a stretch) so everyday there can be 5 Democrats stumping and getting plenty of news time in their area compared to 2 Republicans. Multiply this by the 60 days and you have a substantial difference. Of course not both Clinton’s will campaign all the time but even Obama, Michelle and Biden outnumber the GOP.
Palin has overall been a small negative - yes she has energised the base but she may have driven away some independent minded women and he has compromised both the experience line of attack as well as the celebrity one since Palin has become a celeb.
Guy - Where did you get the 49-43? The last time I looked, Gallup was still showing 49-42 through September 3, which presumably means that the polling ended sometime on the date when Palin was speaking. Even if you assume Gallup polled well into the evening, that data doesn’t reflect the impact both of her speech and of the press reports and campaign spinning which occupied a good part of yesterday.
I didn’t see anything more recent in Realclearpolitics.com, either.
- Zoot
Taniel, as usual, has given us an excellent detailed and accurate analysis of the speech.
I do have a few general impressions to add.
The delivery was wooden as most of us expected but I was surprised that it seemed so badly written. The only real cheering came at the mention of Palin’s name and in the last minute. Most was standard Republican boilerplate and a lot came from his stump speech. The POW story was rehashed for what seemed the umtheenth time and although it is a heroic tale it does nothing to say what he would do as President. Bud Day is a POW and war hero but would you vote for him for any office?
There is a good chance that he will be overshadowed by his VP choice and that could be a real problem. The cable talk and press this AM is not how the speech compared to Obama but how it compared to Palin. The consenuss; not well.
I think if it had a choice the base would much prefer Palin at the top of the ticket.
The dump Palin talk has mostly ended but she is still not fully vetted and I still think there is another shoe to drop.
The stagecraft continued to be a problem with the return of the green screen effect and a major backdrop photo error. The large building photo behind him at the start of his speech was not Walter Reed Hospital, as planned, but a California middle school of the same name. My impression on seeing it was, of course, is that one of the McCain mansions? (thanksTPM)
They also had telepromter problems.
One last note slightly off topic. I think Chuck Todd has emerged has a real media star over these last two weeks. Next to Taniel, and considering where he works, his analysis has been the most inciteful and unbiased around. (Meet The Press awaits.
At times I can give more intelligent and original analysis than Chuck Todd( sarcasm) . He is very good with numbers though; delegates, electoral college etcetc
Despite John McCain’s age, he does not strike me as an especially wise elder statesman. He is also not a very happy person on the inside. There seems to be a lot of repressed anger on the inside. His smiles are forced and any sense of optimism seems to co-exist with a sense of threat or danger or of having been wronged: Iran threatens, Russian threatens, Al-Queda still lurks all around us.
Service and sacrifice are big themes he returns to again and again. But there seems to be a hunger in the country for more: for a real sense of hope. Obama has tapped into that, and McCain has not. Nor has his vice-presidential candidate, Gov. Palin.
McCain says Palin will “shake up” Washington. But how? What are her plans? What powers will she have? And is SHE is the Agent of Change, then why is he needed?
I am frankly very concerned about McCain’s suppressed anger, and his apparent lack of inner peace. There seem to be an awful lot of clouds on John McCain’s horizon.
Rasmussen Tracking: Obama 48, McCain 46
Check : http://www.bostonpie.com/DailyTracker.htm for best guess daily numbers.
(Coco beat me to this while I was talking to a client.)
Rasmussen is showing the race essentially tied. While they never reported any convention bounce for Obama (http://tinyurl.com/67pgnn) and have consistently shown the GOP more competitive than Gallup for instance, this result - together with the CBS poll the 3rd - indicates that neither convention changed the equation significantly - at least for the short term.
While Palin is hardly my cup of tea, she is indeed something different on the political scene. I wonder if voters are hanging back trying to get a fix on her and how they feel about the ‘new look’ McCain ticket.
Yes, just as I supected, McCain is now getting his bounce from the convention. We won’t know the full effect of his bounce until next Monday, as by then respondents to these polls would have all since be influenced by his speech as well. One interesting thing is this: will McCain’s bounce only be big enough to return the race to where it was before the Democratic convention (i.e tied/1-2 point lead for Obama)? Or will the bounce be bigger than Obamas, in terms of giving McCain a small lead among all of the major polling firms. I have a strong feeling that Rasmussen will show McCain-Palin ahead based on the fact that it has tended to show a slight GOP lean in the race, but it will be interesting to see if other pollings firms and polling by the networks also show McCain ahead.
On Gov. Palin, the primary benefit that she brings to McCain is in terms of rousing the base and turning them from merely being anti-Obama to pro-McCain. McCain for a long time has had the vote of the GOP, while Obama was struggling with holding the Democrats. But with Palin, he can ensure 2 things: that conservatives actually turn out to vote, and that they volunteer in big numbers for McCain. The latter is very important in a election that is very close and one in which Obama will have the monetary advantage. McCain’s thinking is that Palin can hold the GOP and ensure they vote for him no matter what, and this frees McCain’s to appeal to conservative/moderate Democrats and indepednents.
