Wednesday, February 13, 2008

McCain's Manager Has It Backwards

In remarks to some reporters, McCain's manager Rick Davis said:

"We've got to get the Republican Party excited about his candidacy," Davis said of McCain. "I think that’s one of the things that is probably more important for us to do than contrast with any of the Democrats. We have to show them that there’s a chance to succeed."
As I have previously argued, I think Davis has that exactly backwards. McCain should be drawing clear contrasts with Obama, and begin painting him as the left-winger he is. It is an article of faith among conservatives -- and it also happens to be true -- that when the GOP candidate runs an ideological campaign, touts unifying conservative ideas, and defines the Dem as a liberal, we win.

McCain will generate much more optimism and excitement among conservatives and the broader GOP coalition by clearly signaling that this will be his general election strategy. Show us right-wingers how he can win by taking on Obama/Hillary, and at least some of us will begin to get excited about his chances of beating the long odds in November.

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

McCain and Soros: Together At Last

Well, at least in the fevered mind of the Iranian Intelligence Ministry, which made a little video broadcast on Iranian television. As summarized by Jim Geraghty at NRO's Campaign Spot:

Courtesy of MEMRI, it was put together by the Iranian Intelligence Ministry, and was broadcast on Iranian television, encouraging Iranians to report spies. It features a computer-generated "John McCain" masterminding a Velvet Revolution in Iran from the White House.

... with help from George Soros and others. Gotta throw the Jewish banker in there just for the jew-hating fun of it.

Thursday, February 07, 2008

Excellent Advice for McCain

Kate O’Beirne & Ramesh Ponnuru of National Review Online:

What McCain Should Say at CPAC
Democrats think they have John McCain in a trap. He is going to have to spend the time immediately following his clinching of the nomination trying to win over Republican voters to his right. That’s time he won’t spend appealing to independent voters. He could even alienate those independents while courting conservatives.

McCain should prove this theory wrong, and he should do it starting at CPAC tomorrow. There are two temptations to resist. The first is for McCain to spend the bulk of the speech burnishing his conservative credentials. He has tried doing that, and a lot of conservatives are still left cold. Besides, what they want to hear isn’t that McCain has a conservative voting record but that he will fight for conservative ideas. The second temptation is to provoke bitter-end conservative resistance and triangulate against it. That would be a dangerous strategy, one that could make fence-sitting conservatives turn against him. What McCain should do instead is to take the fight to the Democrats, explaining why he’s against Harry Reid’s defeatism, Hillary Clinton’s health-care plan, Nancy Pelosi’s obstructionism on intelligence gathering, Barack Obama’s tax increases, and even Dennis Kucinich’s Department of Peace.

Conservatives know that McCain can be a tough political combatant. They want to see him turn those skills on the Democrats. They’re tired of being on the defensive. Even McCain’s opponents in the CPAC crowd will have to applaud as he lays into the Democrats.

This is exactly what McCain needs to do, pronto. I've been listening to these talk show folks lately; almost nothing he says to conservatives will work right now. He has to start talking about liberals.

I think it's also not too early for McCain to start laying out a vision for where he wants to take the country, and where he might follow or depart from George Bush. For example, apart from hanging tough in Iraq, would he make the broader freedom agenda in the Middle East a priority? What has he learned from Bush's failures and successes? Give people a bigger picture, maybe some of his apostasies might fade a bit.

Above all, he needs to start talking about how and why he is going to win in November. He might find that helping to lift Republican spirits may go a long way toward changing the conversation.

Wednesday, February 06, 2008

Is Huck Really Hurting Romney?

Not according to the latest USA/Gallup poll:

McCain wins over Romney as the second choice of Huckabee voters by more than a 2 to 1 margin, 64% to 28%. Indeed, McCain beats Romney 42% to 24% with Huckabee in the race (Huckabee gets 18% of the vote, Ron Paul gets 5%, and Alan Keyes gets 2%). With a narrowed-down ballot focused just on McCain and Romney (forcing Huckabee voters to choose between the two front-runners), McCain wins 53% to 30% -- a slightly expanded margin.
I am surprised. Must be a residual anti-Mormon vote out there, particularly in the South. Or maybe people just don't like Mitt Romney.

Romney beat Huck in Grand Rapids and surrounding counties in western Michigan, where I lived for a few years. That area is heavily dominated by conservative Christians, but of a somewhat different stripe than those in the South. West Michigan is CRC territory -- the Christian Reformed Church -- which has roots in Dutch Calvinism.

As a Catholic, I don't pretend to understand all the differences between Michigan CRC'ers and Southern evangelicals, but perhaps their relative attitudes toward Mormons is one such difference.

Via the Weekly Standard's campaign blog.