Campaigns refine strategy: Obama expands map, McCain targets Reagan Democrats

As both presidential campaigns have started airing their first ads and hiring staffers in various battlegrounds, the time has come for more definite decisions on what states ought to be contested and what constituencies ought to be targeted. Last week, Obama started to air his first general election ad in a series of 18 states (14 of which were won by Bush in 2004) that included Indiana, North Dakota and Alaska. This week, Obama's campaign manager confirmed to Politico that they are intending to contest all of these 14 states and extended the list of states the campaign is looking at to... Wyoming and Texas.

Steve Hildebrand suggested that, while the campaign is unlikely to air advertisement here, they are thinking about the possibility of sending paid staffers to organize in such states in order to help down-the-ballot candidates. Indeed, the difficulty of Democrats to win congressional races in Wyoming or Texas in a presidential year is that they are dragged down by the top of the ticket. But Obama has enough money to take care of his own business and afford to also ease the way for red state Democrats.

Of course, Obama can expect something in return: Red state Democrats are notoriously weary of supporting their party's presidential nominee but for Obama to make sure he is not a drag could make them more supportive in return. Given that we are seeing a few Democratic representatives decline to endorse Obama (as they had refused to endorse Kerry) and that the special election in MS-01 last May had Travis Childers struggling to explain that he had no connection to Obama, this would be a welcome development.

Now, we are also getting a better idea of McCain's strategy. As I have noted many times before, the Republican's biggest challenge is the shift in partisan breakdown. With the LA Times poll, the Newsweek survey and countless SUSA state polls all showing a dramatic improvement for Democrats since 2004 and as much as a 15% partisan ID edge for Obama's party, all Obama needs to do to win this election is secure the vote of registered Democrats and not fall too far behind independents.

In other words, if all three partisan groups vote roughly according to the 2004 patterns, the 3% Bush victory would transform itself into an Obama blowout -- all thanks to the changes in partisan affiliation over the last four years.

McCain then must convince registered Democrats to vote for him -- and I insist on the word "must," as this is not simply a strategy meant to put his opponent on the defensive (as is, for instance, Obama's appeal to moderate Republicans) but a matter of absolute survival. The Arizona Senator is perhaps the only GOPer who can even entertain any hope of succeeding at such an effort, though the latest national polls suggest that the road is getting tougher. Now, McCain's general election ad buy gives us an idea of how McCain intends to appeal to registered Democrats.

Marc Ambinder details McCain's latest ad buys to find that McCain is targeting former Reagan Democrats and working-class voters, groups among which Obama was very weak throughout the primary. In Pennsylvania, for instance, McCain is not spending in the Philadelphia market but in the state's blue-collar regions. The same pattern holds in Ohio. The Appalachia region in a number of states will also be targeted heavily by McCain given that these are all are areas in which Hillary Clinton crushed Barack Obama, sometimes by gigantic margins.

By rolling out proposals like offshore drilling and by insisting that Obama is a country club elitist, Republicans are hoping to drive a wedge between the beer track and the wine track constituencies of the Democratic Party and thus offset Obama's advantage in partisan identification. And the high stakes of the success of inspiring distrust among Democrats about their candidate guarantees that the tactics will only get more ugly as we get closer to the election.

More generally, it is striking that the list of McCain's buys is more traditional, with no unexpected expense popping up. And also telling is McCain's heavy spending in Minnesota, since the Obama campaign did not include that state in the list of states it is running its ad. McCain looks committed to keeping that state competitive -- perhaps a reflection of the likelihood that he will select Gov. Pawlenty as his running-mate or perhaps just a reflection of McCain's confidence that he will appeal to Midwestern independents.

McCain denounces Gitmo ruling, choosing once again to embrace Bush on national security (Updated)

By now, most everyone has heard about the Supreme Court's 5-4 decision to restore habeas corpus rights to the prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay, a ruling that strikes at the core of the Bush Administration's post-9/11 detention policies. Now, federal judges will have to determine whether each Gitmo detainee is being held lawfully, giving the prisoners their first chance to plead their case in a court and forcing the Administration to present some evidence that these men pose a security threat. As the Washington Post notes, even some Republicans have expressed skepticism about the limited amount of information the Administration has released up until now.

John McCain is certainly not one of those Republicans. While he has opposed other Republicans on the issue of torture (an issue that featured prominently in at least one GOP debate during which McCain expressed "astonishment" that Romney would not ban torture), he has been careful not to contest the Administration's doctrine of executive power and the rules surrounding Guantanamo. He recently made headlines by announcing that he would pursue Bush's policy on wiretapping, aligning himself with the president on one of the key controversies of his second term, and this despite statements in 2006 that implied he considered the NSA program unlawful. And yesterday, McCain denounced the Supreme Court ruling, declaring that "it obviously concerns me" because "these are unlawful combatants; they're not American citizens."

McCain's position put him at odds with Republicans such as Arlen Specter, who had sponsored a bill essentially saying what this ruling decided, and also with his opponent Barack Obama. The Democrat declared that "this is an important step toward re-establishing our credibility as a nation committed to the rule of law" and used the opportunity to take a shot at McCain.

