Equating McCain and Bush?

Many political campaigns run against the wrong candidate. The opportunity to pick on a vulnerable target is so tempting that they are lured into attacking someone who isn't running.

In 1992, the Republicans unleashed their convention barrage at Hillary Clinton and left Bill unscathed. In 1996, Dole still ran against Clinton the liberal and ignored the changes in his political positioning. Campaigns go after the flaming red cape, so glittering a target, and leave the matador alone.

That's what the Democratic convention has been doing in Denver. They are so anxious to run against Bush, their animosity is so pent up, that they persist in running against a man who is not seeking a third term. In speech after speech, the Democrats knock the Bush record and then add, lamely, that GOP candidate Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) is the same as Bush. Or they call the McCain candidacy Bush's third term. It was no accident -- or Freudian slip -- when vice presidential nominee Sen. Joseph Biden (Del.) spoke of John Bush instead of George in his litany of attacks.

This pattern of shooting at the decoy, not the duck, gives McCain a bold strategic opportunity. He can nullify the impact of the entire Democratic convention simply by distancing himself from Bush.

The truth is, of course, that McCain is the most unlike Bush of any of the Republican senators. (When Obama's people claim that Bush and McCain voted the same 94 percent of the time, they forget that most of the votes in the Senate are unanimous.) The fact that McCain backs commending a basketball team on its victory doesn't mean that he is in lockstep ideologically with the president.

The issues on which McCain and Bush differ are legion:

• McCain fought for campaign finance reform -- McCain-Feingold -- that Bush fought and ultimately signed because he had no choice.

• McCain led the battle to restrict interrogation techniques of terror suspects and to ban torture.

• McCain went with Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) on a tough measure to curb climate change, something Bush denies is going on.

• McCain opposed the Bush tax cuts when they passed.

• McCain urged the Iraq surge, a posture Bush rejected for years before conceding its wisdom.

• McCain favors FDA regulation of tobacco and sponsored legislation to that effect, a position all but a handful of Republican Senators oppose.

• McCain's energy bill, also with Lieberman, is a virtual blueprint for energy independence and development of alternate sources.

• After the Enron scandal, McCain introduced sweeping reforms in corporate governance and legislation to guarantee pensions and prohibit golden parachutes for executives. Bush opposed McCain's changes and the watered-down Sarbanes-Oxley bill eventuated.

• McCain has been harshly critical of congressional overspending, particularly of budgetary earmarks, a position Bush only lately adopted (after the Democrats took over Congress).

Remember that McCain ran against Bush in 2000. McCain's Republican advisers need to realize that they won the primary and that they do not need to cotton to the delegates at their convention or to appease the Bush White House. The more they respond to Obama's and Biden's attacks on Bush by saying "It ain't me, babe," the more he will moot the entire purpose of the Democratic convention. It is a rare opportunity to nullify the entire Democratic line of attack and McCain should seize on it.

Morris, a former political adviser to Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) and President Bill Clinton, is the author of “Outrage.” To get all of Dick Morris’s and Eileen McGann’s columns for free by email, go to www.dickmorris.com.

The Clinton Finale II and Election 2008

And so here we go. I think in the final analysis the fight between Hillary and Obama forces did little damage to the Party's prospect for 2008. There is a percentage who will not vote for Obama, who had supported Hillary but by November the choice will be so clear no more than 5%, perhaps 7% from numbers I've seen, will actually defect. Not that those numbers might not be critical, they could be, but we will not see a full-blown 20% defection rate, which would obviously hand the election to McCain.

Now the battle begins for key battleground states, and in my view we have new battleground states as a result of the nuances of this election. The moderation of McCain, and the race of Barack throw the old electoral map out the window. Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio. These three states are critical. If McCain can win Michigan, where he leads now by about 3 points, his task becomes much easier. If he can tack on Ohio as well, he wins. The key is that if he can maintain Michigan, he can afford to lose Ohio but would need help elsewhere and have much less wiggle room. If they split Michigan and Ohio, the race is thrown to the Southwest US where New Mexico and Colorado will become critical. In my view, New Mexico will decide this election. If Obama takes Ohio, and McCain takes Michigan, which is possible, essentially New Mexico decides this in the electoral college. McCain can even lose Colorado in that scenario. The key however is that neither candidate has any signicant room for error in the electoral college. Obama can't afford to lose Wisconsin. McCain has to win either Ohio or Michigan. He can't lose both or there is no realistic scenario that gives him 270. All of this assumes nothing happens that radically shapes any key state alignment toward red or blue. If Florida goes into play for Obama, McCain would have no choice but to defend, because he cannot lose Florida's 27 votes under any scenario. McCain should concentrate now on Michigan, New Mexico, Ohio, and make sure he holds Florida. He also needs to keep a close watch on Virginia because he can't lose that one either.

