McCain's Vulnerabilities

It's undoubtedly true that John McCain has some real strengths as a candidate, most notably the DC press corps' undying love for his wrinkly visage. That said, I'm not sure how much stock I would put into McCain's low unfavorables numbers. That's an advantage, to be sure. On the other hand, it's not a mystery where that advantage came from -- it's come from the fact that McCain's never been subjected to serious attacks from the left on the national stage. But it's not as if this pattern would continue were he to win the nomination.

Nor do I think it would be impossible to construct attacks against him. Matt Welch's book, McCain: The Myth of a Maverick, for example, contains plenty of the negative information about McCain and his record that's simply never been mentioned by his friends in the press. He'll continue to have that alliance, but in the context of an actual race it won't be possible to keep it all off the table. Meanwhile, McCain really lacks a lot of the characteristics you normally look for in a presidential contender. Like many losing candidates, he combines a lack of executive experience and the signature accomplishments that come with it with a long record of service in the Senate and the flip-flops and old votes that come with that. What's more, though he's obviously charming if you sit on a bus with him, the persona that regular people see isn't a charismatic one -- he's super-old and much more in a crazy old-man neighbor-guy kind of way than in an avuncular and reassuring way.

All things considered, if I were running a presidential campaign I'd rather not go up against a guy who'll be able to count on 75 percent of political reporters acting as de facto campaign volunteers, but it's not like he's some unstoppable force either. Unlike George W. Bush or, indeed, every successful national politician I can think of, McCain doesn't even pretend to care about the economic problems of struggling people.

Comments

Didn't McCain leave his first wife while she was sick, a la Newt Gingrich? I think he admitted committing adultery.

Posted by bob | January 4, 2008 1:05 PM

Those attacks would come from 527s presumably.

Hard to see Obama doing the attacking.

Posted by Armando | January 4, 2008 1:05 PM

Those attacks would come from 527s presumably. Hard to see Obama doing the attacking.

Obama objects to 527's. But I'm sure he'll be able to make points about McCain's sexual history gracefully while talking to Tim Russert. Right?

Posted by Petey | January 4, 2008 1:07 PM

Yes, he can point to a McCain and then, looking Russert in the eye, he could slyly take his left index finger and pull it in and out of his right fist.

Posted by gerontion | January 4, 2008 1:10 PM

plus, McCain's gone Hollywood!

http://swedish.imdb.com/title/tt1128059/fullcredits#writers

(WTF is this? anyone ever heard of this before?

I stumbled onto it about a half hour ago, in the course of a search for an accurate bio for Mark McKinnon, whom, you will note, is collaborating here. not to mention Sharon Stone (?). of course, "script consultant" doesn't mean much, and I can find precious little mention of this thing anywhere else, even under the original Italian name, but, well...WTF?)

Posted by Anna Granfors | January 4, 2008 1:14 PM

The greatest vulnerability for McCain may result from his position on the war, especially if he gets contrasted to Obama in the general election. The independents McCain would be counting on hate the war, the one that Obama has always opposed, the one that McCain wants to last for another hundred years.

Posted by Boots Day | January 4, 2008 1:15 PM

The greatest vulnerability for McCain is that goofy damn photo of Bush hugging him!

Posted by Laurie | January 4, 2008 1:18 PM

Mark Kleiman has being trying for a while to remind people of what a slimeball St. McCain is -- for example, reading selected passages from someone's psychiatric record into the Congressional Record in revenge for their speaking out about misconduct by his friend John Tower and telling an offensive joke about 18-year-old Chelsea Clinton.

Posted by KCinDC | January 4, 2008 1:19 PM

If McCain is the nominee, all that's needed to trigger a massive meltdown on national TV is ask him what he thought of Jane Fonda posing with those North Vietnamese soldiers on that anti-aircraft gun in Hanoi in 1972. See http://www.1stcavmedic.com/jane_fonda.htm

I guarantee foaming at the mouth, chewing of the carpet and uncontrollable urinating.

Posted by Don Williams | January 4, 2008 1:20 PM

MattY couldn't find McCain's greatest vulnerability with eight hands (assuming he'd call in Ezra, Ambinder, and David Brooks to help out).

Posted by TLB | January 4, 2008 1:23 PM

Yeah, there's a lot of Jane Fonda hatred even in the modern Army. I never got the real deal on it, but the story goes she was a a commie traitor who supposedly visited Vietnamese concentration camps, saw what was being done to American POW's there, and then lied for the Vietcong, saying that the captured soldiers were getting treated perfectly well.

Posted by gerontion | January 4, 2008 1:24 PM

In my opinion, McCain's record of on-camera adolescent pro-war rhetoric leaves him no chance to be elected president without at least a dramatic and believable October surprise. But I doubt that he'll even be nominated.

