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McCain’s Struggle to Stay Relevant |
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Barack Obama didn’t just pass the “presidential threshold” in his trip this week, he established himself as more presidential than John McCain, leaving a floundering McCain campaign to play catch-up. Obama is now laying out the terms for debate, leaving McCain in reaction mode. Obama met with foreign leaders, who endorsed his approach in Iraq and welcomed him as a world leader, while McCain scrambled to insert himself into the conversation by meeting with the Dalai Lama. McCain, who constantly calls timelines a form of surrender, was forced to acknowledge that Obama’s timeline for redeployment from Iraq is a “pretty good one“. While Obama had success after success overseas, McCain did his best George H.W. Bush impression, looking like a guy who hadn’t been in a supermarket in decades as he read the price of milk off a note card.
McCain’s advisers believe the only way he can change the current dynamic is by going (even more) negative. The latest: an incoherent charge that Obama decided on a timeline for getting out of Iraq based on “political expediency.” As noted, some call McCain’s tactic the worst thing they’ve ever seen from a major party presidential candidate. This mud-slinging also makes no sense. Obama has opposed the war in Iraq from the start, when it was hardly a politically expedient decision. In March 2003, as we headed toward invasion, Americans narrowly supported war with Iraq. In August 2003, 2/3 of Americans thought the war was worth fighting.Â
For more than five years, Obama has consistently held the view that the war in Iraq was a mistake. The public has caught up with him on this issue, not the other way around. That’s not political expediency, it’s wisdom and leadership.Â
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