The good news is that Prince Charles says we only have 18 months to do something about Global Warming. Since nothing can be done in such a short time, let’s forget the whole thing.
Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin has just written herself off the McCain Veepstakes by suing the federal government for putting the polar bear on the Endangered Species list. You go girl.
Now we are in the season you can forget about polls. But before we do, this election cycle’s prize goes to the 30-year old polling geek named Poblano. Every presidential cycle produces a new champ—Zogby from years ago, Rasmussen, etc. Poblano has dominated the primary season and probably will play a role in the Obama campaign. He really has moved polling another step, particularly by integrating the new Democratic registrations into a new model for projecting results.
Since my last memo, white people in Kentucky hated Obama and white people in Oregon loved him. Today, he is about 50+ delegates from the nomination.
But let’s talk about the McCain campaign. Our distinguished colleague General Tom says this election is “McCain’s to lose.” So how’s he doing so far.
His pastor problem: McCain has little or no “feel” for evangelicals. This year he ran after endorsements from televangelists Hagee and Parsley. When the Left raised the more troublesome points of both men’s theology, McCain finally renounced the endorsements. How did that go over with evangelicals? Not very well. McCain is now courting suburban evangelical Joel Osteen, who has a more “new age” or vanilla message. Christian websites point out that Bush went out of his way to connect personally with evangelicals and build an organizational base among them, rather than recruit leading evangelical preachers in a top down approach. Today, there is still no personnel tasked with outreach to the religious community, something evangelicals say W. did from the beginning. Comments on these websites point out that McCain’s problems stem from his being a “secularist”. Rev Dobson, who has immense clout among evangelicals, didn’t let McCain off the hook when John condemned the California Supreme Court ruling on gay marriages. He pointed out to his flock that John wouldn’t support a constitutional amendment on marriage when it was being debated on the Hill. Yesterday, I heard a woman call into a Christian station and say she would not vote for McCain because he was an adulterer and she couldn’t trust him for that.
His self-inflicted Lobbyist problem: McCain still has 119 lobbyists working on his campaign. But Rick Davis’ new ethical guidelines led to the removal of Rep. Loeffler and others who kept McCain alive when the wheels fell off the Straight Talk Express mid-primary season. The handful of lobbyists who donated their time to keep McCain alive politically have been summarily cashiered. This war against lobbyists has not gone over well. When a mild-mannered Republican loyalist like Jan Baran, a man I have worked with, starts being quoted complaining about a Republican candidate, you know you have problems. This gets to what General Tom said was McCain self-righteous problem. John is now in a trap of his own making and if he really follows his own rules, then long-time Republican professional Charlie Black will have to go. Meanwhile, all the democratic websites are having a field day with this issue. From a Republican point of view, it’s a nightmare because it sets the McCain campaign further back in terms of creating an organizational structure.
The lobbyist problem raises serious questions about Rick Davis’ whole decentralized approach by having regional centers run the McCain campaign. It’s one thing for the Obama campaign to create a whole new paradigm of mobilizing voters and financial support during a primary season but a whole, very dangerous endeavor to do this for the general election when it has never been done before. Veteran Republicans are complaining that the McCain campaign has few ground forces and will only be conducted as an aerial campaign.
His own “appeasement” problem: After President Bush’s speech to the Knesset, a firestorm of chatter broke out on this issue. McCain eagerly joined in, only to be slapped down by James Baker, Colin Powell, General Petreus (indirectly), Arlen Specter, and Senator Hagel. McCain has kept this as part of his campaign. But troublesome videos have emerged with him in a very, very expansive way explaining how he would talk to Hamas, Syria, and now has emerged several 2000 videos of him explaining a roadmap for normalizing relations with Cuba (this was when Fidel was still in the harness). His positions in three of these cases are far more worrisome than anything Obama has proposed. And many people remember his instrumental role in normalizing relations with Vietnam. Can this all be handled? Surely. But his tendency to blanket denial everything raises a credibility issue that is totally unnecessary. There are many, many different ways for John to frame his superiority on national security issues but his authoritarian manner is off-putting and his refusal to even elaborate his positions just doesn’t go over.
While he was in Miami, he did the usual pandering to the Cuban-American voters, but in his characteristic way went far beyond what was necessary—he promised to prevent Bolivia and Ecuador from going the way of Castro. This is the type of thing that allowed Pat Buchanan to say with McCain,” The jobs won’t come back, the illegals won’t go home and there will be more wars.” A punchy slogan for the Democrats to use.
McCain again went back to his original position on illegal immigration—telling Silicone Valley executives that comprehensive immigration reform will be the number 1 priority in 2009. The details of his plan basically mirror the Kennedy-McCain bill, which with a Democratic Congress will be passed this time.
McCain’s memorial day picnic. I think he’s entertaining Romney, Crist and Jindal as a consolation prize. The Louisiana press has been great about Jindal’s trip to Arizona, urging McCain not to pick him so he can finish the job he has started in Louisiana. He clearly is a comer and has widespread support in his state. I personally think McCain has already picked his man—don’t know whom but it’s none of the above.
Lastly, a personal observation. I thought McCain handled the whole issue of the new GI Bill dreadfully. His answer to Obama’s rather tame criticism of his position was so over the top that it raised real questions about his temperament. (P.S.—John’s record on veteran benefits is really terrible. This has been true even during the years I worked with him. I have no idea why.) Three of my colleagues here at IDS worked with McCain and all agreed that the full statement was McCain over-ruling his staff. It was incoherent, very self-righteous, wrong and ungrammatical. Chris Matthews on Hardball actually tried to cover McCain on this by suggesting it was Mark Salter’s doing. We don’t think so.
While a candidate can have contempt for his rival as McCain clearly does for Obama, there are smoother ways of handling this than the nastiness that McCain exudes. It just makes John look like a cranky old coot.
Now the Democrats. The next big date is May 31 when the Rules Committee meets. The Clinton forces led by Harold “The Monster” Ickes will press for the seating of the full delegations from Michigan and Florida, even though the Clinton forces led by the same Harold Ickes voted unanimously last August to strip these states of their delegates. But, hey, they are the Clintons. Like then, the Clinton forces will have a plurality on the Committee but don’t expect them to get their way. The Michigan party has proposed a split of 69 delegates for Clinton and 59 for Obama. As is the case with Democrats, the Florida state party has filed suit on this issue—only to be denied twice. Hillary has chosen this issue as the next great civil rights issue.
What’s really at stake? Obama is cruising into the nomination. He has already turned down Hillary a few times on her request to be vice-president. Now the Clintons are playing the NYT, CNN and Time magazine suggesting the two camps are negotiating about the vice-presidency. Bill Clinton has been very vocal in floating this idea and all their enablers—left, right and center—are spouting this line. As I said in the beginning of these memos, the Clintons will try and steal this thing in broad daylight. This is another attempt at extortion. The stakes—nothing less than the control of the Democratic Party. The Clintons and their crime machine have controlled the Democratic Party since 1992 and they will not give up this piece of real estate without a war. Stay tuned.
Thanks General Vallely
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