Political Base

Yesterday, I highlighted what I thought was a spot-on analysis of the current state of the presidential race by Michael Grunwald over at Time.

Today, I offer The Atlantic's Matthew Yglesias:

I'm not sure even Oppel & Zeleny quite grasp the scope of McCain's debacle here. He'd spent, several weeks with the main theme of his campaign being, quite literally, to criticize Barack Obama for not having been physically present in Iraq recently. This (of course) got Obama to go to Iraq, thus setting up a dilemma. Either Obama would survey the "progress" in Iraq and change his position, thus making him a flip-flopper, or else he would refuse to change his position, thus making him obstinate and out of touch with reality.

But instead of either of those things happening, Obama went to Iraq and Iraqi leaders said he'd been right all along! That's about as close to "game, set, match" as you get in terms of real world events influencing your political campaign. What's more, given the domestic situation and John McCain's inability to talk about domestic issues persuasively, he can't afford to play for a draw on Iraq.

Recall how hard Republicans and the McCain campaign tried to argue that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's interview with Der Spiegel was badly translated when he reportedly endorsed Barack Obama's (D) plan for withdrawal.

Well, I think we've seen in the past 48 hours that the Iraqi government is strongly behind Obama in this respect and Maliki was not misinterpreted, even if the Bush Administration forced him to offer an unconvincing walkback.

But in case the wingnuts still want to bloviate about the translation issue, check out what The New Republic learned today:

[I]t turns out that Maliki actually got a copy of the interview before it was printed and had the option to make any changes. A writer at Der Spiegel sent us this tidbit of info:

The reason the magazine scores so many high level interviews is that the editors agree to allow the subjects to "authorize" the interviews before they go to press. It wasn't just a slip of the tongue, in other words: Maliki not only endorsed Obama's plans for withdrawing from Iraq, but his office then explicitly approved the endorsement before it was printed. The denials, then, were doubly facetious. Spiegel couldn't say so, though, without revealing its embarrassing authorization policy.

End of story.

During my travel last week, I missed this analysis of the dramatic changes in voter registration since the 2004 election:

In the 29 states (plus the District of Columbia) where voter affiliation is kept by party, the Democrats have scored perceptible gains since the presidential election of 2004 while the Republicans have suffered significant losses. To be specific, the number of registered Democrats in party registration states has grown by nearly 700,000 since President George W. Bush was reelected in November 2004, while the total of registered Republicans has declined by almost 1 million.

Noteworthy is where some of these gains were made:

State             2004       Net Dem Gain

IOWA         Bush  + 10,000   + 95,000
NEVADA       Bush  + 22,000   + 60,000
COLORADO     Bush  +100,000   + 61,000
NEW HAMP     Kerry +  9,000   + 34,000
PENN         Kerry +144,000   +488,000

So says the boys over at MSNBC's First Read:

Sometimes body language can tell you a lot. And the body language coming from the McCain campaign -- as Obama continues his overseas trip -- doesn’t look too pretty right now. Let us count the ways:  It has aired its first two negative TV ads of general election, one of which (on energy) was panned by virtually every media outlet for being factually incorrect. It later sent the press on what appears to be a wild goose VP chase, when it leaked to Bob Novak that a veep decision could be coming this week (and now even Novak admits that he might have been used).

Next came the McCain Web video blasting the media’s attention on Obama, as well as those luggage tags calling the reporters who have followed McCain for much of this election the “JV Squad” while others are covering Obama overseas; the other side of the luggage tag was in French with a beret-wearing guy pouring wine. (Side thought: Why does McCain think belittling his own press corps is a good idea? But we digress…)

And then yesterday came McCain’s line that “Obama would rather lose a war in order to win a political campaign” -- language that spurred veteran journalist Joe Klein to wonder whether McCain “has the right temperament for the presidency.” McCain told CBS’s Katie Couric last night, “I relish [being] the underdog.” Did the McCain campaign push the candidate into this mode because they are obsessing SO MUCH over winning and losing daily news cycles? What happened to the happy warrior?

This is pretty remarkable. Seems that the McCain team in North Carolina isn't really taking Barack Obama's (D) efforts in the state all that seriously:

There remains some skepticism among Republicans about whether the Obama effort is for real or just a feint. Some of them think Obama is likely to refocus his efforts on more traditional swing states closer to the election.

"We are anticipating that it could be a race in North Carolina," said Ferrell Blount, a former state GOP chairman from Pitt county who is advising the McCain campaign. "But we are not totally convinced it will be at this point. But we want to be prepared to spend some money in North Carolina, and we are trying to make some preparations."

"If McCain has to play a serious game in North Carolina," said Blount, "then something is going on that is not very good for John McCain."

So, this McCain adviser acknowledges that they want to be prepared to spend some money and are trying to make some preparations.

Reading between the lines: they've done nothing and are praying they don't have to.

I suppose they haven't bothered to check out the polling trend in North Carolina either:

The political malpractice of the McCain campaign's strategists is pretty staggering. They think they don't need robust ground games, mock the idea of big crowd events, and now they think Obama is bluffing with his efforts to expand the electoral map...despite the clear traction Obama is getting in these states in all the polls.

(Hat tip: First Read)

There have been three very disturbing episodes coming from the McCain campaign in the past 24 hours, and I'm sensing even the media who has had a crush on him for a decade is beginning to report objectively, rather than continue to give him the benefit of the doubt on his countless gaffes and hypocritical attacks.

Item #1: McCain incomprehensibly argued yesterday that, "It seems to me that Obama would rather lose a war in order to win a political campaign."