The Clinton Finale

And so it finally happened, the end of the Clinton era effectively happened when Hillary and Barack split N. Carolina and Indiana but Barack's showing in both states was enough to prove she can't power him out. Even with weeks of bad press Obama roughly tied in Indiana and blew her away in N.C. Now the superdelegates move in his direction, and in fact he now leads by 3 superdelegates as of Saturday May 10.

Nobody can know for sure what exactly is going through Hillary's brain. She has to know she has lost but she doesn't act like she knows it. She may be hanging on for a miracle and there is some speculation that she "knows something." She may be looking for the right time to make a graceful exit, while at the same time hoping for the unexpected controversy to erupt in that timespan. I had thought she would look again at this in 2012 but I'm not so sure of that anymore. Perhaps, but I really think this was a one-time shot for her, she can't really take on a President Obama in 2012 and she doesn't want a fight against an incumbent McCain, she wants an open election. Of course it's possible McCain would only do one term but historically that is very unlikely. But she also loaned her campaign another 6 million dollars and that speaks to a plan and there is also speculation that she has a notion to take this all the way to the convention.

That doesn't seem possible, in that it would be so damaging to the party, and she would be doing so with no realistic argument to be made on her behalf. To argue electability is to constantly insult Obama and his supporters, pointing out daily and in public the potential problems he would have in the general election. That kind of negativity would hurt either of them, I would think. And to be THE reason that Democrats don't unify for the general or THE reason that McCain becomes the next president, if that were to happen, would be to absolutely ruin whatever reputation the Clinton's have within the Democratic party. It's difficult for normal people to understand this intense quest for something, even something as big as the Presidency, but apparently that kind of intensity does exist within her.

Obama V. Clinton - N.C and Indiana

It's easy to get caught up in the momentum of Hillary Clinton going into Tuesday's primaries in North Carolina and Indiana. Obama has been hurt badly, obviously, by the Reverand Wright controversies and that has put a damper on what had started to become inevitable. But both the long term and short term realities make Hillary's effort as difficult as ever.

In the big picture the Democratic Party, regardless of the near-term damage done to Obama, has no choice but to recognize the Obama campaign prior to the Wright issues. He still leads the popular vote, the state total, and the delegate count, and nothing will make those realities go away no matter what happens in the remaining primaries. It's still Obama's nomination to lose somehow, and only the super-delegates can do that to him.

That choice, if it were to be made, would be devastating to the party unless, and it's possible, Obama were to decide to accept the super-delegate choice and back Clinton un-categorically, even campaigning FOR her in the general election. I don't know if he would do that or not. He might be able to view a bigger picture for himself, realizing his age and potential for a future run, but it seems more likely that in that position the combination of his personal bitterness and his need for a McCain win to allow a 2012 run (just as Hillary's back-up plan is a McCain win for her own re-run in 2012) would make his substantial support for a Hillary win in the general election unlikely. He might support her, but he could support her in word only, and walk off the stage, leaving Hillary with an extremely difficult electoral map to work with against a moderate opponent.

The conventional wisdom over the last few days has been that Obama has lost his substantial lead in N. Carolina but should still win, and that he has lost Indiana in a complete reversal of fortunes. We shouldn't be so sure. Without a doubt that has been the direction of these races and the thought has been that a split would keep Hillary in the race and perhaps move super-delegates in her direction. But a look at the most recent polls shows yet another reversal. While Obama has lost a 15 point lead in North Carolina, down to a 5 to 7 point lead, the very latest poll shows him back up by 9, actually two polls, both Zogby and Rasmussen have him up now by 9. And in Indiana, where he once had a 3 point lead only to see that crash to a 3 point deficit and then more, the very latest poll taken Friday and Saturday show a radical shift back in his direction from as much as a 5 to 7 (or more) point potential loss to a 2 percentage point LEAD. The public dissatisfaction with continual negative coverage, the sympathy effect, and Barack's dismissal of Wright altogether, has had it's effect, and just in time.

If Obama can pull off a sweep on Tuesday, Hillary Clinton's campaign would be close to devastation, in my view. She would face enormous pressure to concede from party leaders, and while she probably wouldn't do that, the momentum from a double win would carry into the remaining states and/or make them less remarkable to the point where the super-delegates choice would be essentially made. Hillary would truly, at that point, only be hanging on for a miracle. She would also be on the verge of destroying her own reputation for a possible future run. If they do split, the bad news for the Democrats goes on and we can only re-assess at a different time.

