Leading surrogate: McCain ‘absolutely’ wants to continue Bush domestic policies
John McCain and his campaign have been working diligently to reject any suggestion that he’d offer another Bush term if elected. Given this, I’m surprised his campaign surrogates haven’t been prepped with better responses to questions like these.
The clip shows Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), arguably McCain’s most sycophantic toady, on ABC’s “This Week” earlier today. When George Stephanopoulos asked whether McCain’s tax and health care policies were not only an extension of Bush’s policies, but also an “enhancement,” Graham responds, “Yeah, absolutely.”
I’m not usually inclined to agree with Lindsey Graham, but on this one, he’s quite right — McCain’s policies would be an extension of the status quo. As Ben at TP explained, “McCain is proposing massive tax cuts that primarily benefit higher-income households, ignore other priorities and drive up the national debt by trillions. And McCain’s health care policy would raise costs and abandon the uninsured. That sure sounds like an ‘extension’ and ‘enhancement’ of Bush’s policies.”
Leading Republicans do realize they’re supposed to argue the opposite, don’t they?
This came up a month ago, when Rep. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), the second highest-ranking Republican in the House, told CNN that McCain “would be” a third Bush term on the economy.
As a rule, Republicans are supposed to disagree with the Democrats’ central criticism of the GOP presidential candidate. But if Graham, Blunt, & Co. want to tell national television audiences that we’re right, I couldn’t be more pleased.
Memo to the GOP: “Show us your facts!!!”
(Especially considering where a number of word-processing programmes now in use produce documents which can even fool forensic experts in forged and questionable documents.)
Elderly Senator McSenile is actually running for Cheney’s third term, not Bush’s third term.
sayre @2 may very well be right.
McCain flipped when he should have flopped. Bush beat McCain then, but now Bush would not beat who McCain was then, but now McCain is who Bush was then. Says something about sticking to your principles over time.
McCain, baby, baby, baby you’re out of Time.
Leading Republicans do realize they’re supposed to argue the opposite, don’t they?
Steve, Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! Please do allow them to continue down this utter path of destruction.
McCain continues Bush’s economic policies? Yes he can!
McCain continues Bush’s war policies? Yes he can!
McCain continues Bush’s (lack of) social policies? Yes he can!
McCain continues Bush’s regressive to the middle class policies? Yes he can!
Now that is
changestatus quo you can believe in!Dale said: McCain flipped when he should have flopped. Bush beat McCain then, but now Bush would not beat who McCain was then, but now McCain is who Bush was then.
My widdle brain hurts.
I watched the ABC This Week debate. Obama needs to get better surrogates. John Kerry reminded everyone of the biggest reason he lost in 2004 — he is completely unable to think on his feet. Whatever idiotic question Stephanopoulos asked, Kerry had to ignore it and parrot one of the answers that he had prepared and memorized.
Point one for every Obama surrogate must be:
McCain used to be, a maverick. But since he began his campaign to win the 2008 GOP nomination he has reversed himself on every issue that earned him his “maverick” label. McCain has renounced his own bills on immigration and campaign finance reform. McCain has embraced the Bush tax cuts that he originally voted against because they weren’t paid for and because he said they mostly benefitted the wealthy.
It’s much more important to destroy the myth that McCain is a principled “straight talker” than to worry about his reputation as a “maverick”. Once people start to see that McCain will say anything in order to win in Novermber, they’ll recognize that McCain’s a “maverick” only when it suits his purposes.
MsJoanne said:
Now that is
changestatus quo you can believe in!So true. If McCain won he’d enjoy that honeymoon period of sky-high 32% approval ratings before they started going down to 0.
This is going to be a big problem for McCain, because most Republicans like Bush and WANT McCain to be running a third Bush term. I honestly think McCain’s made a huge huge mistake by not embracing Bush. I understand why he wouldn’t want to, but he really doesn’t have any other choice. He should have gone with an “I’m the competent Bush” theme, rather than trying to reject Bush completely while embracing Obama’s theme. I understand that McCain’s already desperate and doesn’t like the only option he was stuck with, but pretending he wasn’t stuck with Bush only makes the problem worse.
