Archive: July, 2008
Dick Polman, Inquirer National Political Columnist
How about this for a deal: I'll stop writing about how John McCain is embarrassing himself when he stops embarrassing himself.
His latest, most personal, assault on Barack Obama is further proof that the so-called "maverick" has trashed his own promise of high-minded discourse, and instead embraced the gut-kicking Bush political template of the past eight years. Indeed, you don't have to be an Obama fan to conclude that the latest assault is juvenile. I say this because a fair number of Republicans - some speaking anonymously to the press, with others, including former McCain aides, speaking on the record - have already judged the assault to be juvenile. Or, as ex-McCain intimate John Weaver prefers to call it, "childish."
I'm referring to McCain's attempt, in a new TV ad and in a new campaign memo, to paint Obama as an effete, high-living political version of Paris Hilton. This is the old-school Republican style, dating back to the zaps aimed at Mike Dukakis 20 years ago, as practiced by the party establishment attack dogs that McCain, supposedly, has stood against for so long. It is no accident that this strategy is now preeminent; within the past month, several veterans of the '04 Bush campaign have taken the reins.
Maybe it'll work (as it did against John Kerry in 2004), and maybe it won't (as it didn't against Bill Clinton in 1992, when the attack dogs tried to link him to values-challenged celebrity Woody Allen). McCain risks undercutting his own reputation (in many quarters) for rectitude. But what fascinates me most at the moment is the bizarre nature of his arguments. Let's go to the McCain campaign memo, released yesterday:
Dick Polman, Inquirer National Political Columnist
The federal indictment of the GOP's longest-serving U.S. senator - on seven felony counts, stemming from his seven-year sweetheart association with an oil-services company - is not merely a severe embarrassment to the minority party on Capitol Hill, a party that had been ousted from power in '06 partly because certain ethics-challenged members had already stained the Republican brand. The bottom line is that Ted Stevens' legal predicament is a gift to the Democrats, who dream of gaining nine Senate seats on election day, thus dominating the chamber next January with a filibuster-proof tally of 60.
That's still a pipe dream. But it can't hurt for the Democrats to have the dean of the Senate GOP serving as a poster boy for sleaze. As the GOP-friendly Wall Street Journal editorial page said this morning, the Stevens indictment - that he repeatedly failed to report, on Senate financial disclosure forms, the sumptuous feathering of his own nest - will surely undercut the party's attempts to minimize its November losses. As the editorial noted with asperity, "Minority parties don't typically defeat a majority when more of their own members are being indicted for corruption."
So let's use this occasion to assess the state of play in the Senate races. To reach the magic 60 on election day, Democrats need to snatch nine seats that are currently held by Republicans. Only 11 seats appear to be competitive, however, and one of those is a vulnerable Democratic incumbent, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana. So, in baseball terms, this means the Democrats would have to retain the Landrieu seat and bat .900 on the others. It's hard to imagine that happening, at least in the absence of a pro-Obama tsunami that lifts all boats - and, contrary to the giddiest hopes of Obama's giddiest fans, it's hard to imagine that happening either.
But the odds look good that, even if John McCain wins the White House, Democrats will wind up with a solid Senate majority. A feasible five-seat pickup would give them 56, and (alphabetically) here's where they seem most poised to achieve that:
Alaska, currently represented by the aforementioned Ted Stevens, who has been bringing home the pork for so long that apparently he decided it was high time he cook some up for himself. Even before the indictment, he was deemed to be tainted; the FBI raided his house last year, and the same federal probe that nailed him yesterday had already reeled in other big fish. Now the voters of this normally Republican state will face the prospect of re-electing an accused criminal. Stevens is proclaiming his innocence, and vowing to stay in the race. Some powerful voices are urging him to go; the conservative National Review intoned yesterday that Stevens "has disgraced himself and his office...He should resign, and the sooner the better." If he does quit, however, the GOP would be stuck with lesser, little-known aspirants - while the Democrats field the popular mayor of Anchorage, Mark Begich, who raised more money than Stevens during the spring, and who currently leads Stevens in the polls. In a normal year, Alaska would never be in play, but we've entered the realm of the abnormal.
