The Column

McCain '02

The "maverick" Republican nominee

I know three things to be true:

1) Because this column is about John McCain, the Google Ads that fund this site (and thus much of my debauchery) will likely include ads for his campaign. This is because while people claim that Google has conquered the world and reinvented the wheel, this internet behemoth has yet to figure out that while a keyword like "McCain" may pop up on a site, if it is paired with the words "is a colossal pandering tool" they should probably think twice about throwing up thebanner for his presidential campaign.

2) The general election has begun. Following Obama's ten state route in February, Clinton didn't stand a chance (like I said), and now we have Obama versus McCain (like I said and said).

3) Barring some unforeseen calamity like a massive terrorist attack or the revelation that Barack Obama tortures puppies to sexually satisfy himself, John McCain is going to lose this election.

There has been a lot of hyperventilating in the media about how Obama can't win swing states and can't win white voters and can't win 43-51 year old half-Puerto Rican, half-Italian grandmothers. These predictions come from a group of people who still believe that the world has not changed from 1988, let alone from 2004. McCain has given us a preview of his general election strategy and it bares a close resemblance to the failed machinations of Hillary Clinton, which is essentially to lambast Obama's inexperience and call Obama's rhetoric "platitudes." I can see the bumper sticker already: "McCain '08: Hope is a Platitude."

The Republicans should be thanking their lucky stars that they at least nominated McCain, who ranks well above the rest of the Republican Party and the positively toxic atmosphere surrounding those clowns. Can you imagine if Mitt Romney was their nominee? I hear a lot about how the Republican "brand" is in trouble, as if starting ill-advised wars in the Middle East and bankrupting the country is the equivalent of Colgate toothpaste not whitening your teeth as well as Crest.

The "brand" is not in trouble. Republican ideology is in trouble. They basically had a six-year stretch when they were in complete control of every arm of the government. They had carte blanche to enact every idiotic proposal and ill-conceived notion that the Heritage Foundation ever dreamed up and now Americans can see what it's gotten us: An intractable war in Iraq, skyrocketing fuel prices, an economy in disarray, ranks of working people without health insurance, and—Well, I want to sleep at some point tonight, so I won't get into all the rest.

"But don't worry!" Republicans are now saying. "McCain, he's a maverick! He's got an independent streak! Voters will like him!"

I take strong issue with this logic. It's true, McCain has at times demonstrated that he is marginally smarter and more thoughtful than typical Republican orthodoxy, but this is like me bragging that I won the fifty-yard dash at the Special Olympics.

Oh, John McCain, you don't want to round up and export 12 million undocumented Mexican workers that would pull the chair out from under the economy and cause human rights catastrophe? Congratulations on having four working brain cells.

Oh, you admit that climate change exists and you'd like to do something about our energy policy besides offering to blow Saudi Arabian kings?Now that's Maverick thinking there, President McCain!

The truth about McCain is that he marches in lockstep with all the worst policies of the Bush administration, including but not limited to the Iraq war, the economy, and—most disastrously—health care. His voting record with Bush-Cheney policies is a solid 95% and once the media gets done obsessing over scary, loud black pastors long enough to actually do some reporting, they'll look at McCain's hypocritical record, and some of that golden boy varnish is going to fade. Get used to YouTube videos like this one below (and keep in mind these are only clips from the last seven months, forget about McCain's previous twenty years in office).

McCain won't be able to run from Bush because he basically endorses all the major tenets of the Bush White House. Barack Obama will deliver a rhetorically brilliant speech at the Democratic National Convention this August and then a week later McCain's convention speech will compete with whatever lazy, inept prattling Bush shows up with. The two are going to end up running side-by-side, and there's nothing the campaign can do about it.

Couple this with Obama's fundraising advantage, and McCain's looking at a long, uphill climb. While McCain will turn to typical Republican donors to write massive checks to the party, Obama has basically reinvented campaign fundraising. He has 1.5 million small donors (including yours truly), who are not even close to tapped out yet.

What's McCain to do? Well, he'll try to give himself a leg up by making a good pick for running mate. The short list includes Romney and Mike Huckabee, but Romney would be a big mistake, and I'm not sure Huckabee is much of a game-changer. I've heard names floated like Kay Bailey Hutchinson of Texas (although she would have made more cynical sense if Hillary was the Democratic nominee), as well as the Governor of Louisiana, Bobby Jindal, who is young, bright, and the only non-Caucasian elected official in the entire Republican Party. Of course, putting a young guy beside McCain will probably only highlight how ancient he is, and that's going to be bad enough for him when he has to stand next to Obama during debates. This probably also rules out South Carolina governor Mark Sanford, who is one of the few rising stars in the party.

The only way McCain can pull off an upset is if he thinks in purely electoral terms. He needs to guarantee a major state. This could mean Tom Ridge, who was once governor of Pennsylvania, but I think the more likely choice is Florida governor Charlie Crist, who helped McCain win that state's primary with his endorsement. Having Crist lock up Florida right off the bat means that Obama probably has to run the table in the rust belt states of Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Michigan (although, again, that's not going to be as hard as Republicans hope and Democrats fear).

So that's one way McCain could stand a decent chance. I'm assuming the Republicans will not deviate from their standard "Democrats-are-pussies-who-will-let-terrorists-date-your-daughters" message. Likely in the run-up to the election we will hear about possible attacks, terrorist activity and so forth as the Bush administration tries to gin up some last minute fear-mongering to help McCain. This is a proven tactic, but I don't think it's going to fly this time around. Republican turnout will be depressed no matter what happens between now and Election Day, and Obama is going to shatter records for black and youth voter turnout. This ain't 1988, it's not even 2004 and the conventional wisdom simply no longer applies.

Which leaves McCain with one last option: Procure a time machine and travel back to 2002. Question the precepts of the administration's rational for war and once he finds their evidence so severely cherry-picked and lacking, as 23 of his braver colleagues did at the time, oppose the president. Then once we go to war anyway, maintain that cutting taxes for the wealthy in a time of war is also a terrible idea, call into question every dubious claim and craven policy of the Executive branch during this six year stretch, and generally just be the maverick the media so lazily dubs him.

I understand this last option is a bit of a long shot, so alternatively you could just stick with the "Obama-cuddles-with-Iranian-President-Mahmoud Ahmadinejad" argument. That could work, too.