The End of the Honeymoon

I want to talk about John McCain.

I've wanted to talk about John McCain for awhile now. Too much press coverage on the Obama-Clinton epic struggle is leaving the Republican frontrunner with little to do, nothing to say, and becoming increasingly irrelevant as his campaign gets pushed back to the third, or fourth, package on the network newscasts.

It's bad timing. Horribly bad. Even last week when he swept through the Potomac Primaries, there he was, following another of Obama's uplifting speeches, with a cast right out of Century Village behind him, and talking about an ever-lasting war and smiling at the wrong times. Obama talks about hope. McCain talks about battle. He's a Debbie Downer.

And who can escape the media drama this Tuesday when Obama, tired of Hillary not admitting defeat, not conceding, and not congratulating him for his tenth-in-a-row victory, cut her off as she was making another primetime campaign stump speech and went on a 45-minute barnburner in Houston. All the networks cut away from Clinton mid-sentence and went to Obama as he still was giving his "thank yous." Hume on Fox had his microphone live and one can hear him screaming to his production crew to "Go" to Obama now. To borrow a phrase from the current Vice-President: the Clinton campaign is in its last throes. Veteran AP Political Writer, Ron Fournier, in the AP wire story which appeared on many newspapers around the country said that it was "panic-button time" in the Clinton Campaign. That explains the "War of Words" this week between both camps and whether or not Obama borrowed phrases from Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick. Then it doesn't help when Michelle Obama goes off saying that she's proud of her country for the first time. It hasn't been a good week for Obama.

But I want to talk about John McCain. Just when it seemed that he was going to go into semi-retirement, to catch his breath, maybe go on a short-vacation, the New York Times splashed a front-page story in today's edition, posting the story online last night at around 7:45pm. Apparently, The Times had been sitting on this story for a couple of months now, at least since December. The appearance is that The Times waited until McCain's frontrunner status was clearly established before they came out to produce this story. In it, The Times suggest that McCain's crusade on ethics and campaign-finance reform is not but a charade. That McCain has failed to practice what he has preached. In addition to that, the article insinuates that there might have been a romantic relationship between McCain and a lobbyist—so much so that during his 2000 presidential race, aides tried to keep her away from the Senator. The Washington Post's version of this led with the confrontation between the aides and the female lobbyist, Vicki Iseman.

Today McCain surrogates defended his actions on the network morning shows. Bob Bennett called it a "non-story" on Today. On Early, McCain Campaign Manager Rick Davis called it "the worst kind of tabloid journalism." At around 9:00am ET, McCain held a presser denouncing the story and any wrongdoing. Cindy McCain, who's had a more visible role in the campaign this week—what with her subtle attack on Michelle Obama's "pride"—said that "he would never do anything to not only disappoint our family, but disappoint the people of America."

The silver lining in this of course is that for the first time in a long while, McCain led the network morning newscasts, he'll probably lead tonight on the network evening newscasts and without a doubt, he'll be the top story on all the cable newsers. On Drudge, he's been the top headline for almost 16-hours now. Rush goes live on the East Coast in an hour, and he'll probably start off with this.

This gives McCain plenty of ammunition. One thing that the Conservative wing of the Republican Party absolutely abhors is The New York Times. Even though this paper previously endorsed John McCain for president, he can now come out and once again accuse The Times of displaying a liberal slant in its coverage and an incredible bias. The Times will be mentioned almost as much as John McCain today—this wouldn't happen if say, it was ABC News that broke this story. It'll be interesting to see if Rush joins the attack on The Times and somehow defend McCain today—the enemy of my enemy is my friend.

As of this post time, Huckabee hasn't come out to publicly mention anything; he'll wait to see how this plays out.

So what is this? I think it's a non-story. If this is the best that The Times has then I think that it either A) Isn't trying hard enough or B) Doesn't have much to begin with. Ethics? Are you kidding me? McCain hasn't even made ethics central to his run this time around. It's all national security all the time. This is an article that would've derailed his candidacy in 2000 which was D.O.A. anyway since the Republican establishment was hovering around Texas Gov. George W. Bush. This article is eight years too late. At the end of the day, McCain can come out winning if he's able to spin this as an unfair attack, another example of the media practicing the "politics of personal destruction." And once again—Ethics? Just imagine if Hillary pulls a miracle and she's the nominee, then the media will really have something to run with; with Billary the question will be, Where do we start?

The Primary Election Campaign Season - The Democrats

We live in the 24-hour news cycle. When I first had this post in mind, Osama Bin Laden (HVT 1) had just released another videotape. The Democrats met in Miami and debated for a Spanish-speaking audience. Before his debate appearance, Barack Obama was the guest at a star-studded event out in LaLa Land, with the Queen of All Media, Oprah Winfrey presiding. General David Petraeus was about to release his report, and along with Ambassador Ryan Crocker, about to brief Congress. The long-awaited September Report.