Dick Polman, Inquirer National Political Columnist
The span of time between candidate George H. W. Bush's "read my lips, no new taxes" pledge, and his subsequent decision as president to break his pledge by supporting new taxes, was approximately two years. John McCain has now managed to violate that same pledge in just 20 days.
Here's the straight-talker's recent track record: Back on July 7, he told an audience: "Barack Obama will raise your taxes. I won't." More specifically, McCain economic adviser Douglas Holtz-Eakin said on June 13 that the candidate would refuse to raise the Social Security payroll tax "under any imaginable circumstance."
More generally, McCain told Fox News on March 16 that he would try to cut taxes whenever possible, and never raise them. Host Sean Hannity pressed him on that pledge and asked, "None?" And McCain replied, "None."
More specifically again, when conservative commentator Ramesh Ponnuru asked McCain in March 2007 whether there were any circumstances, during negotiations over entitlement reform, that would compel him to accept a tax increase, he replied, "No, no." Ponnuru pressed him: "No circumstances?" McCain replied, "No. None. None."
And more generally again, McCain told ABC News on Feb. 17 of this year: "No new taxes...In fact, I could see an argument, if our economy continues to deteriorate, for lower interest rates, lower tax rates."
Dick Polman, Inquirer National Political Columnist
As part of my ongoing mission to highlight voter gullibility, today I intend to address several of the virulent cyber-smears currently circulating online about Barack Obama.
I'm referring not to the old lies - that he's supposedly a Muslim (he's not); and that he supposedly refuses to put his hand on his heart during the Pledge of Allegiance (he does what we all do) - but, rather, to a pair of fresher lies.
It's fascinating that some of the same voters who refuse to believe what they read in mainstream newspapers will nevertheless willingly swallow the toxic sludge that arrives as email. Over the past few days, these credulous souls have been urgently sharing these missives with me, demanding to know why "the media" has refused to print or broadcast these dire "facts" about Obama.
My response: Because these emails are lies. Easily refutable lies. Indeed, any citizen with an ounce of sense can dispel these lies by doing minimal research with a few clicks of the mouse.
Dick Polman, Inquirer National Political Columnist
I had barely begun reading the transcript of Barack Obama's Berlin speech when the alarm bells clanged in my head. Right there, in the second paragraph, was big trouble. Note the italicized phrase. Obama said:
"I come to Berlin as so many of my countrymen have come before, although tonight I speak to you not as a candidate for president, but as a citizen, a proud citizen of the United States and a fellow citizen of the world."
Oh my. What better way to inflame the conservatives back home, than to call yourself a citizen of the world? In political terms, that's like throwing a pound of raw meat into a pen of pit bulls. In certain American circles, that phrase is code for insufficient Americanism, for pernicious multicultural internationalism, and it conjurs up the specter of blue-helmeted United Nation peacekeepers pushing us around and forcing us to act (gasp) French. So I figured it was only a matter of time before Obama's critics cut loose. And indeed it was.
The McCain campaign naturally flagged the phrase, with a bit of drive-by snark: "While Barack Obama took a premature victory lap today in the heart of Berlin, proclaiming himself a ''citizen of the world,' John McCain continued to make his case to the American citizens who will decide this election."
Dick Polman, Inquirer National Political Columnist
The guy can't even sign a museum guest book without being smeared by the McCain campaign.
I can understand, up to a point, why the McCain campaign is freaked out by Barack Obama's largely flawless foreign foray. One of the presumptive Republican nominee's few advantages in this race is the public perception that he, not Obama, seems more credible as a commander-in-chief, a judgment that owes much to McCain's war hero profile and his long Washington experience. Indeed, the latest NBC-Wall Street Journal poll, which is conducted jointly by Democratic pollster Peter Hart and Republican pollster Neil Newhouse, finds that, by a margin of 53 to 25 percent, Americans choose McCain over Obama as the guy with the best commander creds.
