There are a plenty of interesting tidbits in the new WaPo/ABC News poll — overall, Barack Obama leads John McCain by six among all Americans (48-42) and by four among registered voters (49-45) — but there was one set of numbers that was of particular interest.
McCain will be running into stiff headwinds over the next five months. Bush’s approval rating hit another low in Post-ABC polling and now is 29 percent, with 68 percent saying they disapprove of the job he is doing — 54 percent strongly. Among the dwindling number who approve of the way Bush is handling his job, 80 percent back McCain. Among the much higher number who disapprove, 26 percent support McCain.
In general, 57 percent said McCain would continue to lead the country as Bush has and 38 percent said he would chart a new course.
That’s a very tough hurdle to clear. Americans aren’t satisfied with the status quo, they believe the nation is going in the wrong direction (84% of poll respondents said the nation is seriously on the wrong track, an all-time high), and John McCain has spent the last several years explaining to everyone who will listen that on the biggest issues, he and Bush are reading from the same script. Sure, McCain is scrambling now, downplaying the notion that he’s offering the nation a third Bush term, but a) he’s struggling to explain how he’s different; and b) voters apparently aren’t buying the new spin.
This wasn’t supposed to happen. One of the reasons McCain was able to succeed in the Republican primaries is because he still had some semblance of a “maverick” reputation, which made him more electable than his GOP rivals. He had, to borrow the buzzword of the year, the kind of “brand” that made media outlets and independent voters swoon.
But given recent polls that show the public looking at McCain as more of the same, it seems that Americans aren’t quite as fond of the new McCain, or perhaps McCain’s media image never really permeated outside the Beltway in the first place.
The Baltimore Sun’s Paul West had an interesting item over the weekend about McCain’s faltering reputation.
John McCain once had the most powerful brand in American politics.
He was often called the country’s most popular politician and widely admired for his independent streak. It wasn’t too many years ago that “maverick” was the cliche of choice in describing him.
But that term didn’t even make the list this year when voters were asked by the Pew Research Center to sum up McCain in a single word. “Old” got the most mentions, followed by “honest,” “experienced,” “patriot,” “conservative” and a dozen more. The words “independent,” “change” or “reformer” weren’t among them.
Voters have notoriously short memories, but it could be argued that McCain cheapened his own brand.
He embraced President Bush and attempted to become, like Bush, the choice of the Republican establishment. In the process, he helped obliterate recollections of his first run for president, when he became the first Republican in a long time with strong crossover appeal to independents and Democrats.
Losing his reputation for independence could prove particularly costly this year.
McCain told NBC last week, “It’s tough, but I think the American people didn’t get to know me yesterday. They know me.”
They used to know him, and then McCain decided to reinvent himself.
At this point, it’s almost impossible to know what McCain’s core convictions are, or if he has any at all. I do know he had the kind of maverick/independent/centrist reputation that would have helped him run as an agent of change this year — but would have made it tough to win the Republican nomination.
So McCain dropped the facade to become Mr. Four More Years. Voters don’t seem to care for it, and more importantly, it’s too late for him to do anything about it.