But my, if you blink you miss it. And I blinked. A week later we're dealing with the aftermath of the president's address to the nation, of Moveon.org's ad in The Times, and the Democrats still virtually impotent on stopping the war.

***

Let's go back in time. OBL released a videotape last week and the punditry revolved around, obviously, whom this helps and hurts. It helps the Democrats, they said, because the American people would ask, Why after six years and two wars, is Osama Bin Laden still at large? On the other side of the argument, some thought that it helped the Republicans, since one could always bring out the "terror" card--as crass a political tool there is--and remind the American people (or American voters since that's all that the parties care about) that OBL is still at large, that Al-Qaeda is still plotting, and if we leave Iraq, Al-Qaeda will find a new worldwide headquarters to operate out of. This in a nutshell are the arguments that both parties have posited. All in all though, this is once again, the 24-hour news cycle. It played over the weekend into the sixth anniversary, and then quickly forgotten. This isn't the tape that Osama Bin Laden released last we saw him before the 2004 Election, which contrary to his aim, helped the president at the end cruise towards re-election. And he's not helping out the Democrats that much this time either. His rhetoric, some observers say, is straight out of the Democratic Party's talking point. And of course, the tangents he went out on, and taking his beard on a "Just-For-Men" ride, drew ridicule towards the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks. He spoke about global warming, and the Democrats' inability to end the war. He talked about the looming mortgage crisis, and a became a pundit in world affairs. Bob Baer wrote an article in Time questioning Bin Laden's relevance, and at the end concluded that OBL "would be better off staying put in his cave and keeping his mouth shut."

Meanwhile in Miami, the Democrats met at the University of Miami's Bank United Center--site of the first presidential debate in 2004. There, in a debate sponsored by Univision, the Democrats tried to go beyond the war in Iraq and Immigration, but also talked about health care, education, economy, etc, and other issues to an extremely friendly crowd. The love fest ended when the moderators, Jorge Ramos and Maria Elena Salinas, asked Sens. Clinton, Obama, and Dodd, why they voted to build a 12-foot wall alongside the U.S.-Mexican border. This drew some jeers from the crowd, and the trio responded that while they support broad immigrant rights, they also believe border security is a must. This gave an opening to the only Latino running for president, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, who gave one of his two token quotes of the night: "If you're going to build a 12-foot wall, you know what's going to happen," he said. "A lot of 13-foot ladders." (The other quote given by Richardon was an attack on Univision itself: "I'm disappointed today that 43 million Latinos in this country -- for them not to hear one of their own speak Spanish, is unfortunate. In other words, Univision is promoting English-only in this debate.") Aside from that, the debate was pretty much standard and went along as expected. Univision did call out the Republicans at the end, and pointed out that John McCain had been the only Republican to RSVP for the event. Speaking of M.I.A. candidates, Joe Biden didn't bother showing up at the debate, saying that he had a scheduling conflict--even though he was originally supposed to be present at the event. Segway this into the first question posed by Salinas to the candidates: Are you taking a political risk by appearing at a Spanish-network debate? All said No. And how much they loved Hispanics. And putting all political calculations aside, they were right. The people who were going to be upset about such an event taking place were probably not going to vote for the Democrats either way. The same can not be true of Republicans, and the blowback they may face if they indeed participate in such a debate. At the same time, Republicans are going to need to figure out finally that they'll need Hispanics to win elections. Demographics are going that way, and what Hispanics see as a habitual demonization of Hispanics by the Republican Party is going to backfire--never mind that McCain and Bush take more Hispanic-friendly positions than many Democrats. Bush partly won his presidential elections because of Hispanic votes, garnering the most Hispanic votes for any Republican Presidential Candidate ever. Rudy Giuliani is going to lose quite a number of votes from more Mainstream Hispanics, he's been campaigning on an Anti-New York City stand (partly because many Republicans accuse the mayor of allowing NYC of being a "sanctuary city), appearances in Hialeah notwithstanding. And that's the problem with many of the candidates on both sides. The primaries, as always is a two-step dance: go to your base, and then return to the center for the General Election. The problem today is that the base is so far out there now, that returning to the center for the General Election campaign will be a hard-fought movement for the candidates. All in all though, the debate was very good for the Democrats. They've got their message out there to the fastest growing electoral group in the country--and growing faster still with Voter Registration drives propelled in part by a lack of Immigration reform in this congress. To say nothing of the argument that Univision put out there this past week stating that it is the most-watched television network in the country, beating CBS, ABC, FOX, and NBC, among viewers 18-34 . Of course, once again, demographics need to come into account. Univision's viewers are notoriously young, when compared to the Big Four English-speaking networks. The median age for Hispanics in America is 27. Univision is going to be a potent political force next year more than any other. The Wall Street Journal has taken note of this, and has already begun a campaign of including Univision among the other paragons of the Liberal Media, claiming Univision is biased and "features some of the most unbalanced political news coverage on television."

