Published on TheHill.com on September 30, 2008
Trailing six points in Rasmussen’s poll, having fallen four points since he suspended his campaign last week, the question for John McCain is: Haven’t you learned anything?
His failure to do much of anything in Washington, after teasing the whole country and riveting its attention on him by suspending his campaign, has let the voters down — and they are turning away from McCain.
But there is still time for him to make his move. The House Republicans bought McCain another shot by turning down the $700 billion bailout package on Monday. With no House vote scheduled until Thursday, McCain still has time to do the right thing.
He should publicly announce his support for the House Republican alternative package of insurance, loans and tax changes to deal with the financial crisis. He should attack Barack Obama and the Democrats for supporting the use of tax money for a massive bailout when the same purpose can be accomplished by other, cheaper means. McCain should draw a line in the sand and take a firm position.
The Democrats are not prepared to pass their bailout proposal by themselves. If they were, they would have done so on Monday. Instead, they withheld the votes of their most vulnerable congressmen and let the package fail. If the Republican Party poses a united front in the House, with McCain’s leadership, the Democrats will have to fall in line. They cannot not do anything. By taking a firm line, McCain can turn the whole process around to his — and his country’s — advantage.
Who would have imagined that John McCain would lose the election because he had a failure of courage at the last minute? Who would have guessed that he would fail to stand on principle for fear of being criticized and would fail as a result? If John McCain is to lose this election, let it at least be fighting for principle, as he has done throughout his storied career.
By backing an alternative, McCain forces Obama to defend the Democratic/Bush package. He can tie Obama to Bush and to the Washington insider/Wall Street crowd. He can give his populism a programmatic reality and a topical relevance. Obama would have to spend the rest of the election defending the $700 billion turkey the length and breadth of the country.
America detests the bailout package. Polls show better than 2-to-1 opposition. Were McCain and the Republicans able to project that there is another alternative that works, the opposition would swell to even greater proportions.
Obama and the Democrats could cite the views of Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke and Wall Street executives that the Republican relief package would be too little, too late. But voters can be pardoned for skepticism. Paulson, a few years removed from Wall Street, and Democrats, in hock to the street for campaign contributions, are naturally eager to get their hands on $700 billion. If Obama lends himself to that cause, it could cost him the election.
McCain needs to have the courage to free himself from the web of Washington deals and take a principled stand for the right side and stay there. Then the inevitable dynamics of the process will bring the country around to him. Otherwise, his campaign will have missed the opportunity to draw the kind of clear issue that would have gotten him elected president.
It is admirable to see a candidate of principle and conviction lose an election by standing on his beliefs. It is sickening to see one lose by abandoning them.
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Time for a bit of a rant. Maybe others feel this way. Without taking political sides or commenting on the value of the bailout package, I am totally disgusted with congress and the presidential candidates. Every politician and party supporter that goes on television says the same thing: “we need to set aside our differences and work towards a non-partisan solution that is good for the American people”. Then without pausing for a breath they rip into the other side as the cause of the problem in the first place and the cause of the failure of the bill to pass. Hypocrites all. What I hear from McCain and Obama is rhetoric and sound bites. “Main street not wall street”, “protect the taxpayer”, “wall street foots the bill not the American taxpayer”, “the irresponsibility of ________(fill in the blank) and blah blah blah. What I don’t see from either one of them is a specific and concrete proposal on the table. We can’t even get a straight answer from either as to whether or not they support a bailout. Wow, some leadership! For me at least it is time to send them the only message they will understand by putting the incumbent in the job market on Nov 4. Our house is burning down and these jackasses stand around blowing hot air on the fire.
Dick, if McCain did what you propose the decision process would over for me…he would have my vote.
Dick, does anyone in the McCain camp read this? I sometimes wonder just WHO is advising him… Of course, the same questions apply to our President, who just seems to stumble from one bad decision to another…whatever happened to “leadership?”