That got Time's Joe Klein to offer this retort:

This is the ninth presidential campaign I've covered. I can't remember a more scurrilous statement by a major party candidate. It smacks of desperation. It renews questions about whether McCain has the right temperament for the presidency. How sad.

...Readers should note that I said that I can't remember a more scurrilous statement by a major party candidate. Smart politicians leave the scurrilous stuff to their aides; in fact, a McCain spokesman expressed these words almost exactly on July 14. There is a reason why politicians who want to be President don't say these sort of things: It isn't presidential. A President exists in the straitjacket of literality. His words mean something. So John McCain has to literally believe that Barack Obama would "rather lose a war in order to win a political campaign." I can't imagine that he does. He popped off, out of frustration.

...The reality is that McCain should be proud that he helped salvage a disastrous situation by pushing the counterinsurgency plan. It's something to run on. But, at this point, McCain must sense that it's not a winning hand. Obama, the poker player, has drawn to an inside straight: the Iraqis favor his plan over McCain's long-term bases. That must be galling. But it's no excuse to pop off the way McCain did. It was, shockingly, unpresidential.

If that wasn't enough, a number of veterans are outraged by McCain's desperate attack.

Item #2: I think America has come to expect that the Republican Party mouthpieces are quite often tasteless jackasses when they attack (hence one reason why the GOP brand is so toxic), but even today's attack on Barack Obama's (D) is beyond the pale for such a tasteless bunch:

The McCain campaign implied on Wednesday that Barack Obama's commitment to preventing a future genocide was not sincere, attacking the Democratic candidate during his appearance at the Israeli Holocaust Memorial Yad Vashem.

Item #3: During McCain's interview with CBS News yesterday, he harshly attacked Obama and pretty much called him a liar:

COURIC: Senator McCain, Sen. Obama says, while the increased number of U.S. troops contributed to increased security in Iraq, he also credits the Sunni awakening and the Shiite government going after militias. And says that there might have been improved security even without the surge. What's your response to that?

McCAIN: I don't know how you respond to something that is such a false depiction of what actually happened. Colonel McFarlane (phonetic) was contacted by one of the major Sunni sheiks. Because of the surge we were able to go out and protect that sheik and others. And it began the Anbar awakening. I mean, that's just a matter of history.

Sadly, it was McCain who offered a "false depiction" and some in the media are hammering him hard today. You see, the Anbar Awakening began in September 2006, months before even the idea of a surge was raised. You recall, it was only after the election rout in November 2006 that Bush fired Rumsfeld and devised a new "strategy" which led to the surge. (Here's VoteVets' take).

But even more problematic for McCain are his own words, after the Anbar Awakening began and while McCain was trying to make the case for the surge. Here's what McCain said during remarks at the American Enterprise Institute on January 5, 2007 -- while accompanied by none other than Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT):

"Too often the light at the tunnel has turned out to be a train, but I really believe -- I really believe that there's a strong possibility that you may see a very substantial change in Anbar province due to this new changes in our relationships with the sheiks in the region. ... But it's important, as I said in my opening remarks, that this troop surge be significant and sustained. Otherwise, don't do it."

And here's the video of it in case you don't believe the quote, as well as what McCain said yesterday and which Keith Olbermann quickly pointed out:

I do think we're seeing an unraveling of the McCain campaign in a way we've not seen before, mainly because it seems the media is no longer playing along with his gaffes, distortions, and outright lies. At least not like they have.

McCain's very ugly week continues...

Much to the dismay of the already frothing McCain campaign, many of the stories today are juxtaposing the images from yesterday -- with John McCain (R) riding in a golf cart with former President Bush while Barack Obama (D) was flying over Iraq in a military helicopter with General Petraeus.

• The Houston Chronicle is running a photo caption contest for the golf cart image.
                 
• MSNBC's First Read asks whether the golf cart photo was "A Dukakis-in-a-Tank Moment?"
                      
• Maureen Dowd notes, "The image of John McCain in a golf cart with Bush 41 in Kennebunkport — with Poppy charmingly admitting that they were “a little jealous” of all the Obama odyssey coverage — was not a good advertisement for the future, especially contrasted with the shots of Gen. David Petraeus and Obama smiling at each other companionably in a helicopter surveying Iraq. (Asked by a Democratic lawmaker a while back why there weren’t more Democrats in the military, General Petraeus smiled slyly and said “there are more than you think.”)"
                
• The New York Daily News' Thomas DeFrank asks, "In an election where voters are demanding big-time change, split-screen images of McCain's youthful challenger shooting hoops with soldiers as the 71-year-old presumptive GOP nominee stepped from a golf cart with an 84-year-old former President were particularly powerful."
                     
• The New York Times television critic Alessandra Stanley comments, "It wasn’t a television blackout of John McCain; it was worse: split-screen contrasts that at times made it seem as if Barack Obama was on a state visit while back home his opponent chafed at the perks and privileges of an incumbent commander in chief."

Here's what they're referring to:

This is awesome, courtesy of The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg:

Two sources, one in Iraq, the other in Washington, told me that Ahmed Chalabi was key in Maliki's decision to rather ostentatiously endorse Barack Obama's Iraq withdrawal time-line. Chalabi, of course, has been in and out -- mostly out -- of favor with the Bush Administration, but it's not merely revenge that motivated his advice to Maliki. "Chalabi knows American politics better than nearly every other Iraqi politician, and he knows it's time to line up with the candidate who has the better-than-even shot of becoming President," one source told me.

It took Chalabi six years to finally do something good for America.