Author: Greg Saunders

When it comes to political campaigns, a lot of effort goes into making sure the candidate is presented well, but it seems like the McCain campaign is asleep at the wheel. For example, take a look at this photo of Barack Obama appearing before a crowd of 200,000 today in Germany :

It’s a striking image that really captures the enthusiasm Obama has generated not only here in America, but throughout the world. John McCain, on the other hand, chose to make an appearance today on the sidewalk in front of a German restaurant, beneath a sign that reads “Fudge Haus”.



Equally embarrassing was when McCain canceled his press availability yesterday (lest he answer questions about being a total dick) only to pop up in the “Dairy Delights” section of a local grocery store :

As an Obama supporter, I couldn’t dream of a better contrast. Barack Obama addressed the world today from Berlin, echoing speeches by Ronald Reagan and John F Kennedy. Yesterday, John McCain stood between the cheese and the orange juice and tried to explain why he couldn’t remember when the surge happened. If things continue like this until November, I might be laughing too hard to make it to the polls.

The McCain campaign has a new talking point :

Sen. Lindsey Graham said that a “turning point” was when Harry Reid declared the war “lost” over a year ago, and brought up an old quote from Chuck Schumer predicting that discontent with the war would lead to further Democratic gains. “The Democratic Party built a political strategy around us losing the war in Iraq,” Graham said.

McCain adviser Randy Scheunemann joined in: “Senator Obama seems to think losing a war will help him win an election.”

Well, it certainly worked for Bush in 2004.

Headline at Politico :

McCain forcefully rebukes Gramm

Oh really? It’s nice that McCain is willing to “rebuke” those comments, why hasn’t he rejected or denounced them? Phil Gramm has said other things I disagree with too, yet I’m still waiting to hear if John McCain is willing to rebuke or dismiss or reject or denounce those comments as well. Does John McCain secretly agree with everything that Phil Gramm has said that I find objectionable? When if John McCain going to finally cut his ties with Gramm?

I really think we need to spend the next month talking about this.

Seriously though, Kos is totally right about this. John McCain has said numerous times that our economic problems are “psychological”. A competent press corps that actually dug deeper than “he said, she said” trivialities would recognize the pattern in McCain’s various statements on the economy and have the guts to ask him “Do you think the American people are hallucinating when they see higher gas prices, rising unemployment, and declining home values?”

Josh Marshall is right when he says that John McCain’s economic plan is hilarious. Apparently Maverick thinks he can balance the budget with all the savings we’ll reap from winning the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Here’s a sneak peek at his economic advisors coming up with their budget plan :

Seriously though, there’s a few problems with McCain’s miraculous budget plan. First, it doesn’t contain any numbers, just wishful thinking. I’m no economist, but I’m pretty sure I remember reading somewhere that you’re going to need to do some math at some point.

Second, we can’t afford the wars now. Paying for the occupation of two countries full of people who hate us is actually causing a lot of the budget problems that McCain is claiming to solve. If things get remarkably better under a McCain administration, we’d still going to be spiraling even deeper into debt to finance his grand plans for a North Korea-style permanent military presence. Besides, even if he were to end the war and pull all of our troops out of both countries, there’s a big difference between promising to stop digging a hole and actually having a plan to fill it back in.

Finally, if John McCain’s plan to win the wars is related to the Bush policy he’s spent the last year and a half cheerleading, then it’ll just make our budget problems worse. We’re in a “surge”, remember? All those extra troops cost a lot of money, so if John McCain’s bluster about the surge working can be taken at face value, then the only way to win the war is send more troops or, to convert this into the McCain budget plan, the only way for us to save money is to spend a lot more of it.

Remember when John McCain admitted that he’s computer “illiterate“? Now his tech guys are trying to defend the fact that their candidate isn’t familiar with the most culturally significant communications medium in our lifetimes :

Pressed again on McCain’s tech savvy, he defends his candidate.

“You don’t actually have to use a computer to understand how it shapes the country,” he says.

“You actually do,” former Edwards blogger Tracy Russo responds, suggesting he try to explain Twitter to his grandmother and then ask her how that applies to governing.

“John McCain is aware of the Internet,” says Soohoo. “This is a man who has a very long history of understanding on a range of issues.”

The fact that McCain would consider the internet one of a range of “issues” is hilariously out of touch. That’s like bragging that Richard Nixon was familiar with the television “issue” in 1960 or that FDR’s fireside chats were panders on the radio “issue”. I don’t expect John McCain to start his own blog or have a personal Facebook account, but a lack of experience with a communications medium this ubiquitous is pretty revealing. After eight years of a president with zero intellectual curiosity, I find it astonishing that we have a prospective leader who wouldn’t want to get a little hands-on time with what has amounted to a communications revolution. I know if I was alive a hundred years ago and everyone around me was gushing about this new-fangled invention called the telephone, I’d probably put down the telegraph needle and give it a shot.

In other words, the medium really is the message in this case, and John McCain doesn’t seem to be interested in either.