Posted by Gary Sugar | January 4, 2008 1:26 PM

Yes, like, if in October McCain transforms into a charismatic young black man-you know, in order to fight fire with fire.

Posted by gerontion | January 4, 2008 1:28 PM

I think Gerontion is right -- it's hard to see how Obama can bring this up "gracefully". Besides, I don't think it's all that easy to hit McCain on his personal life; the worst of it is a lot of fooling around after he got back from Nam, for which, rightly or wrongly, many people are inclined to cut him some slack, and the divorce. I don't think the divorce is going to work as a charge, because he's on good terms with his ex, the kids from the first marriage are reconciled to him, he has consistently said the break-up was all his fault (so there isn't anything left to make him admit), and there haven't been any signs he's ever cheated since he married the second wife. He's not Rudy. And I'm pretty sure he discusses the entire thing in one of his books. In short, none of this is news, there don't seem to be any secrets to unearth, and no one's really got a grudge -- so I don't see what would drive the coverage.

As for McCain's political record, his biggest problem for the general is currently with his base, who are not crazy about him, and I suspect that a lot of what Matt calls "negative information" will strike those folks as *positive* information. In other words, normally, in a general election, the Dem attacks the Repub from the left, as is natural, and there's no downside for the Dem; but in this case, because McCain is perceived by many conservatives (wrongly) as being a lefty, attacks from the left will have the downside of solidfying an otherwise shaky base. If the election were held tomorrow and McCain were the nominee, many conservatives just wouldn't show up. That will not be the case if a lot of attention has been focused on his (mostly very orthodox) voting record.

Posted by Shoshana | January 4, 2008 1:39 PM

Snopes has a good article on it:

http://www.snopes.com/military/fonda.asp

I guess she really was a commie traitor who used American POWs for propaganda purposes. I'm no right wing reactionary, but I could sympathize with McCain's reaction if he did go batshit at the mention of her name.

Posted by gerontion | January 4, 2008 1:42 PM

I think that, even among Republicans, McCain's uber-hawkishness puts a hard upper limit the support he's going to get from primary voters. It's not all atmospherics and personality-- there's an actual issue here, and McCain's on the wrong side of it.

Posted by MattF | January 4, 2008 1:46 PM

Wasn't it just a few months ago when the image of Rudy! as the unflappable, determined, steel-hearted warrior who stared down the crime lords and grime of NYC and won? Of "America's Mayor", the bold and unfliching leader of NYC on that fateful day in September 2001?

Well, right now that image hasn't really stuck, right? And from what I can recall the Democrats and, indeed, the political press hasn't really been the one questioning these things. People have mostly figured it out on their own.

I don't see why the same cannot happen with McCain.

Posted by Joshua | January 4, 2008 1:48 PM

Re gerontion comment "Yeah, there's a lot of Jane Fonda hatred even in the modern Army. I never got the real deal on it,"
-------------
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Fonda#.22Hanoi_Jane.22

She was stupid and hurt the anti-war movement.

However, I lost an older friend in that stupid war
and have never understood the blinders on some of her critics. They rant against Fonda but you never hear them attacking the civilian and military leaders who dragged us into that clusterfuck.

Col Hackworth was the only leader with the balls to stand up on national TV and explain to the American people that the war was being run by fucking morons. Although highly decorated, he was threatened with court-martial and spent years in Australia in exile.

Posted by Don Williams | January 4, 2008 1:48 PM

Don Williams:

McCain's been asked about Jane Fonda, says he was angry about it when he first found out but isn't any longer, befriended (anti-war activist) John Kerry when they were on a POW commission in '92, and spoke at the funeral of (anti-war activist and Clinton advisor)David Ifshin. Quote: "What David taught me and, I suspect, what he taught a great many people, was how narrow are the differences that separate us."

Keep looking.

Posted by Shoshana | January 4, 2008 1:50 PM

McCain's unfavorables are a temporary phenomenon. They dropped during the last year as he faded from contention and no other candidate picked on him. At the start of the last year he had as high unfavorables as Hillary.

Posted by Nick Kaufman | January 4, 2008 1:57 PM

Jane Fonda is a major piece in the whole "We won the battle in Vietnam, lost the war at home" meme the right-wing leans on as part of their special version of history. This is totally false, but sustained by the occasional fictional event (like the first Rambo movie) and a lot of back channel gossip. It's just a way to blame the hippies. They could blame Kennedy for sending us there and LBJ for keeping us there, and have two prime Dem targets they could justifiably slander. Except it was never the Vietnam War that they were objecting to, and I think they were happy to claim the war as their own baby. With all that said, Jane Fonda did some despicable things. I don't blame her for her communism, but she really sold soldiers down the river, and she, as much as the conservatives that hate her so much, should have directed her campaign against the politics that led to the war rather than against the soldiers who served their country's dubious judgment by fighting it.

