McCain ‘strenuously disagrees’ with top strategist over the upside of terrorism

June 23, 2008

Following up on an earlier item, Charlie Black, the lobbyist who now serves as the McCain campaign’s top strategist, told Fortune magazine with “startling candor,” that a terrorist attack on U.S. soil before the election would help give his candidate a boost. “Certainly it would be a big advantage to [McCain],” Black said.

It was an odd thing to say. Black wasn’t literally hoping for a terrorist attack, but his concession was nevertheless inappropriate. When asked if a terrorist attack would benefit one candidate over another, the tasteful response is to say electoral considerations pale in comparison to the seriousness of terrorism. Instead, McCain’s chief campaign strategist effectively said, “Yep, terrorism would be good for us.” It’s a politically-tone deaf remark.

At a press conference this afternoon, John McCain quickly moved in the other direction.

For those of you who can’t watch video clips online, McCain was asked about Black’s quote and whether he agreed with it. McCain said, “I can’t imagine why he would say it. It’s not true…. If he said that, and I do not know the context, I strenuously disagree.”

Good. Black was foolish to make such a comment in the first place.

As long as we’re on the subject, in the same press conference, McCain continued to act like Barack Obama’s decision to skip the public financing system was an outrageous offense: “The president has got to keep his word when it’s popular and when it’s not popular.”

I’ve explained why I think the hand-wringing over this is misplaced, so I won’t rehash the reasons here. I would, though, make two related points.

First, if McCain wants to attack Obama for a reversal on a procedural issue, fine. But he’s making this out to be a violation of the public trust, which it clearly is not. Obama intended to stay in the system, realized it would be a foolish, election-costing move, and withdrew. It’s entirely legal and ethical. “The president has got to keep his word when it’s popular and when it’s not popular”? By that logic, McCain made promises to voters on all kinds of issues — immigration, the budget, energy policy, foreign policy — and then reversed course for the sake of political expediency. McCain really ought to have noticed that he’s living in a glass house before picking up all those rocks.

Second, for reasons that I haven’t quite been able to figure out, McCain’s own behavior with relation to the public financing system seems to have completely escaped the attention of political reporters. Josh Marshall, who’s been emphasizing this for quite some time, explained:

…I’m a little confused why more Democrats are not hitting this preening peacock with the fact that he is as we speak breaking the campaign finance laws and specifically breaking the law on accepting public financing. Having opted into the system and gotten the advantage of it he’s now spending freely in defiance of the caps he agreed not to spend over. Not a commitment to Common Cause to try to come to deal, but a legally binding commitment to say within the public system for the primaries (which, by FEC rules, continues through the nominating conventions).

It’s almost surreal that McCain is being allowed to get on his high horse on anything remotely connected to the public financing system.

You can say the press should be hitting him on this. But the truth is that this will only become an issue, if Democrats and Obama-surrogates make it an issue. The guy is not only ‘breaking his word’ he’s breaking the law. But he’s so awash in his own self-righteousness that I’m not even sure this counts as hypocrisy — at least conscious hypocrisy — since just as is the case with the lobbyists he surrounds himself with I think his self-righteousness makes it all invisible to him.

Of all the issues for McCain to strike a self-righteous note, this is one of the worst. The only reason McCain is not currently under investigation is that the FEC ceased to function a while back. The whole issue of the public financing system is one McCain should be desperately trying to avoid.

Instead, he’s talking about nothing else, assuming that the media (and Dems, for that matter) won’t push the issue. So far, the gamble actually seems to be working.

This is one of the biggest situations of dereliction of duty by the press I can imagine. We have one supposed reversal by Obama as opposed to what 48 and counting for McCain and still it’s the one of Obama’s that gets the attention. And where are the liberal commentators of the ‘liberal media’ pointing McCain’s out. Or is Maureen Dowd too interested in how masculine McCain claims to be…

  • Don’t even try to imagine the shrieking if one of Obama’s aides made the same comment. You’ll go deaf.

    “I can’t imagine why he would say it. It’s not true…. If he said that, and I do not know the context, I strenuously disagree.”

    Here we go again:

    Step 1: Wha? No he didn’t you liar!
    Step 2: ???*
    Step 3: Final answer. Maybe.

    The man is Dubya without the twang.

    *??? = Waffling, gibberish.

  • I would also point out that the head of the crippled FEC is a Republican, and he’s said that McCain is basically breaking the law.

  • Whew, I’m glad McCain spoke up in time for Rove to get his refund back from Bubba Mushariff and BillyBob Abu before they got the truck full of fertilizer.

  • But, he’s so unaware, & self important, that he doesn’t realise that he’s broken a bunch of laws & should avoid the topic.

    And being McReagan, he can apparently get away with it.

  • After reading that post by Josh at TPM, I contacted the Obama campaign regarding this matter. The person I spoke to said that he will immediatly notify his supervisors of this. I hope my effort doesn’t come to naught.

  • “I can’t imagine why he would say it. It’s not true…. If he said that, and I do not know the context, I strenuously disagree.”

    Wait, so McCain doesnt think a terrorist attack would help him? Or he disagrees that it was wise for Black to make the comment?

    McCain made promises to voters on all kinds of issues — immigration, the budget, energy policy, foreign policy — and then reversed course for the sake political expediency. McCain really ought to have noticed that he’s living in a glass house before picking up all those rocks.

    Why should he? The press has said hardly anything about McCain’s many reversals. Obama makes one course correction, and the press is all over it. McCain’s playing this exactly as he should, given that the press isnt going to touch him on his own flip-flops.

