Midsummer Strategy Memo for John McCain
Senator McCain:
In his Op-ed in yesterday’s New York Times, your longtime supporter Bill Kristol contends that your campaign has “largely frittered away” your “three-month general election head start.” While I don’t think you entirely wasted those three months, the conservative columnist does have a point. You didn’t do enough in those three months to solidify your base and establish a unifying agenda for the fall campaign, one which can bring together conservatives and independents eager for change.
In those three months, you did do some things right. I think your biography tour was a stroke of political genius, helping to define who you were by what you’ve done (and experienced).
Not just that, in a series of speeches, you’ve put forward several pretty solid policy proposals, offering remedies consistent with conservative principles to some of today’s problems. While your Democratic opponent may run on the mantra of change, you’re the one who has come up with the most new ideas. (He just offers the same-old, same-old from the Democratic stock of state solutions, increased government spending, higher taxes and less freedom.)
That said, Kristol is on the money he writes that your “campaign this year desperately needs a message and a narrative that is both appropriate for the candidate and for the times.” I think he must be referencing Yuval Levin’s piece which he published in the Weekly Standard: A Theme for McCain’s Pudding.
That, I believe, is the first thing you need do, develop a campaign theme. Below the “jump,” I provide some other ideas which, I believe, will help prepare you for the fall campaign:
(1) Given your opponent’s repeated flip-flops, particularly on some of the big issues of this campaign, point out the policies you’ve consistently advocated over the years, notably national security. I mean, at least two (indeed, almost three) years before the president implemented the “surge” which has proven successful in Iraq, you pressed him to advocate a similar shift in strategy. Your recent trip to Cartagena reminded me that you have long advocated free trade. With Obama flipping, flopping and flipping on NAFTA, remind voters of your consistent support of open markets — and explain how they benefit our economy.
And remember to stress your longtime support of budget cuts and your opposition to congressional earmarks.
This will not only show you believe in something (and have acted on those beliefs) , it will also provide a contrast to your opponent’s opportunism.
(2) I know there’s some bad blood between you and Rush Limbaugh, but you need to meet with him, whether for an on-air interview or an informal discussion. Reading the (surprisingly even-handed) New York Times magazine piece on the talk show host reminds us (yet again) of his enduring appeal on the right. Democrat attacks notwithstanding, Rush has long honored those who have served in our armed forces. He will definitely appreciate your service — and your sacrifice.
When you sit down with Rush, remind him of the common ground you share, particularly on national security matters and federal judges.
(3) You also need to keep meeting with social conservatives and remind them of the common ground you share on the role of the judiciary. But, don’t pander to them as some Republicans have done in the past. Fred Barnes is wrong that you should make an issue of gay marriage. Just say, as you have, that you don’t believe judges should define marriage, state legislatures should. Even I agree with you there. As do most voters.
(4) Finally, I agree with Dick Morris that you need to reply to Obama’s latest attempt to re-imagine himself in ”his first national advertising buy of the season” (via Instapundit). But, this ad campaign is dishonest: ”In his effort to move to the center, Obama has distorted his own record, meager though it may be, and is taking credit for a program he strongly opposed.” Morris suggests a rebuttal: ”John McCain: when you have real experience, you don’t need to exaggerate.”
These are just some suggestions on things you need do to prepare for the fall campaign. I think they will help remind voters of who you are and what you stand for while contrasting your commitment to certain principles to your opponent’s lack of substance.
23 Comments »
RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI
If I had to give McCain a slogan for his campaign up to this point, it would be:
“I don’t really know why you should vote for me.”
(Because I’m not Obama?)
(Because it’s my last chance?)
(Because it’s my turn?)
(Because I won’t actually fight to win?)
Comment by heliotrope — July 8, 2008 @ 5:42 pm - July 8, 2008
Umm, This may not be the best place to ask this but… How wide spread is Mccain’s support in the gay community? I am not gay but visit your site regularly because my favorite family member is and l need to know that there really are gay conservatives. He’s a brilliant guy, but I think politically he’s liberal just because he thinks he must.
