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McCain 3.0
July 03, 2008 9:03 AM
FROM GUEST-BLOGGER RICK KLEIN, from ABC's The Note.
Maybe it’s something about the July sun that gets the Arizona going in Sen. John McCain.
Almost exactly a year after retooling his campaign when it hit rock-bottom, there’s a new McCain makeover. Start with a new campaign honcho, sprinkle in some outside help, top it off with a lucky break that allows him to return home like an action hero, hostages released -- and all of a sudden you’ve got a new narrative for a campaign that desperately needs it.
That’s the focus of today’s Note: This series of mostly independent events contributes to the ability of the McCain campaign to start telling a different story, and perception can easily become reality.
Mostly it ensures that people like me in the mainstream media have a new story to tell; watch, for instance, for stories that focus on the newfound “discipline” of the campaign under Steve Schmidt, a straight-from-central-casting (does every story on him have to mention his shaved head and barrel-chested build?) bulldog of an operative who has wide respect among both Democrats and Republicans.
McCain was getting close to a dangerous place in the campaign. Polls have had him down narrowly yet consistently (and sometimes not narrowly). All the energy has seemed to be with Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill. More worrisome still, Republican operatives have been buzzing about the McCain campaign’s problems in public -- in the type of second-guessing/grumbling that John Kerry grew too used to in 2004.
So here comes the new McCain, again. Last year around this time, bankrupt and flailing, he ditched the Cadillac for a Neon (or, more precisely, a battered bus) and got back to what fueled his original rise -- more direct voter contact, less of an entourage, more McCain, less filter.
The parallels with what’s happening now have their limits. He only has four months before the general, compared to the six months he had before the primaries. There’s far less time for direct voter contact, and far more voters to contact. It all happens at once, nation-wide, this time; there’s no New Hampshire to boost him back into the game, living room by living room.
And Obama still has the enthusiasm, the money, the sense of history -- all significant obstacles for the GOP this year.
But suddenly, operatives all around Washington and beyond who’ve been looking for a competitive race have new justifications for seeing one. As I said, perceptions become realities.
-- Rick Klein
July 3, 2008 | Permalink | Share | User Comments (31)
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Hey try this story.
The nation's top military officer said yesterday that more U.S. troops are needed in Afghanistan to tamp down an increasingly violent insurgency, but that the Pentagon does not have sufficient forces to send because they are committed to the war in Iraq.
Posted by: Thinking | Jul 3, 2008 10:09:02 AM
What happens to Michelle Obama's makeover? Unlike McCain's makeover, I don't think you can decorate Michelle with something she cannot be. Her being is so rooted in the old way of thinking about race, something Obama express about Wright, but hypocritically he never express it about Michelle.
Posted by: country_voter | Jul 3, 2008 9:59:10 AM
"Mostly it ensures that people like me in the mainstream media have a new story to tell"
Have you tried this new story to tell?
"Enjoying craps opens up a window on a central thread constant in John's life," says John Weaver, McCain's former chief strategist, who followed him to many a casino. "Taking a chance, playing against the odds." Aides say McCain tends to play for a few thousand dollars at a time and avoids taking markers, or loans, from the casinos, which he has helped regulate in Congress. "He never, ever plays on the house," says Mark Salter, a McCain adviser. The goal, say several people familiar with his habit, is never financial. He loves the thrill of winning and the camaraderie at the table.
Only recently have McCain's aides urged him to pull back from the pastime. In the heat of the GOP primary fight last spring, he announced on a visit to the Vegas Strip that he was going to the casino floor. When his aides stopped him, fearing a public relations disaster, McCain suggested that they ask the casino to take a craps table to a private room, a high-roller privilege McCain had indulged in before. His aides, with alarm bells ringing, refused again, according to two accounts of the discussion.
Posted by: Thinking | Jul 3, 2008 9:52:12 AM
McCain's votes the last 8 years have led the Straight Talk Express to a dead end. Now, he's trying to back up the bus.
Too bad it's well documented that McCain voted right with Bush on policies that have cost thousands of American lives, tens of thousands of Americans to be physically and mentally injured, and millions of American jobs.
Just this week, we learned McCain allowed a terrorist supporter to hold a McCain fundraiser.
After 9/11, I never would have imagined a presidential candidate taking money from someone who finances terrorists.
Posted by: Dan | Jul 3, 2008 9:41:37 AM
Well the next news story that ABC carries on Obama will be negative or with a negative slant.
Big Comeback with a new campaign? what was wrong with the old? Didn't work, without direction, ineffective, what is is he going to do as president? Try untill he gets it right?
He is moving further and further to the right
Posted by: Thinking | Jul 3, 2008 9:37:58 AM
I was with you until the comment, Obama has a sense of history? As it pertains to what? International war, American History, personal family history, or Democrats in elections. All, in my mind, have created serious problems for the orator.
Posted by: EyesOpen | Jul 3, 2008 9:36:19 AM
McCain lied on your own network just yesterday, you have the video to prove it. He even told the same lie the sainted late Tim Russert caught him on, and you guys are singing his praises for firing his campaign manager and being in Colombia when hostages were rescued with no help from any action taken by McCain. Go back to blaming the Clinton administration for 9-11.
Posted by: Ricky | Jul 3, 2008 9:34:10 AM
The truth is that i cannot tell is ABC News is carrying water for McCain or just trying to paint a picture that shows this race as very clsoe so they can make money off of it. I am not so sure about their motives, but the NOTE and their blogs, lately, have been so pro-McCain, it raises several questions about journalistic ethics and intergrity. I know Fox News is blatantly anti-Obama (pro-McCain). I know MSNBC is pro-Obama. I know CNN, for the most part, is neutral. But ABC News is an enigma. I will not put them in the same category as Fox News, but they are sliding dangerously close to that level.
Posted by: Kevin | Jul 3, 2008 9:32:47 AM
so you are basically telling us how you will be interpreting the John McCain shakeup without even seeing the results of it yet? Is this what passes for journalism?
Posted by: so... | Jul 3, 2008 9:29:09 AM
Well you can spray a 300 dollar bottle of perfume on a steaming pile but at the end of the day you still got..you guessed it... a steaming pile.
Posted by: fd | Jul 3, 2008 9:14:58 AM
obama also has the empty suit and the hot air and the bs....
Posted by: al | Jul 3, 2008 9:08:31 AM
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