CE Week #6: “Scoping Out Obama vs. McCain”
The race would pit change vs. experience, fresh vs. tested, green vs. gray.
NEWSWEEK
Updated: 12:03 PM ET Feb 16, 2008
The democratic race isn’t over yet. Hillary Clinton may still prevail. But the debate featuring Barack Obama and John McCain has already begun. The good news is that a contest between them has the potential to be spirited without being ugly. It may even focus on issues that actually matter to Americans. Imagine that! Instead of an examination of Al Gore’s personality traits (2000) or a refighting of Vietnam (2004), we may get a real debate about war and peace, taxes and spending, duty and hope. Or maybe I’m dreaming.
The contrast is already stark. Obama is 46 and looks 40; McCain is 71 and looks closer to 80, though he’s got more energy than someone half his age. Their matchup would represent the largest age gap between major-party presidential candidates in American history. The campaign would pit change vs. experience, fresh vs. tested, green vs. gray. Once their niceties about one’s heroism and the other’s inspiration are dispensed with, Obama would try to make the Arizona senator look like a hypocritical, clueless and warlike geezer, while McCain would suggest that the Illinois senator is a naive, liberal and dreamy kid.
The night of the Chesapeake primaries offered a preview. Obama reminded a Wisconsin crowd that McCain had recently said we might be mired in Iraq for 100 years. He suggested that his early stance against the war would strike a better contrast with McCain than Hillary’s early support. He also signaled that he would hit McCain for reversing his opposition to President Bush’s tax cuts. Obama quoted McCain as saying in 2001 that the tax cuts offended his “conscience” because “so many of them go to the most fortunate.” But that was then. “Somewhere along the road to the Republican nomination, the Straight Talk Express lost its wheels,” Obama said, trying to make McCain look like just another status quo politician. Every effort by McCain to consolidate the conservative base will be met with a fusillade from the Democrats, with even his position on torture subjected to charges of flip-flopping. Expect to hear references to “Bush-McCain policies” ad nauseam.
Because Obama isn’t the surefire nominee, McCain hasn’t gone after him hard yet. But surrounded (unhelpfully) by geriatric politicians in Virginia last week, he argued that when a politician offers “only rhetoric” instead of “sound and proven ideas,” the result “is not a promise of hope. It is a platitude.” This line of attack hasn’t worked well for Hillary; voters like platitudes if they’re musical enough. Even so, McCain may have some presentational advantages that go beyond his compelling personal narrative. He does especially well in town-hall settings, where he deftly deploys his quirky charm to engage with (and often win over) people who disagree with him on many things. Obama’s campaign “is beginning to approach the level of a messianic complex,” says one McCain aide who doesn’t want to go public before the Democrats settle on their nominee. “McCain’s is about putting the country first. I like that contrast.”
Their differences on some big issues are negligible. With any luck, they’ll try to outdo each other on expanding national service. Immigration is unlikely to play a major role, absent a third-party effort. But should Obama opt out of public financing of his fall campaign, as his aides hinted last week, McCain will pounce. Besides pork-barrel spending, campaign-finance reform is the only domestic issue where McCain works up any real passion. That’s a problem, because he’d better find some on health care and come up with a more convincing plan, pronto. On the faltering economy, likely to be central, neither man has any management experience. The question is who can better fake a deep knowledge he doesn’t possess, with the edge going to Obama as the change agent.
To compensate for the huge gap in national-security experience, Obama might pick retired general Anthony Zinni, Sen. Jack Reed (a decorated Vietnam veteran) or former senator Sam Nunn as his running mate. He would stress homeland security, crushing Al Qaeda and how McCain’s support for the Iraq War has harmed the military and cost trillions that could be better spent at home. The last argument would be used to blunt any GOP attack on the high cost of Obama’s liberal social programs. (The $233 million Alaska “bridge to nowhere” that McCain complains about incessantly is equal to less than 18 hours in Iraq.) McCain will put plenty of distance between himself and Bush on the war’s execution. And he’ll slam Obama for being willing to sit down with dictators without preconditions, a sign, he’ll say, that the junior senator isn’t ready.
Neither Obama nor McCain is a natural counterpuncher or champion debater. Obama has lost most of the Democratic debates to Clinton on points. In their 2000 debates, McCain was bested by Bush. Others will try to poison the process. Assorted scum will falsely call Obama a Muslim or McCain the “Manchurian candidate.” Independent “527″ committees may even try to fling mud-ball ads featuring Obama’s black-nationalist pastor or McCain’s “cover-up” of live POWs. But that will all likely be background noise to a substantive choice between two decent men—unless one of them is a woman.
URL: http://www.newsweek.com/id/112778
© Newsweek Mag
Everyone loves a horse race, I mean look at how much attention the democratic campaign is getting because Barak and Hillary are so close. No one really focuses on McCain because we all know that, unless he drops dead, he will be the republican nominee. I think this article kind of does that too. By saying, oh lets talk about Barak and John going at it; it gives the impression that Hillary is out of it. By doing this people can easily react with the whole, “oh yah well watch this”. Two of the biggest primaries are voting today with over 300 delegates up for grabs. The horse race could be abruptly halt after today though. Although Hillary is only around 100 delegates behind Obama, Barak has the 3 M’s (money, media, and momentum) and has won around the last eleven primaries. If he wins again today it will be obviously that Hillary needs to bow out gracefully, however; then I think the horse race will begin between Obama and McCain. The article already talked about the tactics that both will most likely use against each other and luckily none of them seem as harsh as the ones Hillary is using to try and catch up to Obama. Either way this horse race won’t be ending any time soon, either between our two democrats or the two presidential nominees.
My personal belief is that Obama is the only man, err… person, to beat McCain. Hillary divides the Democratic Party way too much. I’m afraid that the race that was supposed to be a shoe-in for the Democrats when it started is now going to be pretty darn close in the General election. Obama v. McCain would be a good race to be a part of. In class we recently learned that the 25th Amendment makes it so the Vice President can take over for the President when he is ill, it also gives instructions on how this is to happen etc. That’s why the Vice Presidential candidate of each party’s nominee is very significant, especially if you are a Republican. Hillary has talked about putting Obama on her ticket for the Presidency, but Obama is still ahead of the race so far, and we’ll find out when the Super delegates cast their votes at the Democratic National Convention. Hopefully the Super delegates decide to vote for the guy that has a majority of the votes, because that’s an indication that he has a better chance at getting a majority of the votes in the General Election. This article I think makes an argument for a close General Election.
“And he’ll slam Obama for being willing to sit down with dictators without preconditions, a sign, he’ll say, that the junior senator isn’t ready.” This is kind of a common thread amongst democrats, not just Obama. I thought this article was a little bit “out there” in some of its predictions for an Obama-McCain debate.
However, points about things like the “liberal” McCain are pretty good. The article says “Every effort by McCain to consolidate the conservative base will be met with a fusillade from the Democrats, with even his position on torture subjected to charges of flip-flopping.” In class we talked about how a candidate has to fit their party’s mold (especially for Republicans) to win the White House. We learned that you can’t win the election without the conservative southern vote. This might hurt McCain, given his more moderate views in some areas.
The article also talks about how neither candidate has that much experience in handling the economy. I am interested to see what these candidates have to say about our economy. It’s so bad right now, it needs to be fixed, and I’d like to see how each candidate will fix it. What would happen if they just had no idea?
-Jason Wong