The 2004 Republican National Convention was a major turning point in the Presidential race. Speaker after speaker took to the podium and attacked John Kerry in heated, direct assaults. Though many Democrats predicted that it would backfire, most pundits agree that the sustained negative attacks defined John Kerry in the public mind as a weak flip-flopper and went a long way towards winning the race for Bush.
In 2008, Republicans are even more in need of a barrage of negative attacks than they were in 2004. Barack Obama is leading in the polls and the fundamental mood of the country is extremely unfavorable for Republican candidates. Sadly for the GOP, however, two recent developments may make it impossible for the GOP to issue a sustained attack on Obama at the Republican convention.
- Sarah Palin: Until yesterday, everyone thought the soundbyte of the 2008 RNC would be “he’s not ready.” With the selection of the most inexperienced runningmate since the 19th Century, McCain has made this attack far more difficult. The New York Times reports that RNC organizers are already striking these attacks from speeches:
- Hurricanes: Gustav is already drawing a lot of the press attention that would normally be given to Sarah Palin, but if it slams into Louisiana on Tuesday morning (which is expected) it will be THE news story of the day - killing the RNC’s Monday and Tuesday programing. Moreover, are Republicans really going to throw political grenades as a hurricane slams into the Gulf Coast? I’m skeptical. To make matters worse, Gustav isn’t the only hurricane heading our way. Hurricane Hanna is projected to skim across southern Florida on Thursday. Yeah…Thursday. As in, the day McCain is supposed to accept the Republican nomination. McCain just can’t catch a break.
Republican organizers said the convention aides in charge of reviewing every speech delivered from the lectern are now on the watch for blunt attacks on Mr. Obama’s readiness to lead. They are aware that such criticism in a high-profile setting would provide an opportunity for Democrats to make the same charge against Ms. Palin, who has almost no foreign policy experience and has been governor for just 20 months.
This means team McCain must come up with an entirely new frame for Obama with only 60 days until the election. That’s a VERY tall order.
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Good piece, Zack. I agree with you wholeheartedly on both points. McCain can no longer hammer on the lack of overall experience point. There are two twists he can attempt to do:
1) Make this about Executive branch experience, making the case that as a legislator or Senator, you are one of many and not “running anything”. This will work on a few but most don’t see the difference. If you are a politican, you are a politician.
2) Hammer home that the experience is at the top of the GOP ticket, but at the bottom of the Dem ticket. The President will be the one appointing Secreteries, dept heads, etc.
And the one thing that he couldn’t have done with a DC insider or longtime GOP hack on his ticket:
- Make this about maverick blood. Make the case that he is giving America a ticket which is the anti-Bush GOP. Palin in Alaska is about as far as you can get from DC and still be American. She worked her way up by appealing to voters, not by appealing to party kingpins. It is a case that he can freely make and needs to make this about that.
I agree on the hurricane thing. Unfortunate timing. I hear they are thinking of pushing back the convention due to Gustav, which will cause the schedule to dramatically change, cause the network commentators to be bitter that they are away from their families for another 3, 4, 5 days, run into football season, etc. Not a good situation.
Considering that McCain voted with Bush 90-95% of the time, and…
Palin left her town of 7,000 people 20 million bucks in debt….
It seems like the McCain/Palin ticket is indeed more of the same tired republican gestalt warmed over. Oy.
lojasmo -
Do you even know what that statistic means? Serious question.
Many votes are procedural. In fact, in 2006, using the exact same source, Obama voted with Bush 50% of the time. If you asked most people how often he voted with Bush, they’d guess 5% or 10%. Nope. 50%.
Lifetime, McCain has voted with Bush about 75% of the time.
That other 25% includes some significant votes with some serious policy differences.
Dantheman
I respect that you can express your opinions, one of the rights of being an American. However, governing a small state and governing the United States is quite different. The fact that she shows no interest in foreign policies and foreign affairs will divide us further from the rest of the world.
Sarah Palin is Alaska’s Michele Bachmann. She wants to require creationism being taught in the public schools. She does not believe in maintaining any boundary between her faith and our government - in other words, she wants to use our government to enforce her faith-based conclusions on the rest of us.
The two battles going on in America today are just not being discussed. Theocracy vs. Democracy is
so obvious it hurts, but it never makes the papers. Then there is the class war that the super-rich have been conducting against the rest of us. Anytime anyone tries to respond, they holler “Oh no! We can never have a class war in America!” Why not? They’re winning, and have been, ever since Reagan brought his big smile and incipient Alzheimer’s into the Oval Office and whipsawed the air traffic controllers. (Gutting the FAA hasn’t worked out so well either, has it?)
Our biggest losses in the factors that once made this a great country stem primarily from the early Reagan years - the loss of the Equal Time and Fair Comment FCC rules that reminded the broadcast industry on a regular basis that the airwaves belong to the public, and that our government licensed their use for the common good. Once again, the commons have been assaulted by people insisting that their right to profit from assets owned by the public should be considered sacred. This was how the English Civil Wars started.