In other words, if Obama can manage to significantly narrow that margin, McCain will be left with virtually nothing to sell in this race; without his national security advantage, for instance, he might be stuck having to dwell on the subject area that he confesses knowing little about - namely, economics. For instance, he might have to explain how he plans to make permanent the Bush tax cuts, slash corporate taxes, yet somehow keep his promise to balance the budget by 2012.
This is why the McCain camp appears to be in a state of panic this week, which has clearly been one of its worst. And this brings us to the guest book incident, which epitomizes that panic.
Dick Polman, Inquirer National Political Columnist
In the interests of a political detente, maybe Barack Obama should admit that he was wrong about the '07 troop surge in Iraq, and John McCain should admit that he was wrong about the '02 decision to invade. But since neither candidate is likely to budge, perhaps the big question for voters should be: In hindsight, whose misjudgment was worse?
On his global tour, Obama has employed all sorts of artful verbal constructs in order to avoid addressing his previous pessimism about the troop hike. (Obama in January '07: "I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq is going to solve the sectarian violence there. In fact, I think it will do the reverse." Obama in July '07: "The surge has not worked." And Obama in November '07: "We're actually worsening, potentially, a situation there.") For instance, while he told CBS News the other night that, yes, "our U.S. troops have contributed to a reduction in violence," he nevertheless parried the question of whether the reduction would have occurred without the surge. He replied, "I have no idea what would have happened...So this is all hypotheticals."
As for McCain, hardly anyone - aside from the occasional town-hall questioner - bothers to ask him anymore whether he has any second thoughts about marching to war as a Bush cheerleader. (McCain, September, 24, 2002: "I believe the success will be fairly easy." McCain, five days later: "I believe that we can win an overwhelming victory in a very short period of time." McCain, March 24, 2003: Once the Saddam forces are gone, "we will be welcomed as liberators.") He never raised a whit of protest when war fever was high, and, of course, he has no second thoughts today. He still refers to Iraq as the central front in the war on terror, and he still talks about "victory" without defining what he means.
The difference is that one guy was wrong about a tactic. The other guy was wrong about a fundamental national security decision.
Dick Polman, Inquirer National Political Columnist
Now that Barack Obama is embarked on his glitzy global tour, having already won the Nuri al-Maliki primary, the McCain people are quite unhappy with their predicament. During all those weeks when they were baiting Obama as a rookie with scant war-zone exposure, they apparently never figured out that, if Obama did go, he would surely garner an outsize share of public attention. So now, until Obama returns home, they're stuck with the onerous challenge of competing for the spotlight.
Thus far, they have been reduced to bitter fuming (aide Mark Salter said yesterday, "'The One' went to Europe, and homage must be paid"); ahistorical sputtering (McCain said yesterday that Obama has "no military experience whatsover," conveniently forgetting that Ronald Reagan, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Woodrow Wilson didn't have any, either); and fact-free huckstering (a new McCain TV ad blames Obama for "rising prices at the pump," even though, in the world of factual reality, gas prices have been on the rise for 10 years, sparked largely by competing consumer demand in countries such as China and India - and besides, even if one is to accept the erroneous premise that U.S. senators control gas prices, hasn't McCain been a senator 18 years longer than Obama?).
But perhaps their most tantalizing bid for the spotlight concerns the choice for running mate. Yesterday, the veteran Washington columnist Bob Novak wrote that he had been told, by McCain campaign contacts, that the veep nominee would be publicly unveiled by the end of this week. Novak is derided in some quarters as "the prince of darkness," and liberal readers don't like him, but he does have good sources in the GOP. On the other hand, McCain sources (presumably, different ones) have hinted elsewhere that this week might be a bad time for a veep launch, since Obama's media footprint might squash theirs anyway.
Taken together, however, it's clear that the McCain people have pondered the idea. How else would they get on the public radar this week? And a glance at the calendar shows there are few other opportune times. The summer Olympics will suck up media oxygen from Aug. 8 to Aug. 24, and then comes the Democratic convention, from Aug. 25 to Aug. 28. If McCain waits on the veep announcement until the Democrats are done, he'll have only a four-day window until his own convention begins - and that window coincides with Labor Day weekend. And since there's always the possibility Obama might want to announce his own choice during one of the few remaining weeks before the Olympics, that factor further narrows McCain's timing options.
