9/23/08

McCain's embarrassing situation : where are the democrats?

After the fuss around Sarah Palin, whose nomination was close to succeed to make the whole journey of Barack Obama looks dusty, this economic crisis opens more difficult times for John McCain, who looses all his margins on this subject. Do democrats take enough advantage of this crisis?

We know John McCain can not afford to move too far away from a part of his base, who has supported deregulation and probably still do. As a strong supporter of deregulation himself for over two decades, as The Obama campaign recalls it lately, he wouldn't be persuasive anyway. (The New York Times underlines how his campaign manager was paid by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to defend them against stricter regulations). But, of course, he also can not clearly back the unpopular George Bush administration.

We remember he avoided the worst at the RNC when George Bush canceled his appearance, because of Gustav, and stayed at Washington to endorse John McCain. The point on which he really needed to make a difference without alienating his base was the war in Iraq and the "success" of the Surge he supported was a lucky and well-used event for him. Now his difficulty of positioning comes back with this fundamental political issue.

The most difficult is for him to explain how he could be for regulation by now after having supported deregulation and how he could accept a 700 billions $ bailout without sounding socialist, admiting the policy he supported failed and backing an expansive plan of the Bush administration... Most of all, he needs to sound connected to the people who struggle everyday.

His attempts go from his saying he does not regret deregulation on "60 minutes" to his hesitations to be critical of bailout plan or his try to raise doubts about Obama to throw up a smoke screen.



He must be trying to sweep it under the rug and waiting for the emergence of a more favorable subject in the debates... (the first debate between the two candidates, which is coming on friday, will not be on economy but on foreign policy by the way)

The democrats seem not to take enough advantage of McCain's embarrassing situation. They launch a weak attack with this ad where they link this crisis to the Health Plan issue. Of course, this is a favorable subject for Obama, maybe overused already, but the link is not accurate enough to be powerful and the potential of the crisis of McCain's positioning could be better used to underline his incoherence, fall him out with his own base, question his record and make him sound out-of-touch, and not only with computers as this another worthless ad underscores, so "terrible" said even Joe Biden, before withdrawing.




Are democrats going to let John McCain save time ?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

The McCain campaign accused the New York Times of being “150 percent in the tank” for Senator Barack Obamabecause of this article you mention.

claude pérès said...

Yes, that was not my point, but did the McCain Campaign happen to panic?