Obama Vs. Clinton

As a Republican, I have pulled for Barack Obama to win. My thinking is that he is absolutely unelectable. There was a time I thought that, then I began to rethink his electability as he turned from novice to superstar. He WAS literally a movement. As he reeled off wins in the early primaries, 11 straight at one point, it became clear he would be the nominee and not Hillary. That remains true to this day. But in the interim the critical reality about Barack Obama was revealed, unfortunately for Hillary, it was revealed too late.


When the Reverend Wright controversy hit, it dealt a critical, nearly mortal blow. The week-long media frenzy over pastor-gate exposed the world in which he lived at worst, and bad political judgement at best. To allow his political viability to be tied to such an outrageous figure as his pastor turns out to be, reveals a lack of understanding of the world around him, I mean that for a man who wants to be President. He had to know that at some point the nature of his church would be revealed, but it caused him no concern. He was "surprised." I suppose it's also true there was nothing he could do about it. His children were baptized by Rev. Wright, he gave money to the church, and he no doubt listened to similiar rants as were revealed in the pastor-gate firestorm.


"God-damned America," indeed. This alone brought Obama from Superstar to regular guy, and then some. He at once became the black candidate, a far cry from the messianic deliverer of peace and harmony and the elusive change that only he had total understanding of, to be revealed to the rest of us later. If this had happened earlier in the campaign it would have brought him down and Hillary would be the nominee. But this happened AFTER he took the lead in the race, after 11 straight wins.

Make no mistake about it, Obama will be the nominee for the Democrats, the party's super-delegates will have no choice, no real choice that is, but to give him the nomination. Even with pastor-gate and more recently with the unbelievable comments about small town people and their bitterness, the party is stuck now with Obama. Hillary Clinton remains in place hoping for a miracle, a controversy more tantalizing than the two already in place. And she positions herself for 2012. She knows she has lost but she also knows anything is possible, especially with Barack. Both candidates are already severely damaged, and exposed. Even if a miracle occurs for Hillary, she will lampooned for her lies about sniper-fire in Bosnia relentlessly. The word "lie" is huge for a candidate, especially when it's so obvious and easy to understand as this mini-gate is. She has no answer for it. Obama has no answer, none that work, for his controversies either. So now we wait, at a critical point, where a decision needs to be made but also where one will not simply be had, as damaged and downtrodden candidates have no choice but to drag eachother down even more. McCain sits on the sidelines. It's certainly not a given that all of this will hand McCain the election, in the big picture this is one the Democrats should win, but Republican should be reveling in the mere fact that there is a hope.

Fight for the White House

Well, for political junkies this election year is just about as good as it gets. The Republicans have virtually nominated a candidate who was about 100 bucks from being history in the middle of the nominating process. He was finished. The well financed, and well managed campaigns failed miserably.

Mitt Romney spent more money and put more energy into his campaign than perhaps all of the other candidates combined, but something was missing always, or perhaps it was the big something that nobody wanted to mention that grounded his effort. Mitt's Mormonism was just too much for many people, whether they would admit it or not, and most would not admit it. Americans had to endure getting yelled at by the pundits and talking heads and professional pols for a few weeks about how outrageous it would be if we were to exclude a person from the Presidency due to their religion, but we endured. While there was truth, in the purest sense and understanding of American politics, in the argument that religion should not matter, we all know that religion does in fact matter. It doesn't officially matter, but it matters.

The Guliani strategy, such an unbelievable failure, remarkable in it's speed and effect, might be worth a book or two for some future study in American presidential aspirants. Guliani, I believe, would have won the nomination, or at the very least competed, but instead decided his weakness in the early states would be too much to overcome. That may have been true, but to give up weeks of free press coverage had the same effect. In other words, he should have viewed it as "worth a shot," to keep his hat in the ring until the more friendly primary states had their votes, but instead gambled and failed badly.

I personally never viewed Huckabee as a serious possibility to get the nomination much less win in November. He was just far too much a preacher-presidential nominee, a hopeless combination following an evangelical presidency. A 2008 nominee was not going to be able to preach a sermon on Sunday, in the midst of a campaign, especially in 2008, but not even in the past or the foreseeable future.

McCain's nomination, unofficial at this point, was perhaps a nomination of attrition, due far more to the characteristics and strategic failures of Romney and Guliani than to anything magical that McCain himself possessed. But the nominee the Republicans didn't think they wanted, may turn out to be the one that is best suited to face the Democrats in this almost impossible year for Republicans. The moderate wing of the Republican Party has won out, and the timing might be perfect.