  • We can’t think for Mr. Black on this one. He said something very deliberate and it is unwise to attempt the divination of what he meant to say, if we are to assume it was something else.

    Why not interpret for what it was. Plain English

  • The FEC sent McCain a letter on Feb 19 stating that USC 437c requires four votes from the FEC to withdraw from public financing. Then they challenge the loan in which McCain promises that if he loses in NH, he will stay in public financing in order to pay off the loan. The loan papers then explicitly claim that the campaign finance participation is not to be construed as “collateral”. One can certainly argue that it isn’t up to the bank to decide the definition of collateral, but that is what the loan says.

    McCain then sent (2/25/08) the FEC this letter, claiming that USC437 does NOT call for FEC approval to withdraw from public finance. And he points to the clause in the bank loan that craftily defines the word “collateral”.

    I can’t find any indication as to whether the FEC responded to the Feb 25 letter.

  • I’m not so sure that a pre-election terrorist attack would work in McCain’s favor.

    One of the more frequent Republican talking points is that the deranged Bush foreign policy and his “war on terror” has kept America safe for the past seven years. A terrorist attack would be powerful evidence that the opposite is true – as if more evidence is necessary.

  • Can McMummy and his team of lobbyists (uh, I mean strategists) go even ONE day without making some awful gaffe that has to be immediately “walked back”?? Can they make even one coherent statement on any given policy? If the situation were reversed, the media would cite these blunders as obvious signs of Obama’s “inexperience.” It’s getting more and more ridiculous by the day.

  • No one brings this up is it seems that the voting process is just something congress never wants to look into. Sort of like ethics. McCain’s quasi-legal explanation for opting out of public financing is worthy of major questioning. On the bright side, he could have dealt with this long ago and it would be over. Now, when it does reach critical mass, it will be that much more in flow with the general election campaign.

  • Gee, Benen you’re entirely too nice and trusting and dare I say it, naive. How many Republican elected officials, campaign staff, talking heads or print and think tankers have to suggest that a terrorist attck would be good for the Republicans, before you actually begin to get that they may actually believe that? Sheesh, Santorum, Rove, Black, Lott are just 4 names I can think of off the top of my head who have said similar thibngs recently, and I didn’t google it.

  • This is the kind of gotcha politics that the media focus on to the exclusion of anything substantive. We shouldn’t be drawn into it.

    Who cares what Black said? It was a ridiculous question, and he gave it an honest answer, when the question called for a politically correct response that McCain just delivered, and away we go with another wasted day on gaffes.

    It’s hard enough to get the media to talk about real issues without these incidents popping up all the time. And they will pop up, because human beings, being human, are always saying stupid things when they haven’t got a script in front of them, and they haven’t got time to think in this sound bite society of hours where you have to answer instantly.

    I’d prefer we ignore all this crap no matter where it comes from and focus on where this country is going.

  • But it’s difficult to ignore that the Republicans are all holding their breath. Truly it’s amazing to see how 9-11 + GWBush = bin Laden holding the cards for the 08 elections. If he exercises his option, as he did in 2004, the question is will it be more than a video this time.

    Stranger still, we’re spending all our resources on “al Qaida in Iraq”, gotta make sure the Free Ride Express keeps on chugging. There’s probably already cue cards in the network closets printed up that say, “There’s been a Terror Attack in _____________! this must be good for McCain!”

    But John will, of course, apologize the following day.

  • This kind of thing is becoming a hallmark of McPasty’s campaign. Some underling says what all the fearful Republicans are really thinking and then quickly denies they meant what they said. They’re really kind of happy that they got that little zinger out there, while the MSM laps it up and bends themselves into pretzels trying to rationalize any such remarks.

  • I guess what I’m saying us that a guy like Black knows exactly 100% what he’s saying alk the time. This is no slip up, no gaffe.
    He says the naughty thing anyway, and plans to apologize if he can’t spin it in short order.

  • Anyway – wouldn’t another terrorist attack prove that the Republican President is incapable of protecting America ?

    On public financing – McBushIII has shown that Obama can’t trust him to stick with public financing. Though he used it to his advantage to secure a loan and get on several ballots, he says he quit the program (but not actually). How can Obama count on McGrandpa to stick to one thing or the other ?

  • What Charlie Black said was in appalling taste, but it simply laid bare the guts of the McCain strategy. Obama’s camp are ready for action for the 527s and the personal attacks, but that’s not what’s going to be emanating from McCain HQ.

    How are they going to overcome the huge early advantage that Obama has accrued – 15% in the latest Newsweek poll? Fear.

    Remember the ‘Daisy’ commercial by Lyndon Johnson’s campaign? The ‘Revolving Door’ commercial by H. W. Bush’s team? McCain’s team will ramp up the fear factor – probably aided and abetted by some vague but hysterical mention of imminent danger out of Homeland Security/The Whitehouse near election time.

    By the time the election takes place, Americans will feel spooked, threatened and the thrust of the McCain campaign will be ‘this is a time for wariness, not hope.’ They’ll attempt to control the macro-climate the campaigns take place in. Charlie and McCain don’t need a terrorist attack, they just need Bush to raise the spectre of one.

  • On the public financing issue, I’m assuming that the Obama campaign is making a strategic judgement. Rather than throw back McCain’s breaking of election laws into the face of their opponents while Obama is being hauled over the coals – which would look petulant and get lost in the noise around Obama’s reversal – I’d hope they’re waiting for a week or so before playing their hand.

    Let the noise die down, and then come back with hard, independently backed figures for the extent of the McCain overspend. Choose a moment when McCain has gone back on the attack or appears to be making headway.

    At least, that’s what I hope is happening.

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