A Warning Shot Against False Optimism This November
by Steve Soto
There has been some chatter today within the center-left blogosphere about a Siena College poll in New York, which showed that both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have trouble defeating John McCain in New York state. More surprising is the finding that McCain beats both of them handily on the issue of Iraq and the war on terror. We can chalk a lot of this up to several factors, including the perception by many independents that McCain is not a conservative; the damage done to Hillary's standing from Obama; and the GOP's victory in getting Iraq off the front pages and selling the surge as a success, thereby allowing McCain to argue that we need to stay for victory.
It doesn't matter if these things are fair or accurate; perception is all that matters, and if your two remaining Democratic candidates are spending all of their time beating the crap out of each other instead of setting the narrative now against McCain for the fall campaign, then don't be surprised if the media helps their buddy McCain pull off a stunning victory this fall by selling us on the galling notion that all the Iraq occupation needed was a new commander in chief rather than a withdrawal.
Again, I realize that this is only one Siena poll early in the general election campaign, but the fact that he now runs ahead of the two remaining Democrats on Iraq, even with his cheerleading for the occupation means we have a problem. It struck me over the weekend that Democrats have walked into a false comfort about the fall race against McCain, because we assume the country is with us on the war, and assume that the country like us is already convinced that McCain is "McOld" and out of touch.
But what if we are wrong? What if we have now winnowed the field down to the two remaining candidates who it turns out would do the worst against McCain, when it is very possible that a Chris Dodd or Joe Biden would have run better against him in a national security election? When we were licking our chops at the prospect of running against Giuliani, Romney, Huckabee, and Thompson, any of our candidates and especially Obama and Clinton looked good against all of them. Many of us did not think McCain would rise from the dead and be the guy, and even if we did, we assumed that he was a Johnny-One-Note on Iraq and could be beaten on that issue and his disengagement on health care and the economy.
But the GOP knows the only way to win is to keep the debate away from our issues and attack us and our nominee on our weaknesses against McCain. Clearly, in a one-on-one race against McCain, they have already indicated they plan to run against Obama on inexperience and how he falls short in the commander in chief comparison against McCain, something that would have been harder to do against Clinton. That is their plan for peeling independents back from Obama towards McCain. Clinton to be sure has her own defects in a national race with her high negatives and questionable ability to garner purple states and help down ballot Democrats. But with her now second, the RNC and GOP have already lined up their game plan against Obama, which is to scare the country away from our areas of strength by taking advantage of Obama's relative stature gap compared to McCain, especially on national security. Again, they would not be able to do this against either Dodd or even Biden.
In order to shake independents from the McCain-friendly media narrative, Democrats need to go beyond slamming him for his "100 Years War" and Bush III agenda. They also need to introduce simple economics and cash into the equation. Democrats must go after his judgment by asking voters what kind of president McCain would make if he supports spending $200 billion a year on a $2 trillion war that has broken the military without getting Al Qaeda, all after he says there will be no sacrifices by the wealthy to pay for any of it. I'd frankly paint the guy as an emperor who would fiddle while the empire crumbled from within at home.
There is a reason why some of the party's wise men have stayed out of endorsing Obama or Clinton. Perhaps it is because they know they will be needed before this is over to save the party from a false notion that an Obama candidacy can handily beat McCain in what may be marketed as a national security election.