Just as he did over wiretapping and also over torture (as he moderated his anti-Administration position this spring), McCain has chosen to not put any room between him and the unpopular Bush presidency on an issue in which he could have easily gained a lot of attention had he chosen to oppose with the Administration. Given his past positions on some of these issues, it would not have been considered sheer opportunism for him to take an even stronger stance against wiretapping, for instance, and use that issue in the coming months to prove that his election would not simply represent a third term for Bush.

Given that the main obstacle to McCain's victory is Bush's dismal approval ratings and the GOP's badly damaged bran, the Senator's campaign knows very well how important it is for them to distance themselves from the president and there are some issues on which they are mounting a conscious effort to create some room between the two Republicans -- particularly on the environment. But will that be enough when the policies that are most emblematic of the Bush years concern national security and foreign policy? While McCain is identified as a staunch supporter of the Iraq War, he had an opportunity to seize non-Iraq issues to create at least the illusion of space -- but he has repeatedly chosen to embrace Bush tighter than he has.

What does this say about McCain's strategy? This is no longer the Republican primary during which McCain renounced some of his previous heretical positions or tried to explain them away in conservative terms (his opposition to Bush's tax cuts and his immigration stance, for instance). But McCain still has problems solidifying the base, as countless reports indicate that activists still distrust him. While that group does not necessarily make up great voting numbers, they sustain any campaign's enthusiasm and volunteer efforts, and this is not a group that contests the Bush Administration's national security policy. Even if some might regret the Iraq invasion, Bush is still credited with "having made us safe since 9/11." Given that McCain still needs to think about keeping his base happy and motivated, he cannot afford to distance himself from the Administration among issues conservatives feel no doubt about.

Second, McCain does not want to run a general election campaign focused on the economy but rather on national security. Indeed, Republicans think that Obama's most glaring vulnerability is his foreign policy inexperience and what they believe voters might consider to be a weak attitude towards the threats of the world. To achieve this, the GOP needs to portray as strong a contrast as possible, both to make its case that McCain would make Americans safe and Obama would weaken the country's security and because choosing to triangulate on matters like executive authority and Gitmo would remove those issues from the table as the press would report that there is a consensus between the candidates, choosing instead to focus on economic policy and on the Iraq War. Imagine how disastrous a formula that would be for the fall debates!

The McCain campaign is caught between three imperatives: it needs to distance itself from the Republican brand without alienating the base and without ceding any ground on what it believes to be its strongest issue, national security. For now, they have not been able to found a balance between those requirements, but that is not particularly surprising given how difficult it is to run as a Republican this year.

Update: In case there was any doubt as to McCain's position, the Senator upped his rhetoric today, calling yesterday's ruling "one of the worst decisions in the history of this country."

What worries Republicans: McCain's careless sound bites

As the presidential campaign shifts into general election mode, battle lines are easier to draw, the two camps are more clearly defined and it is easier to determine what events might upset -- or hearten -- one campaign or the other. This entry inaugurates a new series devoted to cataloging what keeps Republicans and Democrats up at night. Today's installment concerns the GOP and McCain's damaging sound bites: Before McCain can even hope to convince the country to not reject his imperialist designs, he needs to stop harming himself with careless statements.

Ever since he returned to the media spotlight in December 2007, John McCain has been accumulating sound bites that will undoubtedly harm his candidacy in the months ahead. The most famous clips are his "Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran" and his talking about staying in Iraq for 100 years. Today came a third statement. Asked on NPR when he thought troops could start coming home from Iraq, McCain responded that the question was "not that important."

McCain's argument is clear. He is against withdrawing from Iraq because of what he considers a risk of chaos and because leaving troops in the country to maintain a network of permanent bases is part of his design. Longterm presence has always been part of the imperialist design to which McCain has long been sympathetic -- and even more so in recent years as he has drifted closer to the neoconservative position. The "100 years" quote and now the "not that important" statement were both attempts to express this argument: Once Iraq is pacified, troops can stay in Iraq as long as we want them to and they will not be in harm's way. In fact, they will be proud of helping America keeps its influence and empire -- just as soldiers in South Korea face absolutely no risk to their safety. That is why McCain explained that what is important is the casualty level, not the troop level.

This is not an argument that McCain should expect to win easily even if he were to articulate it eloquently. Many believe that the moment has never been so ripe for Americans to repudiate grand imperialist plans and that voters are ready to reject such designs this year, and do so more explicitly than they could have in 2004 as John McCain represents a much purer version of empire-building than even George Bush did.

But the first challenge Republicans are facing is not even voters' increasing hostility towards empire-building. It's simply that McCain keeps messing up his delivery of the issue. Whatever the context, whatever his true meaning and however much Democrats might be distorting McCain's meaning when they imply that he wants the combat phase to last 100 years, the Republican nominee should never utter such statements. Just as the "100 years" quote, McCain declaring that the date of withdrawal is "not important" provides an incredible sound bite for Democrats to use.