At the risk of sounding niave or stereotypical, most of the gay people I know are hard working successful people not asking for hand outs. Their politics seem to fly in the face of their achievments. I don’t know how to understand this.
Comment by Jean — July 8, 2008 @ 7:26 pm - July 8, 2008
Meanwhile, this is what he is up against:
and of course like a good messiah, convention halls aren’t enough for the coronation. The
I’m not sure how one campaigns against that. Serious discussion of real world issues don’t stand a chance against a messiah.
Meanwhile, on a networking site I’m on, I am noticing a lot of angry women who are strong Hillary supporters who have switched to McCain. Who knows, maybe the women’s vote will be more influential than people expect.
Comment by Leah — July 8, 2008 @ 8:10 pm - July 8, 2008
By calling him (Obama) the fascist that he is.
That’s the only way.. but McCain aint going to do that. No politician is willing to actualy defend this country from internal enemies.
And you Lefties reading this better ask yourselves why you buying into a very literal and in-your-face Cult of Personality.
What is wrong with you? Are you that power mad?
Comment by Vince P — July 8, 2008 @ 8:43 pm - July 8, 2008
We should expect the same from Hopey McChange (sorry V) any day now, right?
Any day now…..
Comment by ThatGayConservative — July 8, 2008 @ 10:23 pm - July 8, 2008
http://www.gaypolitics.com/?p=585
Comment by jason — July 8, 2008 @ 11:35 pm - July 8, 2008
Will gay Republicans tolerate the Barnes Option?
Comment by jason — July 8, 2008 @ 11:35 pm - July 8, 2008
Um, Jason in #7, the answer is in the post where I wrote: “Fred Barnes is wrong that you should make an issue of gay marriage.”
Comment by GayPatriotWest — July 8, 2008 @ 11:37 pm - July 8, 2008
Most of what you wrote is spot on. Sen. “F— You” McCain has got to stop this “I’m going to run a respectful campaign” garbage and go for the throat. I warned last year about Sen. Messiah Barack. And, underneath all that “change” and “hope” is a ruthless politcian. I only disagree, respectfully, on the issue of same-sex marriage. Look what happend here in California. Four supreme court justices took away the legislative right to determine the law. This is what sets back the cause that many gays and lesbians seek. Honest debate is the only way to change hearts and minds. When imperial courts do that, you get over 30 years still debating about abortion and meanwhile 30,000,000 potential human beings will never be born. I digress. One thing to add. I hope that Sen. “F— You” McCain DOES flip-flop and seek drilling in ANWR. He can get away with it but will have to do so in an artful manner. I think that people will be forgiving as gas reaches $5 a gallon.
Comment by Mark J. Goluskin — July 9, 2008 @ 2:02 am - July 9, 2008
#7
My favorite is how Don’tThink/Regress.com spun it into Fred Barnes calling for gay bashing. While the liberal douchebags assail Barnes for playing the fear card, they’re not above doing it themselves.
The left lacks honesty once again. And liberals can’t figure out why so many folks won’t bend over and grab their ankles.
Comment by ThatGayConservative — July 9, 2008 @ 2:42 am - July 9, 2008
Woke up at 3 a.m. and couldn’t get back to sleep. So here I am.
John McCain has a problem. A good chunk of the base just does not like him. Probably never will. If I had a dollar for all the times I’ve heard conservative pundits and radio hosts whine that McCain just isn’t conservative enough, well, I’d have bought a Porsche or something. But McCain does have two issues he could use to greatly increase his chances of winning this election - Drill, Drill, Drill, to steal the mantra from Larry Kudlow, and produce a better economic plan that A) curbs govt spending, and B) increases the value of the dollar. His current plan is based on keeping the tax cuts (OK) but there has got to be a real plan to start decreasing the hideous, out of control growth of government spending we’ve seen, especially in the last eight years. This has to be addressed.