***

This week in the war at home...

Gen. David Petraeus issued his long-awaited report to Congress, something that the punditry had looked forward to all summer, and at the end, the gist of it was...wait six more months.

This wasn't good for the Democrats. OBL was right--the Democrat's can't and won't stop the war. And the American people agree with this...and are mad. Due to ignorance and apathy of the political system, many Americans believed that voting in the Democrats during the Mid-Terms was going to put an immediate end to the war. Obviously that wasn't going to happen. The Democrat's won't stop the war and won't cut off funding. The President went prime time on Thursday and announced "Return on Success" as the new slogan. The punditry went against him, and consider himself living more and more in Bush world. With him being the only inhabitant of it. But he doesn't care. He announced a troop withdrawal, even though it was supposed to happen either way, and launched on another tirade on why we're in Iraq and why we need to stay there until success...whatever that is.

And the Democrats had another bad week. You know next year's election is the Democrats to lose. So much so that Newt Gingrich recently said that the chances are 80-20 that the Democrats are going to win the presidential election. Albeit that may just be him playing the game of raising expectations. But the Democrats, it seems are going out of their way to lose. This may be a little early, but you know, it's not their fault. Say what you want about Rove and White House's political operation, but they've put the Democrats in a position that there's no win-win for the candidates on Iraq. This has increased the battle between Clinton and Obama, with Obama attacking Clinton for being for the war in the beginning, and Clinton attacking Obama for doing nothing to end the war once he got there, in fact he's voted for funding and against any deadlines. The Clinton Camp has remarked that it's easy for Obama to state that he's always been against the war, but now that he's in a leading position, he's doing nothing for the sake of political expediency; they sarcastically say that's a real "profile in courage." The war between both camps has deepened so much that there's a fight over campaign staff, with Obama personnel being "warned that if Hillary wins the nomination their disloyalty will be remembered."

After Bush's must-not-see-TV moment on Thursday night, Edwards bought 2 minutes of airtime on MSNBC calling for a withdrawal from Iraq. The piece was supposed to come immediately after Bush's but due to punditry, and MSNBC having to make time for Matthews and Olbermann and Williams and Russert, the speech didn't air until 9:50 Eastern, almost 30 minutes after Bush said "God Bless America." Edwards tried his very best to look presidential and dare I say it...he sort of did?

The big blunder that the Democrats allowed to happen this week was MoveOn.Org, yeah they're back. They put out a full-page ad in The Times calling General David Petraeus, General "Betray Us." This sort of attack on a military man was uncalled for. Even Frank Rich said that this was a dumb move to have allowed happen. The only winner here was MoveOn, who's going to see their email distribution lists grow.

And the only big loser here, again, was Hillary Clinton. This set up a scenario where Rudy Giuliani came out swinging hard and denouncing Clinton for not denouncing the ad. This is setting up the sort of campaign that we'll see next year, if indeed Clinton and Giuliani become their respective party's nominees for president.

***

Let's do some quick Democrat strategy and horse-race...

In national polls, Clinton is clearly establishing her role as presumptive nominee status, as she's beating Obama, 43-24 in averages. Edwards eight points behind Obama, and Richardson polling at around 3.

Let's do the primaries. Again Clinton is leading everywhere except fighting hard in Iowa, where Edwards' populist message is really resonating and Edwards is only 2 points behind Clinton, 26-24, with Obama close at 21. Clinton's going to win the New Hampshire primary, where she's beating Obama 36-19, with Edwards coming in at third with 15. In South Carolina, again Clinton beating Obama, 35-23, with next-door-neighbor Edwards coming in at third with 14. In Florida and California Clinton's up by 20; in Michigan she's up by fifteen.

Hillary Rodham Clinton is the presumptive Democrat nominee for President of the United States.

Obama, even though he's doing splendidly well raising money--and as I said before, has Oprah's blessings and backing--needs to have a better showing in South Carolina, and needs to beat Edwards in Iowa for his candidacy to still be alive. If Edwards wins Iowa, this starts shaking up the race for the front runner, since Edwards, straight off an Iowa win can come in and be the comeback kid in New Hampshire.

But Clinton's going to do well, she's running a heck of a campaign, and has the brightest people on her staff--to say nothing of the fact that she's married to the smartest Democratic strategist alive.


And that's why more and more we're moving away from the Primary Election Campaign Season and already thinking in General Election terms. The Gen.'s March Progress Report will come at a time where we'll know who'll be the nominees, and if all goes according to plan, it will be Hillary sweeping the primaries, and Giuliani, while stuck in a more fluid environment, mounting a national primary strategy to capture the nomination.

And that's why The Times' Maureen Dowd, a.k.a. The Cobra, wrote today that Rudy's "the only man in the field tough enough to slap around a woman."