There will be many voters who might perhaps support the idea of keeping bases in Iraq and who might perhaps understand what McCain means when he says that the important factor is the reduction of casualties (in other words, voters who are not shocked by the idea of empire-building) but who will be turned off McCain's candidacy when they hear about these two quotes and when they see ads running McCain's these two sound bites on Iraq. And that is enough for Republicans to lose sleep over McCain's tendency to rashly dismiss any talk of a timetable.

It is hard to call McCain's statements a gaffe since the Arizona Senator has not misspoken, nor has he said anything he did not mean to say. And it is only because the war has become so unpopular and the imperialist project has become such a liability that a controversy is arising from his statements. It is a testament to how politically difficult McCain's position is that he needs to express himself carefully and in as complex terms as possible to avoid giving Democrats any opening. Complicating things for McCain is his tendency to commit actual foreign policy gaffes, like his repeated confusion between Shiites and Sunni.

Demonstrating how much Democrats have grown since 2004 and how aware they are of the damage McCain is inflicting itself, the Obama campaign did not waste a second before entering full battle mode as soon as news of the NPR interview spread. Joe Biden, Harry Reid were hitting McCain within hours and the Obama campaign organized a conference call on which John Kerry unleashed harsh criticism (the mere fact that Obama is choosing to call upon Kerry as its national security surrogate is fascinating, of course).

In the era in which a You Tube clip can destroy a mighty frontrunner's candidacy, John McCain might not realize how damaging one sound bite can be, but you can bet many Republicans are losing sleep over it.

McCain launches first major ad and pushes joint town halls

The constant developments of the primary are giving way to a quieter period in which the Obama campaign will map its strategy, staff up, decide on new hires and start building on the state organizations that are already in place in every state thanks to the prolonged race the Illinois Senator had to fight with Hillary Clinton. The most urgent decision that Obama is working on, of course, is the choice of a vice-president. His selection team will now travel to Capitol Hill to talk to Democratic Senators and House members and collect their recommendations. Obama's campaign had already been compiling stories about potential running mates and will now start the vetting process.

Of course, McCain has been preparing for this moment for months since the Republican candidate wrapped up his party's nomination as early as Super Tuesday. For much of the past 5 months, his campaign felt that it was no use wasting money airing ads aggressively and fighting for media attention as the press and of the country was focused on the Clinton-Obama race. But as we saw on Tuesday when John McCain delivered a surprisingly weak speech on primetime television, having had a long time to prepare does not mean that the McCain campaign is ready to come out swinging.

Yet, there are certain things that the McCain campaign has obviously been preparing for a while, starting with its first major general election ad which started airing Friday. Called "Safe," the spot (watch it here) features a stern looking McCain who professes to "hate war" and mentions the fact that he was held for five years as a POW. The message is clear: McCain intends to run on issues of national security and we should not expect him to be shy about mentioning his years in Vietnam, however much McCain has stayed away from campaigning on that in the past.

Politico reports that McCain is running this ad in an impressive list of swing states that gives us a good idea of where the GOP believes the fall campaign will play: Colorado, Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada, New Mexico, Iowa, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania. The inclusion of Missouri should reassure Democrats that the Show Me State will be competitive in the fall while McCain's determination to target Michigan confirms one of the most surprising storylines of the early stages of the campaign -- Michigan replacing Florida as the third member of the holy trio, along with Pennsylvania and Ohio.

Second, the McCain campaign had been preparing its offensive on holding joint town halls as they issued their challenge to Obama as soon as the Democrat wrapped up his nomination battle on Tuesday. Naturally, Obama's team was in position to agree to such a thing when it had barely started strategizing -- and Republicans knew that, their objective being to put Obama in a hole and advance their argument that he was not ready for the big stage. In fact, McCain proposed that the first event be held on June 12th, something Obama was obviously in no position to accept.

Today, NYC Mayor Mike Bloomberg (who is having a lot of trouble staying away from this presidential campaign) complicated the picture for the Obama campaign by offering to host the first joint town hall meeting at Manhattan's Federal Hall. This ups the pressure on Obama to accept, and Republicans are likely to portray any delay as stalling. But it is unclear whether the Democrat is looking for a way out of this. In fact, all signs point to the fact that both parties think holding joint town halls would favor them -- making those atypical events a very real possibility!

On the one hand, Republicans are at a financial disadvantage and would relish the free media and equal exposure that joint town hall meetings would guarantee; McCain also believes that common appearances would be an opportunity for him to showcase his expertise and contrast himself with his opponent's alleged inexperience. On the other hand, Democrats seem convinced that any joint appearance would serve to highlight McCain's old age and that any opportunity for Obama to showcase his mastery of policy and go toe-to-toe with John McCain will serve him greatly, undermining the GOP's attacks on his readiness.