Why is McCain doing so well against Obama in the polls? By any rational measure this election should be a slam dunk for Obama, perhaps the greatest landslide in history. But it’s going to be a squeaker according to all current indicators.
Obama has everything going for him, including the media and press, who are intoxicated by his historic candidacy. He has every advantage against this sorry old man who has no business running for president at this stage in his life, and offers no coherent policy or vision. He’s on the wrong side of every issue, he’s dull and boring, he’s not quick on his feet and can’t deliver a speech without putting everyone to sleep, and yet he’s running neck and neck with the most electrifying Democratic candidate since Kennedy.
But the people aren’t persuaded. Why? The huge crowds, the energy, the excitement of Obama’s campaign are just not sweeping the electorate. Why?
Hark, because all the media attention has been on Obama v. Clinton. McCain has gotten a complete pass during the “horse race” the media has salivated over. How many times have you seen McCain speak in the last three months? It was Obama and Clinton pretty much 24/7.
We are starting to see tides turn in the media. Heck, even Fox said McCain’s speech sucked. I have seen MSNBC and CNN both call McCain to the carpet lately. (I don’t really watch enough of the monied media to make calls thought, but to see any kind of progress on that front is good.)
McCain is startingwith a 45% approval. It will only go down once people manage to stay awake through his speeches and policies.
That said, setting up a too close to call meme is a perfect way to steal an election.
IMHO, McCain is doing well (so far) in the polls because there are a lot of people who haven’t or won’t vote for a minority candidate, and because Obama has had a lot of attacks from Republican rumor mills and from Clinton, without returning savage counterattacks. The media will probably eventually develop new memes about McCain’s contradictions and pandering and about Obama’s huge rallies and taking the high road, but getting the media to change its conventional wisdom about something is not easy, although it can happen very quickly (e.g., Hillary’s collapse in the media). I think (or hope) that he’ll be doing fine by September.
Doctor Biobrain has the point exactly; McCain doesn’t have a choice. He has to present himself as the competent Republican.
Everything Bush has done so far has been to further “starve the beast” of government. Raising the defense budget while maintaining or decreasing the levels of funding for other programs and then requesting money separately to fight the “War on Fear” all while lowering taxes has not been mismanagement on his part, it has been an effort to provide for the common defense, which is what Republicans believe in, while depriving the government of discretionary funds for those things the Republicans do not believe in: promoting the general welfare.
As this is what the GOP wants, for McCain to distance himself from it would seem to be suicide in the eyes of the Republicans. 25% of the country may not like the President, but that 25% is crucial to McCain if he wants to be president. If 50% of Americans more or less see themselves as moderate or liberal, that 50% will vote for Obama which leaves the other 50% to vote for McCain. If you alienate the 25% who love Bush, you’re left with squat.
I’m not usually inclined to agree with Lindsey Graham, but on this one, he’s quite right — McCain’s policies would be an extension of the status quo. — CB
“Extension and enhancement”. I think you and Graham may have interpreted the two words differently.
What Graham was, probably, fixed on was “enhancement”; this was the last word used and therefore the most likely to ring in his ears. And we all know what “enhancement” means: bigger (see your spam box for adverts offering enhancements). And we all know that bigger=better. Of course, “extension” *also* means “bigger”. So, “extension and enhancement” has to be doubly better. Absolutely better.
IOW, what Graham “heard” was: aren’t McCain’s domestic policies *better* than Bush’s? To which he responded, like a well-trained seal: “yeah, absolutely”
Hear, hear, hark @9 —
My thoughts exactly, for many months. Polls are fickle, I guess; and people even more so.
9. hark said: bama has everything going for him, including the media and press, who are intoxicated by his historic candidacy.
