Comparing McCain and Bush
Democrats seem very happy to tie McCain to Bush. The accusation that McCain would represent a “Bush third term” is incredibly common. It’s understandable. Bush is incredibly unpopular, his policies are failing, and the party he leads has lost most of its credibility. It seems like the obvious way to attack McCain. Just one problem — no one believes it. Well, some people believe it, but those people are voting for Democrats regardless of any strategic decisions made during the campaign. It’s not an attack that will work.
Most people, when they think of McCain, immediately picture him as a maverick Republican, willing to break with his party frequently to do what he thinks is right. This view isn’t completely unfounded. McCain can point to a large number of issues where he’s broken with the president. He supports stem cell research. He believes in global warming and using a carbon cap-and-trade system to slow it down. He criticized the handling of Katrina (not that that one took a ton of political courage). He called for Rumsfeld’s resignation long before it happened. He argued for increased troop levels in Iraq long before the surge (a strategy that would obviously have at least led to things being better than they are now). He was part of the moderate gang of 14 that created a compromise on judges. The list goes on — not to mention that McCain ran against Bush in 2000 and was only beaten after the Bush campaign used some very nasty campaign tactics. Sure, he campaigned for Bush in 2004, but most see that as a statement of general agreement rather than unwavering support.
Most importantly, perhaps, beyond any particular issue, is the fact that McCain is just more intelligent/competent than Bush. Most of the biggest mistakes of the Bush administration weren’t issues of explicit policy choices. No one chose to leave hundreds of people in New Orleans without any help. What they did choose to do was appoint a political crony as head of FEMA, rather than someone who knew what they were doing. People chose to invade Iraq, but that wouldn’t have been a particularly insane decision if Iraq really did have WMDs, and if the resources necessary to ensure a swift and thoroughly successful follow-up were really devoted to the effort. The Bush administration seems to have been a closed-off echo chamber, where critical thought that differed with accepted dogma were squashed and loyalty was valued over competence. It also simply has a person at the top who is unable to really make intelligent decisions for himself and relies on his top aids, resulting in infighting and a lack of accountability. McCain, at least at first glance, seems to be much better when it comes to these kinds of shortcomings.
When Obama and friends characterize McCain as no different than Bush, I really think most people find the claim unbelievable. Instead it makes Obama look more partisan and less like the new, more honest politician that he claims to be. This is not to say an attack along these lines is not justified or feasible. It just needs to be toned down to a believable level. Maybe calling McCain “Bush lite” would work better. Or criticize McCain on specific issues. He is actually not that different than Bush on a lot of things — he just seems to be because of the disagreement on high-profile but frequently (somewhat) minor issues. He wants to continue the Bush Iraq policy and foreign policy more generally. He wants to make the Bush tax cuts permanent. Those kinds of things can be stated. They’ll have a similar aggregate effect. They will also, I feel, be much more readily accepted by the audience.
The other thing that needs to be done is to undermine the overall McCain persona. There are two ways to do this. One is to say the actual perception is flawed. In a couple ways this is true, most notably the extent to which McCain does and has relied on lobbyists to run his campaign. It’s pretty hypocritical to make it illegal for them to donate large amounts to your campaign, but then allow them to work for you full-time for months in what might otherwise be high paying jobs as volunteers. That doesn’t have all the implied expectations problems that come with donations? On top of that, it gives them a ton of access. It also implies the kind of appointments in a future administration that could lead to something like Katrina.
The other way to undermine the perception is to talk about the “old McCain” and the “new McCain”. The narrative the Democrats can use (and which I think is largely accurate) is that after 2000, McCain felt he lost because he couldn’t get the party base to move towards him. He really wanted to be president, so he resolved to become more acceptable to the base. He spent 8 years becoming less of a maverick. He shifted from criticizing the religious right to courting them. Having initially opposed the Bush tax cuts, he switched to supporting them in the run-up to the primary. Emphasizing these and other changes not only makes McCain look inconsistent and political — views directly at odds with his image. They make the public in general more willing to accept a new narrative about McCain.
Let’s face it. McCain isn’t Bush, and he isn’t a generic Republican. He’d make a much better president than either of those. I’d still much prefer Obama, but the Republicans nominated the right person. Ignoring that will not make it go away — it’ll just make you look stupid.
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[...] amount of clear policy attacks. John Kerry’s accusations of flip-flopping were exactly what I’ve talked about before as the way the Democrats needed to attack McCain, and because it’s John Kerry it’ll get [...]