McCain caught in staff trouble

Last week, top McCain staffers -- the regional campaign manager for the mid-Atlantic states and the CEO of the September convention -- were forced to resign from the campaign after ties between their lobbying group and Myanmar's government were revealed. That has prompted the campaign to engage in a purge of any staffer that might have unsavory lobbying connection. On May 15th, everyone on staff was sent a questionnaire asking them to report any lobbying activity, conflict of interest.

It is puzzling why McCain did not engage in this re-vetting process as soon as he became the presumptive nominee back in February. No one was paying attention to him back then, and he could have fired anyone he had wanted with minimal attention. Now, McCain is coming back in the public view and his efforts are being undermined by constant news of staffers being forced to resign over the past week. Today, a fifth aide left the campaign, and a high-profile one too: Tom Loeffler, the national finance co-chair whose friendship with McCain dates way back and who was involved in the 2000 campaign. This is clearly a very serious blow to McCain's candidacy.

Now, the campaign is dealing with criticism over the involvement of Charlie Black, one of McCain's top advisers but one who has lobbied for foreign governments. Black gave up his lobbying practice but liberal groups are now pressuring the campaign to dump Black because of his ties with "some of the world's worst tyrants." MoveOn has produced a brutal ad to keep up the pressure, though the McCain campaign will probably not yield on this one, at least as long as there are no new revelations about Black.

The recent but constant drumbeat surrounding McCain's staffers could prove damaging for the Republican candidate. McCain's ethics lie at the core of his appeal, as the Arizona Senator has portrayed himself as a straight-talking maverick who is not beholden to special interests. If that image is contradicted, McCain's appeal to independents could be undermined and with it his general election strength. Sensing the opportunity, Obama pounced over the week-end: "It appears that John McCain is very much a creature of Washington and one of the things that we have said at the outset of this campaign is that if we are going to change policies...we were going to have to change how Washington works."

In response, the McCain campaign accused liberal groups of organizing a witch hunt and accused Obama of playing the "old politics" of "character assassination, especially when he has not made the names of his policy advisors public." And they sought to compare McCain's staff troubles to Obama's association with William Ayers, "Just a few years ago when Barack Obama was beginning his career in politics he was launching it at the home of William Ayers, an unrepentant domestic terrorist who his chief strategist said Senator Obama was certainly friendly with."

The comparison to Ayers certainly seems overblown, and it's hard to see the connection with McCain's ties to lobbyists. But this is just one illustration of how the general election will differ from the primary, as the Clinton campaign would never have dared bring up Ayers so directly. And it confirms that the Ayers connection -- which was brought up only once during the Democratic primaries, by George Stephanopoulous at the second Philadelphia debate -- will feature prominently in the GOP's general election arsenal.

Seeking to build on maverick image, McCain touts environment

While Obama has been increasingly turning to the general election, John McCain has been preparing for 4 month now (incredibly enough, that's how long has passed since Super Tuesday!). His latest move: campaigning on the environment. In what his campaign had advertised as a major policy speech on global warming, McCain earned the headlines he wanted today, for example the New York Times's "McCain Differs with Bush on Climate Change."

McCain plans to tout environmental issues in order to appeal to independent voters. With politicians like Schwarzenegger focusing on the environment, there is a growing drift away from the business Republicans' stance and independents especially are paying attention to the issue. McCain believes he can build on his maverick image with this issue and build a strong base by anchoring moderate Republicans and independents (who might be tempted by Obama) to his side. Remember, independents swinging towards the Democratic Party was a major reason for the country's dramatic turn leftward in 2006, and McCain is perhaps the only candidate Republicans could have nominated to stop the bleeding.

Another reason McCain will seize the environment is that this topic allows him to appear like a maverick without actually moving to the center at all: All he needs to do is offer a break with President Bush and given how dogmatically far-right the current Administration has been on environmental issues, pretty much anything McCain proposes will earn him centrist credentials. In fact, even professing that he "believes in global warming" could do the trick! Similarly, McCain was left looking like a lefty pacifist during the GOP debates just for opposing torture, something that most people wouldn't even have thought was an issue until a few years ago.

It's hard to give McCain credit for things as simple as believing global warming or opposing torture, headline like the New York Times suggest that he will get what he wants out of them: the impression of offering a different kind of Republican regime. And thus the fact that McCain's proposals fall short of what is needed to truly combat global warming goes mostly unnoticed -- for instance the fact that McCain's cap on carbon emissions is significantly inferior to even what the Lieberman-Warner Senate bill is proposing.

Finally, this story suggests an important advantage McCain has had in starting the general election in early February. He has been able to spend the first few months of the year courting the disaffected Republican base, secure the support of Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee and various conservative leaders and burnish his credentials on the right. Now that the general public is paying more attention to him again, McCain has already taken care of that part of the equation and is ready to move on to the second part of any general election campaign -- moving towards the center.

Yet, Robert Novak reports today that some elements in the evangelical community are not ready to embrace McCain just yet because (1) they want to wait for Huckabee 2012 and (2) they consider that an Obama presidency is a plague that America 'deserves' for its sins. Novak adds that these groups remain marginal for now but that enough evangelical leaders remain skeptical by McCain that this could prove a major problem for the Arizona Senator in the fall unless he does some reach out. We saw in 2000 that evangelicals don't mind just sitting at home.