I disagrees with Krystal’s “frittered away” argument. McCain has a great disadvantage in the finance dept. and since he didn’t know who he was campaigning against, he had a 50/50 chance of campaigning against the wrong figurehead. This is very much an “opportunity cost” dilemma. Any money spent during the primaries, is money he will not have to use during the general election. Plus, there was nothing McCain could have possibly done to compete with the Clinton / Obama cat fight. He could have set himself on fire and hardly anyone would have noticed.
OK. It’s now 5 in the a.m.. I’m going to see if I can catch a few ZZZ’s.
Comment by sonicfrog — July 9, 2008 @ 7:56 am - July 9, 2008
Will gay Republicans tolerate the Barnes Option?
Given that gay Democrats and liberals like Jason not only tolerate, but endorse and support with tens of millions of dollars and chants of “pro-gay” and “gay-supportive”, state constitutional amendment supporters, FMA supporters, and people who openly discriminate against gay employees, it seems odd that they’re up in arms over this, doesn’t it?
Of course, those of us who had a class in psychology can recognize this as a coping mechanism; since they themselves are too cowardly and fearful to stop endorsing the Democrat Party and its on-demand use of the Clinton option, they project it onto others.
Comment by North Dallas Thirty — July 9, 2008 @ 12:17 pm - July 9, 2008
Jean,
I think McCain’s support is wider than it might seem. My sister is a die hard liberal…a Kuchinich supporter, and not that Hillary is out of the race, her vote is for McCain. A couple of her friends, who are also truly left-wingers, said the same thing. They see Obama as the empty suit he is, and just don’t trust him to be President. Further, they don’t like that McCain is a Repub, but at least he is not a far right Bible thumper.
Comment by Hunter — July 9, 2008 @ 12:36 pm - July 9, 2008
NDT, I swear you have that comment on speed dial.
Comment by Henry — July 9, 2008 @ 12:58 pm - July 9, 2008
The California Supreme Court was doing its job when it ruled that Prop22 was illegal. Just because California voters want something that doesn’t make it legal. They are empowered to do exactly what they did. Prop22 did not amend California’s constitution. The amendment which I believe is tentatively called Proposition8 will most certainly amend the California constitution and overrule the Supreme Court ruling.
California was moving in the direction of same sex marriage and there was a real possibility that the amendment would have been defeated at the ballot box. The Supreme Court’s refusal to stay their ruling until after the election is pissing people off. They have actually muddied the whole issue and it could turn Prop8 into a case against judicial activism.
I’m totally with McCain on the issue. Let the voters decide. CNN did a poll for 2004 and found that 30% of the gay voters were Republicans. How they managed to figure out who’s who is a question that is still unanswered. The lesbians I’ve talked to are furious about how Hillary was treated. Anecdotal evidence at best.
Comment by HollywoodBill — July 9, 2008 @ 2:29 pm - July 9, 2008
Doesn’t make it any less true. Yeah it gets old, but it’s a constant reminder of liberal duplicity and stupidity.
Comment by ThatGayConservative — July 9, 2008 @ 8:15 pm - July 9, 2008
You can’t eat “hope” and “hope” doesn’t pay our bills. I like a lot of what was said in the article. It is dead on accurate. McCain should stick to reform as his theme…we need fiscal reform to make sure we solve our entitlement problems (as stated in the article we have at least 86 trillion dollars in unfunded mandates just with Medicaire/Medicaid and Social Security. I for one that Bush (whom I do not see as a conservative..in today’s dollars he outspent LBJ on the federal budget) should not have added prescription drugs as an entitlement (particularly where he didn’t allow the federal government to use bulk purchases and negotiating to get lower prices from the drug companies).
Anyway, how about McCain engage in what Ronald Reagan did (pick three themes and stick to them: energy independence, national security (including homeland security…there’s a way to help create jobs by fixing our infrastructure, protecting our ports, roads, waterways, setc.), fiscal conservative in solving our budget issues and
solve entitlement funding and cut taxes.