Dick Polman, Inquirer National Political Columnist
In normal election years, the news cycle typically spins slowly on midsummer weekends. Generally, there is time to kick back a bit, and suffer the effects of global warming. But since we live in abnormal times, it was not surprising to discover a delicious news nugget at roughly 7:45 last Friday night, when the McCain campaign quietly put out the word that chief economic adviser Phil Gramm was being dumped as campaign co-chair, as symbolic punishment for his recent dismissal of Americans as "whiners" whose economic woes are mere figments of their imagination. It was worth noting that the campaign sought to bury this embarrassing announcement on a Friday evening, after the major eastern newspaper and network broadcast deadlines had past, in the hopes of minimizing public attention.
And that might have been enough political news for one summer weekend, since that announcement raised all kinds of fresh questions. (Was McCain still retaining the basic economic blueprint that Gramm had drawn up for him? Yup. And hadn't McCain himself stated on various occasions that some of our economic woes were just "psychological"? Yup, repeatedly.) But wait...the Gramm news turned out to be mere foreplay. The best was yet to come.
Imagine my surprise, early Saturday morning, to discover, in my email in-box, a news bulletin from the White House, calling attention to an interview that Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki had just given to the German newspaper der Spiegel. In that interview, Maliki offered some strong opinions about the issue of U.S. troop withdrawals...and made it quite clear that he likes the concept of a 16-month withdrawal timetable - as proposed by the Democratic presidential candidate, Barack Obama.
It was barely past dawn when I scanned that email, and, given the fact that it was already roughly 723 degrees outside my window, I at first thought that I must be suffering from heat exhaustion. Maliki was siding with Obama? And thereby dealing a major political blow to John McCain, who has been trying to paint Obama's Iraq proposals as naive and irresponsible? Not possible. This email had come from the White House. Surely the Bush team would never call attention to such a story. Therefore, I must have misread the email.
Dick Polman, Inquirer National Political Columnist
Three belly laughs at week's end:
The McCain campaign is whining about the media. That is not a misprint. John McCain, of all people, a politician who for years has been treated as a demigod by the Washington press corps - and who, in fact, has enjoyed yet another easy ride during the '08 campaign - is grousing, via his spokeswoman, about all the media attention that Barack Obama will receive during his impending overseas trip.
Jill Hazelbaker said the other day, "It certainly hasn't escaped us that the three network newscasts will originate from stops on Obama's trip." The implication, of course, is that McCain won't get nearly the same attention while Obama is abroad.
Regarding that lament, I will now quote actor Steve Buscemi, who, in the role of Mr. Pink in Reservoir Dogs, rubbed his thumb against his index finger and said, "Do you know what this is? It's the world's smallest violin." It's tough to pluck the strings of sympathy for McCain, since, in the first place, he made such a big issue about Obama's lack of overseas travel. He made that a campaign issue, and banged away at it for weeks. But now that Obama is actually going - and drawing a huge media contingent, for solid newsworthy reasons that I will shortly explain - he doesn't like that, either. The line now is that Obama's trip is merely a "campaign rally" and "photo op." And since the McCain camp is now stuck with the prospect that Obama will draw enormous crowds at many of his stops - thereby telegraphing to many Americans how nice it might be to again have a president who is popular abroad - the pre-buttal strategy is to complain in advance that the media is acting as Obama's enabler.
Cited by the Columbia Journalism Review as one of the nation's top political reporters, and lauded by the ABC News political website as "one of the finest political journalists of his generation," Dick Polman is a national political columnist at the Philadelphia Inquirer. He is on the full-time faculty at the University of Pennsylvania, as "writer in residence." Dick has been a frequent guest on C-Span, MSNBC, CNN, NPR and the BBC. He covered the 1992, 1996, 2000, and 2004 presidential campaigns.
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