At the very least, Palin’s selection helps to cut into Obama’ great ambition to compete in states that were solidly for Bush in 2000 and 2004. There is no way that Missisipi and Georgia will allow Obama to even get into single digits now, and Alaska is safe, and Montana will probably go safe GOP too thanks to Palin’s hunter credentials. Even South Carolina could possibly be a state in which Obama is in the situtation of being “so close, yet so far away”. The only solid Bush states that Obama has a chance in now is in North Dakota, which is dominanted by Democrats at the congessional level, the Governor is more of a moderate-conservative than strong conservative (unlike in South Dakota), the farm bill (big government) is popular, and where McCain will probably not spend much; and in Virginia, in which the growth of Northen Virginia has given Obama and opening, even if Palin gets out the vote in the state.
If Jaxx is correct, this frees up McCain’s money and efforts to move into PA/OH/MI. Even more, given the disparity in post-convention funding which would have impaired McCain’s efforts to establish field organizations, it gives him a cadre of pro bono volunteers and a pre-existing network through church groups and the like. At the least, this is getting some in depth attention at Obama HQ.
It is true the base is more energised and will volunteer more but there will still be an enthusiasm gap (2 million people donated to Obama and counting). Add in the fact that they have been volunteering for longer thanthe last 60 days which will have some impact too.
Even with Rasmussen, which is pro GOP, McCain has never broken 47% and is still polling below that ceiling as of today. True his speech may have some impact but Obama has moved the race from a tie before the convention to a lead. Palin may be a game changer - just not what was intended. Remember she was rolled out 1 week ago to appeal to independent woman and Hillary voters - not much sign of that plus the strategy has shifted to shoring up the base, hence no real poll movement for McCain.
Zoot - sorry for the mistake in poll numbers. The main point is Obama is polling at or around 50%. Game over if that stays that way. Yes I know popular vote is not the end result (ask Gore) but if you win by 4-5% then surely one of CO, OH, FL or VA would go Democratic. Iowa and NM seem pretty safe to add to the Kerry states.
I just come back to the fact that Palin was meant to be a gamechanger and you would expect her to have had some positive effect in the polls. So far nothing.
I just come back to the fact that Palin was meant to be a gamechanger and you would expect her to have had some positive effect in the polls. So far nothing.
I find it hard to see how she wouldn’t alienate more moderates than those she would attract. Anecdotally, I’ve read many accounts of moderates, especially moderate women, who were offended by the pick. She may help with turnout and fundraising from the base, but as one Democratic operative told me today, he’s happy for Republicans to play a base campaign because Democrats now outnumber Republicans. And Democrats apparently raised around $10 million between her speech and McCain’s, so she may have energized the Democratic base as well.
I don’t know if the Palin choice was really aimed at the disaffected Clinton supporters; maybe Republican leaders thought they needed more base support, and maybe some women could be brought along as a bonus. I think it’s a risky ploy, but perhaps they thought they couldn’t win any other way at this point. If so, it would seem to be a bit desperate. Perhaps they know something I don’t.
But my analysis has nothing but speculation behind it–which I suppose makes it no worse than anyone else’s!
One other negative of choosing Palin is that now she is the new kid on the block. Obama is less of a risk and has less newness. All good for him.
Gallup now showing 48-44, giving full effect to Palin but pre-McCain’s speech. Don’t know anyone who thought McCain blew away the house last night, but OTOH he tried to segue back to bipartisanship, however ineffectively. It will be interesting to see the next set of numbers.
Meanwhile, more trailer trash tales flying around about Palin, which I won’t repeat. The point is that it’s a distraction if you’re trying to get a story out there on policy. It may generate a sympathy backlash, but its hard for me to see how that will be decisive when stacked up against voter exhaustion with melodrama and intense desire to get something done.ts.
I don’t know about MT, I think Obama can still constest there. But Jaxx is right about the Southern states he mentioned (that is, minus VA & FL). If were McCain, I’d leave PA, where he has little chance, and concentrate in OH and MI, NH, and try to defend MT, ND.
For Obama, GA & NC looked less likely now but they should wait for more polling data to withdraw from there. They have to defend MI, PA & NH, and then solidify IA & NM. From there the path to 270 is much easier, I think then should invest heavily in VA, CO, OH. FL & MO looked more like a long shot, and ND, MT, NV would be welcomed but I think it would be very strange if they have an upset there without winning CO.
About the GOP convention, I also think McCain speech was flat, except at the end which was very moving. I think they will get a national bounce that will put the race back in the 2-5% range.
Interesting that Obama still polls 48% in the Gallup tracking poll. That is a very solid position to start September in when you have the advantage of cash and media-worthy surrogates (Obama, Biden, the Clinton’s and Michelle).
Palin is holed up in Alaska for a week to sort out her affairs and then she has debate prep (more needed than Biden) so that limits her time on the trail.
Also interesting that Obama raised as much money as McCain did after the Palin announcement - seems she has fired up both bases.