Posted by gerontion | January 4, 2008 2:03 PM

Re "she, as much as the conservatives that hate her so much, should have directed her campaign against the politics that led to the war rather than against the soldiers who served their country's dubious judgment by fighting it."
-----------
I concur.

Posted by Don Williams | January 4, 2008 2:15 PM

What's up with this "he's super old" stuff? The guy's only 71, which puts him about where a 55-year-old would have been 75 years ago in terms of vitality, mental acuity, life expectancy etc. His age is the very last of his disqualifications.

Posted by gordonminor | January 4, 2008 2:17 PM

I gotta go with TLB on this one, though I disagree on the policy itself: McCain's chief vulnerability is immigration, as he's on the wrong side of the last issue that Republicans really care about.

Huckabee, despite his earlier "compassionate" stance on immigration, is perfectly positioned to really put the hammer down on immigration. His earlier position is inconvenient, but the way it fits with his overall populist message is just too perfect. Really coming hard with a hawkish immigration stance would reveal Huckabee as even more the reincarnation of William Jennings Bryan than he already is (disclaimer: I'm pro-comprehensive myself).

Posted by kth | January 4, 2008 2:27 PM

An Obama/Huckabee race in the general would be fascinating. It really would tend to cast the Republicans as the WJ Bryan populist / religious party and the Dems as representatives of the coastal elites. What a realignment.

Posted by mq | January 4, 2008 2:46 PM

Gordonminor,

Age, as a political factor, is largely perception.

If you can't see the visual that advantage that slim, youthful, good-looking Barack Obama has against a paunchy, wrinkled, white-haired, balding guy with fucking huge lump hanging off of one side of his face, you must be blind.

Posted by Philly | January 4, 2008 2:47 PM

What's up with this "he's super old" stuff? The guy's only 71, which puts him about where a 55-year-old would have been 75 years ago in terms of vitality, mental acuity, life expectancy etc. His age is the very last of his disqualifications.

I don't think youth per se is a qualification, but it seems to me that if you do see geriatrics at the center of many of the biggest recent institutional failures. Think of Rehnquist, Greenspan, Reagan....

Posted by sglover | January 4, 2008 2:50 PM

How about his saying he'd stay in Iraq for the nest 100 years. I think that line would make for some excellent ads. Just repeat it over and over.

Posted by mad6798j | January 4, 2008 3:40 PM

If Obama wins the dem nom, I really hope that McCain doesn't get the repub nomination, if only so that we can avoid the "a nation hungry for a new kind of politics" meme cable news shows will spew out their robotic mouths.

Also, John McCain's hair is getting really, disturbing. It's, like, perfectly continuous with his head, like its painted on. It's also pretty weird that his skin is, like, exactly the same color as his hair. I don't want to have to look at him a lot.

He seems to be a bit more on top of things lately, but I recollect maybe six months ago watching him on TV and, in an instinctive way, feeling like he could legitimately be described as on the edge of senility, like his mind was somewhere other than his speech.

And while it's certainly possible for a 71 year old to be president and to campaign, John McCain seems to be the sort of 71 that might not be up to it.

Posted by MrTimbo | January 4, 2008 3:49 PM

McCain 08 = Dole 96. loved by "the Village", perceived as not as extreme as some of the other choices.

OTOH, I expect a R to win in 08. My reasoning :
95% of D will always vote D. 95% of R will always vote R. Swing voters (those R & D's plus 1/3 of Independents) will ultimately elect McCain or Giuliani ... based on the usual Swift Boating, Advertising campaigns, voter caging, and a vague feeling that "he will keep us safe and Repubs want to cut my taxes".

I hope I am wrong, but I know a lot of clueless people. They generally get a vague impression of the zeitgeist from top of the hour news on the radio , a bit of TV local news, or watching Fox "News" at the gym.

Posted by Rich | January 4, 2008 3:52 PM

kth: Huck collaborated with the MexicanGovernment in a scheme that enabled IllegalImmigration in AR. He even arranged discount rent in a scheme that might have broken the law; someone is currently suing him over that. He's also made several highly questionable statements about the topic. I've actually noted several of them since 2004, years before people like MattY had ever heard of him. The only reason you might not have heard about his past is because the MSM is completely corrupt.

However, I suspect that non-MSM reporters are going to be going to his appearances and discussing his history, leaving Huck supporters like MattY, the Dem Party, and the MSM wondering what just happened to their new favorite Republican.