Dem-led efforts to define McCain (perhaps) picking up

Democrats contend that McCain's story and political identity remain a question mark for voters; Dean went as far as saying this week that Mitt Romney would have been a stronger candidate than McCain will be.

Whether that proves not or true, there is little doubt that Democrats have an opportunity right now to exploit McCain's relative absence from the spotlight as he tries to build a campaign organization and raise money. And that there is ample material to use is demonstrated by the wealth of stories out there in recent weeks exploring McCain's true convictions. Time published a story this week wondering whether the Arizona Senator "flip-flopped on torture" because of McCain's opposition to a Democratic proposal to limit interrogation techniques to those in the CIA's field manual -- a bill opposed by President Bush.

The New York Times, meanwhile, explored the growing influence of neo-conservatives on McCain's foreign policy philosophy; the piece quotes a number of so-called "pragmatists" who worry that McCain is growing away from their positions. Particularly striking is this passage characterizing the manner in which pragmatists within the Republican/McCain world are characterizing their presumptive nominee:

One of the chief concerns of the pragmatists is that Mr. McCain is susceptible to influence from the neoconservatives because he is not as fully formed on foreign policy as his campaign advisers say he is, and that while he speaks authoritatively, he operates too much off the cuff and has not done the deeper homework required of a presidential candidate.

Both the Time and New York Times story are worrisome for the Arizona Senator, as they hit him on topics on which Democrats believe he is the most vulnerable. And I am not even mentioning stories circulating about McCain's temper, such as this excerpt from a recent book alleging that the Senator had a fist fight with a congressman. As I explained in late March, Democrats are committed to undermining McCain's maverick image first by convincing voters that McCain is no centrist and a conservative in Bush's mold and second by arguing that what is perceived as moderation is in fact opportunistic politicking. By hitting on comments like "100 years" and "Bomb Iran," Democrats want to portray McCain as a dangerous war-mongerer who would deepen the country's involvement in the Middle East.

For all these stories to truly penetrate the public consciousness and hurt McCain in any meaningful way, however, Democrats have to be willing to hit him over the head with them -- and for now they have not done so at all. In fact, I mentioned last week that planned efforts by third-party groups had failed to recruit the necessary funds to launch ads against McCain, leaving him unchallenged more than two months after he emerged as his party's presumptive nominee and in a period in which the Republican was particularly vulnerable.

But efforts picked up this week (and, with it, Democratic hopes) with a group called Progressive Media USA launching an ambitious $40 million plan to introduce McCain to voters; meetings with wealthy Democratic donors (including George Soros) are said to have secured donation pledges and ads are already being worked on by consulting groups. We will no doubt know in the coming weeks whether these promises take hold and whether the third-party effort to go after McCain will get anywhere.

And meanwhile, John McCain raises funds, vets veeps and avoids the hammer

While Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are battling for their party's nomination, John McCain is thinking ahead to the general election, is looking to pick up his fundraising and introduce himself to voters before the Democrats' start attacking him.

Today, the campaign revealed it had raised $15 million in March. Since McCain looks assured of choosing public financing for the general election (and get $85 million to spend from early September to Election Day), those $15 million raised are almost entirely primary funds, which the campaign can use until its end-of-summer convention. (This makes it difficult to compare McCain's total and Clinton's announcement that she raised $20 million, which does include general election funds).

$15 million is a mixed total for McCain; it is certainly an improvement from previous months, but it should only partially reassure Republicans who were starting to get worried by McCain's anemic fundraising. It remains much less than Barack Obama's March total, confirming that McCain will be at a significant financial disadvantage in the coming months.

It is important to understand what we mean when we speak of "primary funds" and "general election funds." The latter sounds more important, but general election funds kicks in at the convention -- not at the end of primaries. And as such they will only be used for two months. Primary resources are used for much longer, and they are the ones that fund campaigns throughout the summer, a time in which many candidates are often broke.

McCain will have to pick up his fundraising in the coming weeks to survive all the way to the convention. But Politico's Ben Smith brings good news to Republicans this week by reporting on the failure of Democratic groups to attack McCain as early as possible as they were planning to early this year:

Democratic talk of an early, hard-hitting campaign to "define" and tar Arizona Sen. John McCain appears to have fizzled for lack of money, leading to a quiet round of finger-pointing among Democratic operatives and donors as McCain assembles a campaign and a public image relatively unmolested.

Groups like the Campaign to Defend America fell short of their funding goals and, despite testing messages and running an ad in cheap parts of Ohio, largely gave up on their efforts to define McCain. Most funds from Democratic voters are going to the campaigns of Obama and Clinton at a time other groups were hoping to get some attention as well. This is naturally a huge relief for Republicans, who a few months ago were really worried about how McCain was going to able to answer early attack ads with practically no money in the bank at all and no general election strategy.