And keep hammering those issues home the way Reagan did with his tax cuts, national defense/security and getting government off our backs as he did in 1980 and fixing our economy. It worked then, it would work now.
Comment by Rocket — July 10, 2008 @ 10:33 am - July 10, 2008
as an aside, I am Gay and you will be surprised to learn that Barack Hussein Obama will not have a huge well of support in the GLBT community as one thinks. BHO talks out of both sides of his mouth on same sex marriage and associates himself with homophobic ministers….as the saying goes he “talks pretty” to GLBT groups but his conduct is anything but GLBT friendly in my opinion.
McCain has not engaged in virulent anti Gay conduct and stood with us and stood up to oppose the federal marriage amendment to the Constitution and took a states’ rights view that marriage is traditionally left to the states to decide under the federal constitution, which is correct.
I wish McCain would come out for DADT but there is no saying that won’t eventually crumble as a policy and it is the Congress that will have to repeal it and the Democratic Congress hasn’t done a thing to repeal it nor will they.
Comment by Rocket — July 10, 2008 @ 10:40 am - July 10, 2008
[...] to prevent social conservative voters from staying home did readers either via e-mail or in a comment ask me in the words of this post, whether gay Republicans would tolerate the Barnes [...]
Pingback by GayPatriot » Fred Barnes’ Bad Advice to John McCain — July 10, 2008 @ 4:45 pm - July 10, 2008
As to Barnes’ comments, the country is in a different place then in 2004. Our economy sucks, national security issue still exist and people care more about keeping their jobs and their health insurance and having to decide between food or gas for their car then whether or not I and other Gays and Lesbians get married. Quite frankly, Dumboma’s position on same sex marriage (he is opposed) is no different then McCain, whom to me has a better track record and stood up for our community in 2004 when it cost him (he was one of the few Republicans to vocally stand with us and oppose the Federal Marriage Amendment). I am voting for McCain because I trust him on national security, he will work hard to cut federal spending, create a balanced budget, keep tax cuts and cut taxes, appoint strict constructionists to the federal bench, create energy independence and do something serious about entitlements. I am sure he will pick a decent VP choice and be the true reform candidate. He won’t need to change positions every 5 seconds like Obama and we will know what we get with McCain. I notice he has gone back and reaffirmed that he will stand first for border security and I only wish he would change his position on Anwar (my Lord if you are going to drill deep in the oceans (and it is environmentally safe or else oil companies would face zillions of lawsuits) then you can make it environmentally safe in Anwar (you don’t hear of problems in Alaska drilling in the first place.)
Comment by Rocket — July 10, 2008 @ 9:37 pm - July 10, 2008
are you people willfully stupid or do you just really hate yourselves?
perhaps you can’t read or process information through your ears.
i’m going to tell you something that is pretty widely understood pretty much everywhere, except here, apparently:
the republican party specifically, wholeheartedly, loudly and frequently, rejects YOU, the gay person. in fact, republicans declare at least once a week, and twice on sunday, that YOU, the gay person, are an abomination.
how do your heads just not explode? is there something about being especially stupid that keeps the brainplate in place under that much pressure?
i find puzzling why anyone would willingly self-identify with a group which disputes your basic right to exist.
Comment by pattycake — July 13, 2008 @ 10:54 pm - July 13, 2008
pattycake: I think for myself.I dont need petty ideological thugs like you to coerce me to follow a path that you determine for everyone like the Fascist collectivist you are.
I believe in Liberty not mindcontrol.
Comment by Vince P — July 14, 2008 @ 5:50 am - July 14, 2008
#21 - “in fact, republicans declare at least once a week, and twice on sunday, that YOU, the gay person, are an abomination.”
Please provide authentic proof that such a practice exists. If not, feel free to depart and take your BDS with you.
I can say with certainty that I’ve been treated better as a gay man by the GOP than I have as a conservative at my local gay bar. Who is the bigot, again?
Regards,
Peter H.
Comment by Peter Hughes — July 14, 2008 @ 1:41 pm - July 14, 2008