McCain has been far too quiet over the past week. I’m not sure what is going on in the McCain camp, but I hope they have something up their sleeve. I refuse to believe that Steve Schmidt is this politically incompetent. I know running the Rove playbook with a lot of the smear ads may have brought them back up in the polls earlier, but I think in a time of crisis like we have here, that message is rubbing people the wrong way as they are looking to Washington to act in a productive manner, not partisan one.
As Dick said, he needs to be pushing stronger for supported of the “Let Wall Street bail themselves out” approach. Even if those measures aren’t adopted, at least he can say he tried his best to get in what he could to protect the taxpayer, but the Democrat controlled congress blocked his efforts and sided with the Bush Plan.
He can then start slinging a little mud at Obama by tying him to Chris Dodd, Barney Frank, etc who blocked the efforts for more oversight of Fannie and Freddie. Start running ads with video clips of them talking in support of this bailout and past clips of guys like Barney Frank saying that nothing is wrong with Fannie and Freddie. Use their own words against them. The Obama camp is trying to tie McCain to the low approval rating of Bush, so turn that right back on Obama by tying him not only to Bush’s bailout, but to the even lower approval rating of his cohorts in Congress and to the low support of this bailout.
But right now is not the time to sling the mud. Now is a time to for McCain to take a prominent stance and position himself to sling mud when it counts and when it’s more effective. Quit playing to the base, you already have those votes, and concentrate on swaying the independent/centrist vote. The base is already on board, so when it comes time to sling mud, sling it without appearing to actually sling mud. You don’t have to slam people over the head with a partisan attack to get the message across, especially when you are playing to the swing votes, as they are looking for a less-polarized, more practical argument. Don’t turn people off to the very message that can bring them to your side.
And for Christ’s sake, McCain needs to stop trying to drop these “Statesman”-esque sound bites. They don’t flow out of his mouth like they do from Obama’s. What ever happened to the “Straight Talk Express?” The same goes for Palin. She has no chance at going toe-to-toe in the upcoming debate with Biden without going back to a more grounded, un-politician-like approach. Right now she’s coming off less like a pragmatic small town mayor, and more like a glitchy, talking-head stepford wife.
We’re in a serious mess now, and no one quite understands what the mess is or what will happen, but everyone knows who got us here.
The American people have to learn tehir lesson umpirically, and all those who voted for these inept politicans, or didn’t make the alternative case well enough to dissuade those voters have to learn the same lesson. What they did was wrong — morally wrong and practically wrong, corrupt and stupid, evil and dopey, and ALL AT THE SAME TIME. Because if Americans don’t learn their lesson once and for all, then we will have to pay “all over again” when they get elected again and screw up the next time. That’s just the way it is, Tom Friedman, John McCain, Henry Paulson, George W. Bush, Ronald Reagan. When you are wrong over and over, we don’t think you will ever be right……..and my question is what part of WE DON’T TRUST YOU” don’t you understand. The say that a CAPTAIN should be the last one to go down with his ship…..and McCain is on the helo-deck waiting to be rescued….and he is the first.
I don’t think a presidential candidate gets that many chances to get it right….John has blown every softball thrown his way over the past eight days. I believe John has let this crisis cripple his judgement. Perhaps he is not the Maverick he claims he is and Washington has indeed changed him. John just isn’t listening to the American People, they want a Conservative solution, not a give-away to Wall St. with taxpayers dollars. I agree with Mr. Morris…..he gets this right, he wins the election…..if he fails to act, he loses in a landslide.
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I supported McCain fervently, right up to the part where he picked Sarah Palin. She’s just too dumb to be President. I have to believe that privately Dick doesn’t think she is qualified, he is a Columbia man and far too intelligent not to be offended on some level by Palin’s evident stupidity.
I want so much to vote Republican because I agree with them on tax policy and generally on fiscal policy, but why can’t they nominate brilliant, supremely qualified people along the lines of H.W. Bush. There’s no spinning Palin - she’s an idiot and I am really angered and humiliated by her nomination. The Republican leadership is trying to sell the American people on the idea that being dumb doesn’t matter as long as somebody makes a good partner to have a beer with. Considering W.’s popularity ratings, I think this idea - “dumb chic” if you will - is very out of favor.
This election is over unless we have another 9/11