Posted by TLB | January 4, 2008 4:21 PM

1. His age. John McCain would be the oldest person ever elected President and he is not the picture of health the previous record holder, Reagan, was when he was in office until senility began to crop up in his 2nd term. McCain had had 3 cancer surgeries and appears to be on a course of hormone & steroid treatments (the bloated face) for arthritis or post-cancer therapy to hopefully prevent melanoma recurrance. His mother is 92, but his father and grandfather were short-lived.

2. He has been an Inside the Beltway operator for 30 years. His name used for his political opponents, defense contractors, media people he has known 3 decades is "my good friends". That and his record belieing his Maverick status does not make him a likely change agent. With his age, any contest with him and a Democrat - especially if it is not Hillary! - casts him as the old man of the old order.

3. The McCain known inside DC is purportedly an erratic man of huge temper known for nasty diatribes on staffers, fellow Senators, various judicial or other supplicants that cross him. His vendettas against military officers and various Federal appointees have led to several "interventions" of senators telling McCain to back off hounding his victims.

3a. - This bears on why he was passed over for Admiral even with his grandad and dad being not just 1-Stars, but rising to 4-Star Admirals at the top, his POW hero status (which he made sure the media knew over other POW stories). He was apparantly passed over for matters of temperment, adultery, not being the brightest bulb. While overall a worthy admirable man, he was not among the best candidates who were more worthy and more admirable in the Admiral Selection Board's eyes, than McCain.

4. No one has ever been able to milk being captured by the enemy and interrogated into a moral right to higher office and Victimhood into Hero-hood like McCain has. It's similar to Rudy and 9/11. 9/11 excuses everything. The utility of it (except by his fawning media devotees) understandably wanes as he uses his POW status as a legitimating tool for everything he wants in Congress and as an immunity amulet from criticism.

5. Within the Republican Party, a sizable amount of the regulars detest McCain for his backroom deals, his untrustworthiness. Libertarians hate him for McCain-Feingold. Religious conservatives for him being a ringleader with Chuck Schumer of the Gang of 14, and his obsession with terrorists rights. He is also Open Borders and got there through Ted Kennedy's "friendship".

6. In 2000 he was the fresh face Independents loved. Eight years later, he is the establishment guy along with Rudy on "More Bush-style military interventions" foreign policy. Surrounded by neocons and advocating wider war. That is not what the country wants. And the conservatives and Christian Zionists that do back him on that HATE McCain for sabotaging Bush on GITMO, enemy interrogations.

Posted by Chris Ford | January 4, 2008 5:41 PM

Well, you have to nominate somebody. Maybe you could bring George Allen back.

Posted by kth | January 4, 2008 6:03 PM

A lot of us are sick of the gridlock. McCain's ability to reach across the aisle and get things done will be seen as an asset in the end. This will become clearer as November approaches. His handicap will be his long voting record, and the people's short memory. I'm sure there were bills years ago to tighten sub prime lending rules, or to raise airfares to make flights safer, etc. and most of the pols voted against them. We were tickled when they did what we wanted, but now we think it OK to question them on it.
Speaking of short memories, one only has to watch retired North Vietnamese Generals being interviewed on the History Channel to learn that they were beat by the end of the war. Problem was the US only asked for a graceful exit, and the South's economy had become dependent on our troops presence. Perhaps this explains why Rummy insisted on a short war in Iraq, with our troops isolated in bases. But what were they thinking when they laid off the Iraqi Army?

Posted by art | January 4, 2008 10:20 PM

All that hot media man-love...

...wasn't able to get him past old Fred Thompson in Iowa. Why, exactly, is the awesome, unstoppable power of that love supposed to kick in now?

I won't deny that media, free or paid (I love it that the new term for free media is "earned" media. Let no one say that our intrepid polticos accept any handouts, anything free, from anyone. Jesus.) is helpful. It's just that we're not dealing with Tom Paine here, or even Leni Riefenstahl. The media, free or paid, that our current media wizards generate is so weak that it would make no difference at all except that it usually doesn't have to compete with anything else for the limited attention the average American voter can spare from his or her own life. Such is the price we pay for the overall whopping success of our society -- its workings are taken for granted and are not at all interesting to the folks who enjoy the fruit of those workings.

But, who knows, maybe this is the year people start to pay attention to those workings, which have perhaps gotten rusty enough that the creaking, the sparks, and the shaking they generate are giving people back the sense that the whole machinery could just blow up on us unless better attended to. Which it could. The weak narratives generated by this media will just be brushed aside if people really are starting to pay attention.

Posted by Glen Tomkins | January 4, 2008 11:41 PM