Another big advantage the McCain campaign is deriving is a head start in the vice-presidential process. At this time 4 years ago, the Kerry campaign was way on its way towards interviewing potential taps; this year, Clinton and Obama have certainly not started the long vetting procedures (and consider that they don't even know yet if they will have to tap each other). Meanwhile, the McCain campaign is considering its list already and can even benefit from testing names in the media.

The media buzz over the past 48 hours has been Rice's supposedly campaigning to be picked as McCain's running mate, and the Senator's comment that he had not noticed that she was interested. He even proceeded to criticize her by saying that all those who contributed to setting up the initial failed Iraq policy (of which McCain now claims he has always been a fervent opponent) "bear some responsibility."

And meanwhile, John McCain tours and addresses those 100 years

While he is trying to force her out of the race and while she is trying to find a way to move superdelegates, John McCain launched his (re)introductory tour this week, seeking to educate voters about McCain's story life. As the campaign sees it, this is a tour of the places that have mattered in McCain's life to remind voters (or is it New Hampshire independents) what they have liked about the man. Yesterday, McCain was in Meridian, Mississippi where he had flown an air carried; today, he visited his high school; tomorrow, it's on to the Naval Academy.

McCain's tour exemplifies both the benefits and the drawbacks of the long Democratic primary. On the one hand, McCain can organize his own re-introduction to voters and does not have to worry about the Democratic nominee burying him under advertisements and blasting him before he has the money to respond. He can calmly go around the country advancing his political message, almost in a vacuum.

On the other hand, McCain cannot hope to get much coverage from this given how much media time Clinton and Obama are enjoying (and how much time the media has to devote to politics in the first place). McCain can go around the country all he wants, but it will not do him that much good if he cannot get his message out.

One goal of McCain's early campaigning is to push back on the controversy generated by the candidate's 100 years in Iraq comment. That quote has already become the 2008 version of John Kerry's "I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it." To prevent it from being as damaging as Kerry's was, Republicans have developed an aggressive strategy. They contend that McCain is being taken out of context and that his statement had a very clear meaning that most people would agree on: that US soldiers could stay in Iraq as part of a peace keeping force just as they did in South Korea.

The Democratic version of McCain's quote, of course, attributes to it much more hawkish connotations. Both sides want to win this early argument, which explains why debates around this question have been so heated already! The problem for McCain is that he might already have lost this argument. The nuance he is trying to introduce into the quote is not the kind of response that is effective in modern politics, just as Kerry was never able to convince anyone of the legitimacy of his $87 billion quote (that he was referring to two different votes on two bills that had different provisions... a clear explanation that was drowned among Republican noise).

Whatever the merits of Kerry's statement, it came to exemplify the flip-flopping character Republicans shaped; and Democrats are doing everything they can to make McCain's quote stand as a symbol of his aggressive hawkishness. But Obama might have done a big favor to McCain yesterday: In responding to questions about the 100 years quote, Obama acknowledged that McCain could have been referring to a peacetime commitment rather than a 100 years war. A triumphant RNC immediately blasted out a release claiming that their candidate had been vindicated:

With Barack Obama finally acknowledging today John McCain does not support a 100-year war in Iraq, we expect that he will answer his own calls for a more honest debate and stop playing crude politics with such an important issue.

The McCain campaign knows fully well, however, that this is not the type of story that goes away easily; it's already penetrating in public culture. If Edwards could never get rid of that $400 haircut, McCain won't be able to take back his 100 years quote. And that's precisely why they are so worried about it and aggressive in countering in it.

McCain airs first general election ad

McCain is airing his first general election ad today. The ad, presenting McCain as "the American president Americans have been waiting for," is running in New Mexico, a small state probably chosen for an initial run so that McCain could test his message without too much expenditures (not to mention that New Mexico proved to be one of the tightest states in both 2000 and 2004).

Portraying himself as a strong leader who can govern the country in a time of crisis, McCain is presenting himself as a candidate who has gone through hardships in his life that have toughened him and that give strength to his determination to protect America. "Where has he been? Has he walked the walk?" asks the ad, before showing images of McCain's POW captivity. These same images were shown in New Hampshire in late 2007 and are credited for giving McCain a second chance in that state (which he, of course, ended up carrying on January 8th).

The ad never references Obama, but contrasts are clearly being drawn, and McCain will try to drive home the argument that Obama has not "walked the walk" and that his life experience does not give him the strength to lead. This is not exactly a continuation of Clinton's argument: Hillary's goal has always been to focus on issues and substance to show that she is more prepared than Obama; the last thing McCain wants is for the campaign to be issue-based. His goal is to focus on life stories and symbolism to show that he is more prepared than Obama. This is a key difference and one that could have different results. The Dem electorate wanted "change" more than discussion of meaty issues; if that holds to the general, McCain might be on a more favorable terrain.

And then there is another contrast that is potentially being drawn that is very problematic. I am talking about McCain's emphasis on his being "an American president". What does that mean exactly? Is there any confusion about McCain's nationality? The only two reasons I can think of are: (1) McCain is worried voters have heard about his not being born in Panama and wants to dispel any worry they might have about that, or (2) He is trying to draw a very shady contrast to a potential general election opponent whose origins some voters might have doubts about...

