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Sunday, Jul 12, 2009
McCain's attack on Obama as a defeatist is right out of the Karl Rove playbook. But here's why it won't work.
By Gary Kamiya
Read more: George W. Bush, John McCain, Politics, Gary Kamiya, Opinion, Karl Rove, Iraq War, Barack Obama, 2008 election
Reuters/Dave Kaup
John McCain speaks on April 7, 2008, at the National WWI Museum in Kansas City, Mo.
July 29, 2008 | Last week, I thought that I had woken up in "Groundhog Day." George W. Bush was raving about the glorious success of the "surge," attacking his opponents as defeatists, and promising that victory was just around the corner. Then I realized that it wasn't Bush at all, but John McCain. The lines were exactly the same, but the guy speaking them was older, crankier and running for president.
Who hit the replay button on this bad movie?
We had this national debate years ago, and the war party lost. And everything that has happened since then has made it even clearer that the Iraq war has been one of the greatest catastrophes in American history. Americans can't wait to get rid of Bush, and they want out of Iraq. Yet McCain has decided to run as a bad imitation of Bush -- and polls show that he still has a fair chance of winning.
Last week offered one of the more surreal disconnects in recent political history. Barack Obama swept triumphantly through the Middle East and Europe, delivering inspiring speeches to vast crowds and being greeted as a virtual president-elect. Meanwhile, McCain was wandering around in Schmidt's Sausage Haus und Restaurant in Ohio, singing a medley from Bush's greatest hits, and all but accusing Obama of treason. And McCain's stale-bratwurst strategy seemed to work: He got a bump in the polls in three key swing states.
The right-wing press, desperate to diminish Obama's star turn in Europe, made much of the fact that salt-of-the-earth Americans, not effete pointy-heads from the Continent, will decide who the next president will be. They're clearly hoping that songwriter Randy Newman's "Political Science," in which a nameless, God-fearing American urges his countrymen to "drop the big one and see what happens," speaks for middle America. Some of the more hysterical pundits even claimed to see evidence of fascism in the mass outpouring of support for Obama in Berlin, somehow forgetting that they themselves had demanded that Americans don brown shirts and support our president in the aftermath of 9/11.
It's hard to predict how Obama's trip will play out with voters in November. But McCain has obviously decided that whatever flashy stunts Obama pulls off, his own best strategy is to stay on message -- and that means turning the Iraq lemon into lemonade. The war may be hugely unpopular, warmonger-in-chief Bush's approval rating may be approaching Vlad the Impaler's -- no matter! Attack! The best defense is a good offense! Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!
It's an audacious strategy, and it could prove to be disastrous. Pickett's charge did not succeed for the Confederacy at Gettysburg. But it's right out of the Karl Rove playbook -- and if recent history has taught us anything, it's never to underestimate Karl Rove.
Rove, and his star pupil Bush, perfected a political tactic reminiscent of the old Green Bay Packer power sweep: Everyone knows it's coming, but they still can't stop it. And McCain is too smart not to stay with a proven winner -- especially because he doesn't have any choice.
The Rove play is based on three things: wrapping yourself in the flag, never admitting you're wrong, and impugning your opponent. These three tactics have one thing in common: They are aimed at the lowest common denominator of the American people. Under normal circumstances, they have only limited effectiveness. But when the nation is at war, they are extremely potent -- as John Kerry and the Democrats found out in 2004. And McCain is going to use them and use them and use them.
McCain's repeated claims that we are succeeding in Iraq and must stay the course to final "victory," and his attacks on Obama, are textbook examples of the Rove-Bush-GOP tactic. Take the recent speech in which McCain attacked Obama for not supporting the "surge." "If Sen. Obama had prevailed, American forces would have had to retreat under fire. The Iraqi army would have collapsed. Civilian casualties would have increased dramatically," McCain intoned. "Al-Qaida would have killed the Sunni sheikhs who had begun to cooperate with us, and the 'Sunni Awakening' would have been strangled at birth. Al-Qaida fighters would have safe havens, from where they could train Iraqis and foreigners and turn Iraq into a base for launching attacks on Americans elsewhere. Civil war, genocide and wider conflict would have been likely."
McCain then went on to sketch an even more apocalyptic vision of what would have happened if America had been led by the weak and traitorous Obama instead of the brave and resolute Bush:
Above all, America would have been humiliated and weakened. Our military, strained by years of sacrifice, would have suffered a demoralizing defeat. Our enemies around the globe would have been emboldened. Terrorists would have seen our defeat as evidence America lacked the resolve to defeat them. As Iraq descended into chaos, other countries in the Middle East would have come to the aid of their favored factions, and the entire region might have erupted in war. Every American diplomat, American military commander and American leader would have been forced to speak and act from a position of weakness.
McCain's speech obviously appeals to the GOP's immovable base, red, white and blue ostriches for whom the very idea that America could ever wage a stupid, immoral or self-destructive war is tantamount to treason. But for McCain to win, he has to go beyond his base and convince independents and swing voters. Two things are in his favor here: First, the war is still going on, which mutes criticism of it. And second, polls show that voters still see Obama as a riskier choice, particularly on national security.
On the surface, then, McCain's tactic of attacking Obama on the war makes sense. He gets to simultaneously pose as a tough guy and attack Obama where he's weakest. Moreover, he knows that Obama may decide that it's too risky to attack McCain's own weak spot, his support of the war in the first place. Obama has attacked McCain directly on the war, but that was before he won the Democratic nomination and began moving to the center.
But what worked for Bush in 2004 may not work for McCain in 2008, for three reasons. First, McCain's specific arguments about the success of the "surge" and the alleged dangers of Obama's approach are simply factually unconvincing. Second, they inadvertently draw attention to the larger issue of McCain's support for the war. And finally, they require voters to believe that the United States can still "win" in Iraq.
If enough American voters are ill-informed about the war, still confusedly think it may have been a good idea to start it, and believe it is winnable, McCain could win. The first stipulation may be true, but not the second and third -- and that's why even the Rove power play may not save McCain.
