How The Democrats Will Run Against McCain
Posted by Josh Painter, Feb 7 2008, 02:25 PM
How The Democrats Will Run Against McCain
For your average conservative, it's not an easy task to listen to the Democrats. But for those with a cast iron stomach, doing so can provide some interesting intel. The Dems have already telegraphed many of the moves they will employ in the general election later this year, and with the Senator from Aztlan looking more and more like the probable GOP presidential nominee, here's a quick rundown of how they will run against him.
Let's begin with the Donkey Party's burro numero uno, DNC chairman Howard Dean, whose talking points memo on McCain was an internet narrowcast this week via democrats.org:
QUOTE
John McCain is a media darling, but don't trust his carefully-crafted image - he's worked for years to brand himself. From Iraq to health care, Social Security to special interest tax cuts to ethics, he's promising nothing more than a third Bush term.
After championing campaign finance reform and ethics legislation to score political points, he now has a staggering amount of lobbyists involved in every aspect of his campaign. In fact, two of the top three sources for John McCain's campaign cash are D.C. lobbying firms, and he looked the other way as Jack Abramoff bought and paid for the Republican Party and the Culture of Corruption.
On immigration reform, he's run as far to the right as he can, aligning himself with the most extreme elements of the Republican Party.
On the war, McCain scoffed at Bush's call to leave troops in Iraq for 50 years, saying "Make it a hundred!"
On a woman's right to choose, McCain has vowed to appoint judges who would overturn Roe v. Wade.
On the economy, one of the issues that the American people care most about, McCain has said: "I know a lot less about economics than I do about military and foreign policy issues. I still need to be educated."
We can't afford four more years with a President who drives the economy into the ground. We can't afford four more years with a President who fights an endless war in Iraq. We can't afford four more years with a President who gives tax cuts to companies who ship jobs overseas; with a President who can't get every American the health care they deserve; with a President we just can't trust.
I don't just want to beat John McCain - I want it to be a landslide.
After championing campaign finance reform and ethics legislation to score political points, he now has a staggering amount of lobbyists involved in every aspect of his campaign. In fact, two of the top three sources for John McCain's campaign cash are D.C. lobbying firms, and he looked the other way as Jack Abramoff bought and paid for the Republican Party and the Culture of Corruption.
On immigration reform, he's run as far to the right as he can, aligning himself with the most extreme elements of the Republican Party.
On the war, McCain scoffed at Bush's call to leave troops in Iraq for 50 years, saying "Make it a hundred!"
On a woman's right to choose, McCain has vowed to appoint judges who would overturn Roe v. Wade.
On the economy, one of the issues that the American people care most about, McCain has said: "I know a lot less about economics than I do about military and foreign policy issues. I still need to be educated."
We can't afford four more years with a President who drives the economy into the ground. We can't afford four more years with a President who fights an endless war in Iraq. We can't afford four more years with a President who gives tax cuts to companies who ship jobs overseas; with a President who can't get every American the health care they deserve; with a President we just can't trust.
I don't just want to beat John McCain - I want it to be a landslide.
From the campaign of Democrat presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama here is a key addition to the Deaniac's list of weapons that will be brought to bear against McCain:
QUOTE
Obama advisers have said privately for months that McCain would be their preferred opponent among all those who sought the GOP nomination. They said a race between Obama, 46, and McCain, 71, would provide the starkest contrast between old vs. new, the future versus the past. It's an argument that Obama also has been using against Clinton, but his campaign feels it would be even stronger against McCain.
And the Democrats will paint McCain as a racist. They have already put brush to canvas, as this post on thier offical website clearly demonstrates:
QUOTE
"John McCain's record speaks for itself," said Democratic National Committee spokesman Luis Miranda, "his oppostion to the Martin Luther King holiday, his willingness to look the other way for Bob Riley, and his eagerness to employ advisors who use tactics of the southern strategy are evidence that he will do anything to win. McCain's pandering to the far right doesn't bode well for his ability to represent or unite all Americans, and embodies the politics of division that the American people have already rejected."
