The man who would be President
Senator John McCain is lobbying very hard to be the next Republican nominee for President. For now, the press loves the senior Senator from Arizona (witness this Vanity Fair profile - H/T Hugh Hewitt).
"The audience is just the kind that makes John McCain feel most alive: a couple of thousand fresh-faced, corn-fed college kids still idealistic enough to believe an Honest-to-God American Hero who tells them that they can, and should, strive to serve a cause greater than their own self-interest. The setting is the Stephens Auditorium at Iowa State University, in Ames, and the questioner is Chris Matthews of MSNBC's Hardball, who is pitching an hour's worth of interrogatories to the American media's favorite politician."
However, hidden in the text are several examples of why John McCain is struggling with the base...a base that will be responsible for deciding who the next nominee is.
"He began this mid-October day in Sioux City, appearing at a fund-raising Siouxland Breakfast for Representative Steve King, an immigration hard-liner. Recently he had called McCain an "amnesty mercenary" for daring to work with Senator Ted Kennedy on a compromise bill that would provide an eventual path to citizenship for the millions of immigrant workers already in the United States illegally. A day earlier, in Milwaukee, in front of an audience of more sympathetic businessmen, McCain had been asked how debate over the immigration bill was playing politically. "In the short term, it probably galvanizes our base," he said. "In the long term, if you alienate the Hispanics, you'll pay a heavy price." Then he added, unable to help himself, "By the way, I think the fence is least effective. But I'll build the goddamned fence if they want it."
Here is a hot tip (from a member of said conservative base) Senator. If you think the fence is the least effective way to secure our borders then what IS an effective way? Leaving them in their current pourous state is not the answer, in your mind, is it?
"Two years ago, McCain was unsparing in his criticism of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, who slimed his friend and fellow Vietnam veteran John Kerry. Kerry felt close enough to McCain at the time to make multiple and serious inquiries about McCain's interest in running for vice president on a national-unity ticket (and McCain basked in the courtship, even if he knew nothing could ever come of it). "
Ask Sue Jeffers what that (flirting with crossing to another party) did to her standing with the Republican convention goers in Minnesota last year Senator. I think she will have some insight for you.
"The battle between Bush and McCain in 2000 was bitter, with Bush supporters in South Carolina spreading rumors that McCain was insane and that he had fathered a black child. (McCain and his wife, Cindy, are the adoptive parents of a girl from Bangladesh.) Bush and McCain traded insults involving each other's moral standing. A year later, with bad feeling still so high that strategist John Weaver had been virtually blackballed from working in Republican politics, Weaver went so far as to sound out Democratic Senate leaders about the possibility of having McCain caucus with them. This would have put the Senate, then divided 50–50, into Democratic control. Aides to two senior Senate Democrats say it was never clear how serious McCain himself was about the proposal, and any possibility that it might actually happen was short-circuited when another Republican, James Jeffords, of Vermont, made the move first, in 2001." (emphasis mine)
Senator....do you think the base can trust you at all after this?
"Moments like these help explain why the constituency that McCain sometimes jokingly refers to as his base—the press—has not already tried to derail him by highlighting the politically expedient positioning that would be regarded as standard procedure for most elected officials but seems somehow so much worse in a man with such self-defined high standards. "
And that is going to be the death knell of the Senator's Presidential aspirations. Oh sure there are stories of his famed temper, but those stories (along with the ones above) pale in comparison. The press loves him now which causes the base to distrust him all the more. Then if some strange turn of fate makes him the nominee against Senator Clinton, the press gloves will come off. If Senator McCain thinks that the Bush Campaign of 2000 was rough on him, he will be in for a very rude awakening. The MSM has annointed Senator Clinton and heaven help the candidate (Republican or Democrat - beware Senator Obama) that gets in her way.
"The audience is just the kind that makes John McCain feel most alive: a couple of thousand fresh-faced, corn-fed college kids still idealistic enough to believe an Honest-to-God American Hero who tells them that they can, and should, strive to serve a cause greater than their own self-interest. The setting is the Stephens Auditorium at Iowa State University, in Ames, and the questioner is Chris Matthews of MSNBC's Hardball, who is pitching an hour's worth of interrogatories to the American media's favorite politician."
However, hidden in the text are several examples of why John McCain is struggling with the base...a base that will be responsible for deciding who the next nominee is.
"He began this mid-October day in Sioux City, appearing at a fund-raising Siouxland Breakfast for Representative Steve King, an immigration hard-liner. Recently he had called McCain an "amnesty mercenary" for daring to work with Senator Ted Kennedy on a compromise bill that would provide an eventual path to citizenship for the millions of immigrant workers already in the United States illegally. A day earlier, in Milwaukee, in front of an audience of more sympathetic businessmen, McCain had been asked how debate over the immigration bill was playing politically. "In the short term, it probably galvanizes our base," he said. "In the long term, if you alienate the Hispanics, you'll pay a heavy price." Then he added, unable to help himself, "By the way, I think the fence is least effective. But I'll build the goddamned fence if they want it."
Here is a hot tip (from a member of said conservative base) Senator. If you think the fence is the least effective way to secure our borders then what IS an effective way? Leaving them in their current pourous state is not the answer, in your mind, is it?
"Two years ago, McCain was unsparing in his criticism of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, who slimed his friend and fellow Vietnam veteran John Kerry. Kerry felt close enough to McCain at the time to make multiple and serious inquiries about McCain's interest in running for vice president on a national-unity ticket (and McCain basked in the courtship, even if he knew nothing could ever come of it). "
Ask Sue Jeffers what that (flirting with crossing to another party) did to her standing with the Republican convention goers in Minnesota last year Senator. I think she will have some insight for you.
"The battle between Bush and McCain in 2000 was bitter, with Bush supporters in South Carolina spreading rumors that McCain was insane and that he had fathered a black child. (McCain and his wife, Cindy, are the adoptive parents of a girl from Bangladesh.) Bush and McCain traded insults involving each other's moral standing. A year later, with bad feeling still so high that strategist John Weaver had been virtually blackballed from working in Republican politics, Weaver went so far as to sound out Democratic Senate leaders about the possibility of having McCain caucus with them. This would have put the Senate, then divided 50–50, into Democratic control. Aides to two senior Senate Democrats say it was never clear how serious McCain himself was about the proposal, and any possibility that it might actually happen was short-circuited when another Republican, James Jeffords, of Vermont, made the move first, in 2001." (emphasis mine)
Senator....do you think the base can trust you at all after this?
"Moments like these help explain why the constituency that McCain sometimes jokingly refers to as his base—the press—has not already tried to derail him by highlighting the politically expedient positioning that would be regarded as standard procedure for most elected officials but seems somehow so much worse in a man with such self-defined high standards. "
And that is going to be the death knell of the Senator's Presidential aspirations. Oh sure there are stories of his famed temper, but those stories (along with the ones above) pale in comparison. The press loves him now which causes the base to distrust him all the more. Then if some strange turn of fate makes him the nominee against Senator Clinton, the press gloves will come off. If Senator McCain thinks that the Bush Campaign of 2000 was rough on him, he will be in for a very rude awakening. The MSM has annointed Senator Clinton and heaven help the candidate (Republican or Democrat - beware Senator Obama) that gets in her way.
posted by The Lady Logician at
3:59 PM
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