How anyone could watch 24/7 Jeremiah Wright coverage for more than a month and still believe that Obama has the media going for him is beyond my comprehension.
Wait, I am confused.
Yesterday CB amused us with a story of a McCrony who said that Obama was too much like Bush.
Today another McCrony is saying that McCainiac will continue The BushBeast’s policies.
Does this mean that being like Bush (and Obama) is good? Bad? Huh? Wha?
I don’t know folks. The GOP Noize Machine was always good at blaring the same message and to see this sort of confusion in a campaign makes me wonder if The End Is Nigh.
Oh, what the hell. If the world ends let it end while we’re all laughing at the McClowns.
Lindsay Graham comes across as a little dimwitted. Here’s hoping Buddy Witherspoon, the GOP challenger for his seat, beats him on June 10. And if that can’t happen, maybe one of the Democrats running can take his seat.
Joe “What’s that brown stuff on my nose?” Lieberman will get you for this, Steve.
The reason why McCain surrogates have soi much trouble staying ‘on message’ is that McCain has yet to develop a message for them to ‘stay on.’ After twenty years of successful campaigns by Atwater, Carville, and Rove — who, whatever their faults and moral lapses, at least were skilled at developing a unified message — we forget how badly a candidate can flounder without someone like this not merely ‘giving advice’ but actually shaping the campaign — and McCain’s ego means he is unlikely to accept this sort of campaign manager.
Meanwhile, he has been on every side of every issue and has, even in his campaigning, reversed himself so many times that all a Republican surrogate can do is to portray McCain as the sort of Republican the surrogate wants him to be.
Oh, and just to repeat my oft-stated view in response to ‘hark,’ the reason McCain is doing so well is that he is, supposedly a known candidate, while people are still getting to know Obama. But, yet again, “McCain has no upside.” He has already maxed out his potential voter pool, and can only lose votes from here on, while Obama has — as we all have seen — an immense upside. (How many fervent supporters here started out very hesitant and unsure of who he was. As they got to know him, they got behind him.)
So the poll numbers will change, but almost totally in Obama’s direction, unless some surprise occurs.
Makes me laugh This is all true to form. McCain continues to try to capture the whole range of voters by taking both sides of every issue.
Yeah me too, but as a resident of SC I will have to say it ain’t gonna happen
I am 71 years old . In my lifetime the state of south carolina has had exactly 6 senators including the current ones and we don’t do much better in turning over congressmen either. once elected it pretty much becomes a lifetime job until either dying in office or retiring
I’m glad that you didn’t crop the last part of the first vid. Hon. sen. McCain (and the GOP generally) has been banging a drum about us having “the second highest corporate tax in the world.” Hon. Sen. Kerry responded to this in the same way that I have been (to the TV, usually), saying that the “effective rate,” i.e. the amount that corporations actually pay, has been whittled down by 20 plus years of adding loopholes, giveaways and other corporate welfare, that the headline rate is meaningless. Pay close attention to Hon. Sen. Graham’s response to this… he looked uncomfortable and shrugged and tried to push through it. If the moderator had pressed him on the point, it would have been a train wreck, because there is no rejoinder to it. In Fact the GOP has been crowing about how they’ve instituted this corporation-friendly tax regime, they can hardly distance themselves from it now. If this was such an important issue, why have they waited 8 years (through three or four rounds of tax cuts)?
John Mc Stain is for evrything Bush has done, Wars with no end, Tax breaks for the Rich, if you look at the Ecomny in the 90’s when the Rich had to pay taxes it was much better, another good Bush idea.Gas, well we have 2 greedy people who are oil and don’t care if they ruin the enviorment, as that has been proven many times, why dosen’t Bush tell the American people that Big oil has 68 million arces that they lease and don’t use, because it would be easier to drill off the California coast and Alaska coast, because it would be cheaper.Mc Stain is for Big bussiness, just like Bush and Chenny,Losers, all Republican’s must be voted out of office to save this Country, or this ship will sink.