The Dims will go after McCain on health care, encouraging the electorate to vote against him and do it "for the children":
QUOTE
McCain Opposed Reauthorizing of the SCHIP and Providing Insurance For Millions of Uninsured Children. McCain voted against reauthorizing the State Children's Health Insurance Program for five years, expanding the program by $35.2 billion. It would cover children in households with incomes up to 300 percent of the federal poverty line. [Senate Vote #307, 8/2/07]
McCain Claimed the Reauthorization Covered Too Many Children. In a speech on the Senate floor regarding the authorization of SCHIP, McCain claimed "the program has expanded beyond what Congress first intended. In some cases, SCHIP coverage has been extended to middle-income children and to certain adult populations." [Congressional Record, 8/2/07]
2005: McCain Chose Tax Breaks For Wealthy Americans Instead of Funding SCHIP. McCain voted against a sense of the senate motion that expressed that the Senate should not extend the 15 percent dividend and capital gains tax rates for high-income taxpayers until the federal government provides funding to state and local entities to enroll children in SCHIP. [Senate Vote #337, 11/17/05]
1997: McCain Voted Against Providing Health Insurance To Low Income Children. McCain voted against increasing the tobacco tax to provide more money to help insure low and moderate income children. [Senate Vote #76, 5/21/1997]
1995: McCain Voted to Eliminate Vaccines for Children's Program. McCain voted for the 1995 Republican budget that repealed the Vaccines for Children Program. The Vaccines for Children Program provides free and discounted vaccines to children as a means of increasing childhood immunization rates. President Clinton vetoed this GOP budget bill. [Senate CQ Vote #584, 11/17/95; DPC Legislative Bulletin, H.R. 2491, 11/17/95; Congressional Quarterly, 11/18/95, p. 3540]
1995: McCain Voted to Drastically Cut Health Care for Children. McCain voted for the 1995 GOP budget that would have repealed guaranteed coverage of preventative, primary care and hospital services for about 18 million children. The $170 billion Medicaid cut proposed by the GOP would have drastically reduced the availability of preventive, primary, and hospital care for poor children. In addition, the GOP proposal in the 1995 budget to block grant Medicaid would have left states at risk for 100 percent of unanticipated increases in the need for health care due to economic downturns, inflation, population changes, communicable disease outbreaks, or other circumstances. [Senate CQ Vote #584, 11/17/95; DPC Legislative Bulletin, H.R. 2491, 11/17/95; Congressional Quarterly, 11/18/95, p. 3540]
McCain Claimed the Reauthorization Covered Too Many Children. In a speech on the Senate floor regarding the authorization of SCHIP, McCain claimed "the program has expanded beyond what Congress first intended. In some cases, SCHIP coverage has been extended to middle-income children and to certain adult populations." [Congressional Record, 8/2/07]
2005: McCain Chose Tax Breaks For Wealthy Americans Instead of Funding SCHIP. McCain voted against a sense of the senate motion that expressed that the Senate should not extend the 15 percent dividend and capital gains tax rates for high-income taxpayers until the federal government provides funding to state and local entities to enroll children in SCHIP. [Senate Vote #337, 11/17/05]
1997: McCain Voted Against Providing Health Insurance To Low Income Children. McCain voted against increasing the tobacco tax to provide more money to help insure low and moderate income children. [Senate Vote #76, 5/21/1997]
1995: McCain Voted to Eliminate Vaccines for Children's Program. McCain voted for the 1995 Republican budget that repealed the Vaccines for Children Program. The Vaccines for Children Program provides free and discounted vaccines to children as a means of increasing childhood immunization rates. President Clinton vetoed this GOP budget bill. [Senate CQ Vote #584, 11/17/95; DPC Legislative Bulletin, H.R. 2491, 11/17/95; Congressional Quarterly, 11/18/95, p. 3540]
1995: McCain Voted to Drastically Cut Health Care for Children. McCain voted for the 1995 GOP budget that would have repealed guaranteed coverage of preventative, primary care and hospital services for about 18 million children. The $170 billion Medicaid cut proposed by the GOP would have drastically reduced the availability of preventive, primary, and hospital care for poor children. In addition, the GOP proposal in the 1995 budget to block grant Medicaid would have left states at risk for 100 percent of unanticipated increases in the need for health care due to economic downturns, inflation, population changes, communicable disease outbreaks, or other circumstances. [Senate CQ Vote #584, 11/17/95; DPC Legislative Bulletin, H.R. 2491, 11/17/95; Congressional Quarterly, 11/18/95, p. 3540]
The Dems will also try to paint McCain as reckless. They already have:
QUOTE
It took Moveon just one day to turn Sen. John Insane's botched joke about bombing Iran into a TV ad. Nice work!
Look for McCain's inconsistencies to be used against him by the Democrats. They're hungry for some payback for the way Republicans successfully defined John Kerry in 2004 as a flip-flopper, and this is yet another unattractive way they will define McCain:
QUOTE
Now is the time to begin characterizing McCain — accurately — as a man with no principle beliefs. Dems should not only criticize McCain's constantly evolving opinions on nearly everything, they should openly mock him for it now, so that the storyline becomes second nature (like the GOP did with "serial exaggerator" Al Gore).
Despite McCain's leftward drift over the years (his ACU numbers have been steadily falling in recent years to their all-time low of 65 in 2006), Democrats will (as incredible as it sounds) characterize him as a hard-right conservative. Since there's no reality for the "reality-based" community, this will energize the leftist base of their party. Watch them play up McCain's pandering between now and election day as he desperately tries to win back some of the many conservatives he has driven away. For ammunition, they will use the words of some misguided conservative pundits against McCain:
QUOTE
As a lifelong conservative, I wish McCain evinced a greater understanding that limited government is indispensable to individual liberty. Yet there is no candidate in either party who so thoroughly embodies the conservatism of American honor and tradition as McCain, nor any with greater moral authority to invoke it.