The first reason is particularly incoherent. That Panama controversy only lasted a few days and you can be sure no one but die-heart political junkies heard about it. So we better hope that the general election will not be ran on insidious insinuations like the second hypothesis. (Update: I see that TNR's Michael Crowley is asking similar questions about the McCain ad.)

John McCain and the maverick image

With Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton still busy campaigning for their party’s nomination, other groups have taken the initiative of crafting the strategy to be used against Republican John McCain. Their first goal will be to undermine the image of McCain as a “maverick;” the Arizona Senator is sure to use his reputation as a moderate to capitalize on his popularity among independents.

To counter this threat, Democrats have come up with two methods. First, convince voters that McCain is no centrist. Second, show that what is perceived as moderation is in fact opportunistic politicking. In short, Democrats want to make McCain into the mirror image of John Kerry: an out-of touch flip-flopper.

The first strategy, then, is to portray John McCain as a fundamentally conservative politician, and Democrats believe their best argument is to denounce McCain for running for George Bush’s third term. The GOP would have been even more vulnerable to this line of attack had they selected another candidate, but Democrats believe that McCain made himself into a target by cozying up to the White House in recent years.

On no issue has McCain has come to be associated with the Bush Administration as much as on the Iraq War. For a few months, prominent Democrats called the surge strategy the “McCain doctrine.” They ceased to do so when public opinion became less critical of the surge, but they are stepping up attacks on other aspects of McCain’s hawkishness. The Senator’s statement that the United States could stay in Iraq for a hundred years has already become one of the Democrats’ favorite lines – and it is sure to haunt the Arizona Senator all the way to November.


Iraq is not the only subject on which McCain's positions are not centrist, and Dem-supporting groups know they must act quickly to highlight those aspect of the candidate's record to show his moderate reputation is illusory. NARAL, the pro-choice advocacy group, has launched an effort to do so about abortion, on which McCain has a strongly pro-life record (especially when compared to some of his former GOP rivals). Worried that too many pro-choice voters believe McCain's abortion position is acceptable, NARAL created a new website, Meet the Real McCain, explicitly seeking to strike down the "maverick" image:

The REAL John McCain is not the "moderate maverick" the pundits like to swoon over. The REAL McCain has spent the last 25 years amassing one of the worst anti-choice voting records in Congress.

The second strategy -- to transform McCain's moderation into opportunism -- is also being put in place, as Democrats must have learned from 2004 that the flip-flop charge needs time (and a lot of repetition) to stick, but once it does it is hard for a politician to shake it off. Obama likes to repeat that the McCain straight talk bus lost its wheels, and McCain's change of position on Bush's tax cuts was one of the main lines of attacks against him during the GOP primaries.

It's clear that if Democrats succeed in painting McCain as an unprincipled opportunist, his strongest advantage (his maverick image) would become his biggest liability. But we are certainly very far from that: McCain is a known politician and voters already have a clear opinion of him, and that makes him that much harder to define. In 2004, John Kerry was mostly unknown nationally (even after the primaries, in which he jumped back to the first-tier only in the days leading to Iowa) and the multi-million Republican spending spree in the spring and early summer introduced him to voters before he had a chance to introduce himself.

If the Democratic nominee had already been chosen, his/her campaign could turn its million against McCain in a repeat of 2004 (and of other elections like 1996 where Clinton destroyed Dole before the latter got to his convention). But that is not the case, so the DNC is doing what it can, starting with a new website, McCain Debates, which features the Arizona Senator debating (and contradicting) himself on a variety of issues. At the end of every "round" a picture of Bush shows up in an effort to link McCain to the President while simultaneously painting him as wavering. It is remarkable how much this "debating yourself" imagery echoes 2004, when very similar websites and ads had popped up against John Kerry. The "Kerry v. Kerry" debates have now been placed by McCain's.

The New York Times is weighing this morning on what key argument in the debate around John McCain: His flirting with Democrats in 2001 about switching parties and his talks with John Kerry in 2004 about joining his ticket. Both of these episodes are already known, but no one really knows with certainty what happened and how serious McCain was on both occasions. The NYT article recognizes this and provides us with detailed accounts of what both sides are saying:

Democrats contend that John McCain approached them about leaving the Republican caucus in 2001, leading to weeks of talk between him and some of the top Democrats, and that John Weaver approached the Kerry campaign about a joint ticket. McCain advisers counter that it was Democrats who were reaching out to McCain in 2001 and that the 2004 episode was Kerry's idea. Note that neither side disputes that Kerry was thrilled about the idea: "Both sides say that Mr. Kerry was so enthusiastic about the notion that he relentlessly pursued Mr. McCain, even to the point of offering him a large part of the president’s national security responsibilities.

