GOP Insiders Worry About McCain's Chances

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Sun Jun-08-08 08:25 PM
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GOP Insiders Worry About McCain's Chances

GOP Insiders Worry About McCain's Chances

For four months John McCain had a clear field while Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were at each other's throats. Given the opportunity, the Arizona Senator failed to define the debate in favorable terms, spending much of the valuable primary months defending himself on charges that his campaign staff was top heavy with lobbyists.

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In not-for-attribution interviews, a number of Republicans were neither optimistic about his chances nor positive in their assessment of his campaign so far.

"I think we've got a world of problems," said one Republican strategist with extensive experience in presidential campaigns. He said this came home to him with a thud when he watched Obama and McCain give speeches last Tuesday, with the Democrat speaking before "20,000 screaming fans, while John McCain looked every bit of his 72 years" in a speech televised from New Orleans. This Republican cited the liberal blogger Atrios' description of McCain's speech with a green backdrop that made McCain "look like the cottage cheese in a lime Jell-O salad."

For McCain to stand a chance of winning, the operative contended, the campaign, the Republican National Committee, or an independent group will have to finance sustained negative ads developing a broad assault on Obama's credibility as a national leader at a time of terrorist threat. McCain, however, has gone out of his way to aggressively discourage such activity, the operative pointed out, which, he argued, may kill McCain's chances.

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Tom Mann of the Brookings Institution argues that "McCain continues to embrace Bush policies on the most important issues, relying on a reputation for independence and moderation that could be lost in the heat of battle with Obama and the Democrats.... At the end of this long interlude, the only rationale for his election that has emerged is that Obama cannot be trusted to lead the country at a time of great danger because he is too inexperienced, naïve, liberal, elitist, and out of touch with American values. 'Elect me because the other guy is worse.' Not much of an argument in the face of gale-force winds blowing against the Republican Party."

Along similar lines, Norman Ornstein, of the American Enterprise Institute, questioned whether McCain and his aides have "spent enough time and effort developing themes for why he should be president, not just why Obama should not-- especially themes that address the deep-seated anxiety voters feel that goes beyond current economic conditions."

Arch-conservative Bay Buchanan suggested that it may not matter what McCain does. Writing in Human Events on June 4, she declared:
In reality there is only one candidate. Barack Obama. In November he will win or he will lose. John McCain is relevant only in so far as he is not Barack Obama. The Senator from Arizona is incapable of energizing his party, brings no new people to the polls, and has a personality that is best kept under wraps.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/06/08/gop-insiders-worry-about_n_105946.html