Sheesh, Jacoby, why don't you two get a room? Quotes like that generate enough acid to eat right through my cast iron stomach.
Where was I? Ah, yes. To summarize, the Dems have provided us with their party's public strategy to defeat McCain:
1. Run against McCain by running against George W. Bush and the war
2. Tie him to the "culture of corruption" using his lobbying connections and Jack Abramoff
3. Put a coathanger in his hand and place him in a dimly-lit back alley
4. Play up his self-professed ignorance on economic matters
5. Put McCain's legendary untrustworthiness under a magnifying glass
6. Highlight his age, and characterize the race as one of new ideas against old
7. Play the race card
8. Play the children card
9. Play the insane card
10. Get some flip-flopper payback
11. Play the right-wing conspiracy card
So much for the public strategy. What dirty tricks will the Dems use below the radar? It is, after all, the party of the Clintons. Surrogatges will employed to go after McCain on his personal life, his wife Cindy, his volitile temper, his involvement in the Keating Five scandal, his alleged collaboration with his North Vietnamese captors while a prisoner of war, and even his religion.
That's a lot of ammunition that Democrats will use against McCain. Enough rounds to shoot some big holes in they myth of his electability. Watch as the Dems' best buddies, their liberal media, will set a torch to the same straw house that they used to build St. John The Maverick up. And down he will go. As Patterico has pointed out, the dark side of Darth McCain will come into sharp focus in the laser light of a general election:
QUOTE
I don't think the dissonance between the image and the reality will survive a presidential campaign... Many voters will eventually learn that McCain's image is nothing like the reality. People who know nothing of McCain except his image are finally going to sit down and watch a debate. At that point, a lot of them are going to say: "Holy crap! That's the guy I thought I liked?!" The antiwar crowd will finally realize he makes George Bush look like Neville Chamberlain. And everyone will see McCain's smug condescension, born of a background of elitism and privilege. It will manifest itself in that self-satisfied mockingly contemptuous grin that he can't hide.
Down with McCain will go the Republican Party. It's not entirely or even mostly his own fault, either. There's plenty of blame to go around. RINOs get their fair share of it for failing to remain true to the GOP's own stated principles contained in its platform. Conservatives get theirs for foolishly and selfishly advancing their own particular denomination of the faith, be it fiscal, social, federalist or security, well past the point where they should have united behind an across-the-board conservative candidate.
The question for conservatives is this: Will they learn a hard enough lesson from their mistakes to avoid repeating them in 2012? One quick learner is Mitt Romney, who suspended his campaign for the 2008 race as I was writing this post. Although not a lifetime foot soldier in the army of conservatism, Romney has in recent weeks demonstrated the branding by fire that only a recent convert, energized by the truth of his adopted cause, can show. His speech today at CPAC was perhaps the most earnest and straight from the heart that I have ever seen him deliver. Quite a change from the Power-Point-presentation orations so typical of a CEO that marked his early campaign. We will see if Mitt has indeed become a true believer in Reagan conservatism, and very soon, too. When conservatives get in line to begin picking up the broken pieces of the Republican Party in November, expect Mitt Romney, sleeves rolled up and ready for some heavy lifting, to be at the front of the queue.
- JP
Comments
Adam Smithee, Feb 7 2008, 05:29 PM
Doc, Feb 7 2008, 09:50 PM
So the Dems plan to lie and accuse John of being conservative?
Thought thats what John was supposed to do.
/confused
Thought thats what John was supposed to do.
/confused
Adam Smithee, Feb 7 2008, 10:56 PM
QUOTE(Doc @ Feb 7 2008, 06:50 PM)
So the Dems plan to lie and accuse John of being conservative?
Thought thats what John was supposed to do.
/confused
Thought thats what John was supposed to do.
/confused
Well, that was kinda my point in my previous post.
Yes, McCain has taken some positions that are conservative and defensible. Yes, he's also taken some positions that are less-than-conservative and indefensible.
But if the Dems want to make their stand on the conservative McCain positions that are defensible with, as Rush says, half our brains tied behind our backs, then the Dems have made this election a cakewalk by doing our job for them. Well, nobody ever accused the dems of being intelligent.
ETA: We may actually win this thing even with McCain as the candidate.
This post has been edited by MetroWhig: Feb 7 2008, 10:59 PM
Josh Painter, Feb 8 2008, 09:11 AM
I doubt that McCain will win. The Democrat talking points about McCain aren't intended to convince Republicans to vote against him. They're intended to keep the Dem's core voters fired up and to have a big turnout for their side. Dems have been turning out in numbers twice as large as Republicans in the primaries. Even if McCain atrracts a large number of swing voters, he still needs the base to turn out for him to win. In the General election, that 2:1 ratio should hold or even increase for the Dems as some conservatives sit this one out or vote third party.
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Now if they'd taken the strategy of calling McCain a "moderate" but trying to paint themselves as the better moderates, then I'd be worried. But if they run with what they've outline above then it should be a no-brainer for our side to convince the voters why each of McCain's positions as they portray them above is better than their position.