Something else neither side denies is that there were talks between McCain and Democrats. Whether the Republican initiated the talks or not, there was an effort to convince McCain to jump ships. In a context in which he already has trouble with his party's base, it is understandable that McCain wants to run away from this story, but how stunning it is that a party's nominee considered switching parties 4 years before he clinched the nomination points to how crucial efforts to define McCain will be:

Will such stories help McCain portray himself as moderate and convince voters that he would not simply be Bush's third term? Or will Democrats succeed in using these episodes as proof that he changes his most fundamental principles easily and that he is an opportunist rather than a crusader? The answer to this question depends on how quickly Democrats open heavy fire on the Republican, and whether they do so early enough that McCain doesn't have enough funds to respond.

And meanwhile, John McCain...

For most of the fall, the GOP race looked like the more interesting one from the purely entertainment perspective; in case you have forgotten how confusing Republican calculations looked, just check back my GOP nomination rankings I came out with at the end of December (that was the first post, by the way, in which I gave McCain a slight edge in his party's race). And until January 29th and the Florida primary, Republicans kept up a highly competitive primary that was covered very closely.

Florida, of course, pretty much guaranteed McCain's nomination and the Republican nominee has had to fight for attention since then. With the Democratic campaign the only game in town, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are monopolizing headlines -- including on Campaign Diaries. After devoting equal time to the two parties all the way to Super Tuesday, I have mostly ignored McCain's campaign ever since then. This website, after all, is devoted to electoral analysis and not to news keeping.

But with McCain now rested from the primary campaign and thinking about the general, the way he is spending those months without a clear opponent is obviously crucial in preparing the general election. And in what is the corollary to the question of whether the drawn-out Democratic primary will end up hurting the party's nominee, the decisive question concerning McCain is whether his ceding the spotlight to his opponents helps him or hurts him.

This week, the Arizona Senator conducted a European trip that took him to Jerusalem, London and Paris. He was accompanied in this trip by two of his strongest allies, Senators Lindsay Graham and Joe Lieberman. This is not an unusual move by a presidential candidate. Before he lost Ohio and Texas, Barack Obama had plans to conduct his own European trip, but he can hardly do so (and be as easily received by foreign leaders) before clinching the nomination

McCain does not need to burnish his foreign policy credentials, but he does want to start appearing presidential and get the American people used to thinking of him as the country's representative. He is also hoping to use his foreign tour to start meeting the primary challenge he will face in the general election: Running as a Republican without looking like Bush's heir. In both London and Paris, McCain emphasized the themes of torture and global warming and sought to differentiate himself from the policies of the Bush Administration; for example, he proposed to find a successor to the Kyoto protocol (for those who read French, here is the interview McCain gave to Le Monde, the influential French daily).

It would thus seem that the fact that McCain has trouble getting as much coverage as his competitors right now should hurt him, since his trip was not as covered as it could have been if Obama, Clinton, 1990s First Lady schedules or "typical" white people were not dominating the news cycle. And to some degree that is true, and is a problem McCain will face for a few more weeks.

At the same time, McCain has for now little to complain about. He emerged out of the primaries with little money left; he raised stunningly little in February ($12 million), despite having wrapped up the nomination; despited by much of his own party's elite (and some of the base), he was vulnerable to a concerted Democratic attack. Two months after Florida, and despite a few DNC produced web ads and a few privately produced videos, the onslaught McCain was allowed to fear and to which he would have had difficulty responding to never materialized.

And even if he is not as much in the spotlight as the Democrats, the Arizona Senator can prepare his general election campaign -- try out themes, test narratives -- in more tranquility, while also spending more time courting the base and building an organization. In short, the Republican candidate can build the McCain style and take control of the party far from the spotlight, which is in many ways a great benefit.

If the situation continues, things could start looking very different for McCain. For one, Democrats will start attacking the Republican soon: If Clinton and Obama are too busy to do so, the DNC knows it has to do so. And, more relevantly, 527s are already organizing themselves to take on the Republican. And the AFL-CIO is already preparing its massive offensive against the GOP nominee. McCain will have trouble responding if it does not know who it should hit -- though Obama is certainly emerging as the likely nominee, enough so that if Republicans find the money to go after him now they will certainly do so. (Note that it is unlikely that they can use Obama's still fighting Clinton to not draw a response from him. Obama has more than enough money to fight a two-front war).

Exactly what advantage McCain draws from this will depend on how vicious the Democratic fight gets. If Obama and Clinton keep on running against each other all the way to June but manage to keep the discussion civil the way they have up to now (the Wright controversy was not brought up by Clinton, after all, and would have come out whether or not she had withdrawn), the fact that they keep monopolizing the spotlight will start playing in their favor at a time McCain will want to draw more attention.

If the nomination fight gets more divisive in a way that (I insist on this point) it has not been up to now, i.e. if Clinton is strong enough after June 3rd to not withdraw before the convention and fight Obama on the convention floor, all bets are off. On the one hand, it would could be disastrous for McCain if he spent June to the end of August having to fight for attention; on the other, just leaving the other side blooding itself out could be invaluable. The exact impact of McCain's time-off from the spotlight will not be known until we can assess it in retrospect.