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Senator Small

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The McCain campaign’s three most recent television ads come together to paint an interesting picture. Over the last week or so, ads, approved by John McCain, have blamed Barack Obama for high gas prices, falsely accused Obama of snubbing wounded U.S. troops, and compared Obama to Britney Spears and Paris Hilton. It is, of course, only July.

Taken together, the three ads combine to make McCain look “desperate” or “relentlessly negative.” But there’s another adjective that comes to mind: “small.”

Of all the reactions to the campaign’s new advertising, the most striking came from John Weaver.

John Weaver, for years one of John McCain’s closest friends and confidants, has been in exile since his resignation from McCain’s presidential campaign last year. With the exception of an occasional interview, he has, by his own account, bit his tongue as McCain’s campaign has adopted a strategy that Weaver believes “diminishes John McCain.”

With the release today of a McCain television ad blasting Obama for celebrity preening while gas prices rise, and a memo that accuses Obama of putting his own aggrandizement before the country, Weaver said he’s had “enough.”

The ad’s premise, he said, is “childish.” … The strategy of driving up Obama’s negatives “reduces McCain on the stage,” Weaver said.

“For McCain to win in such troubled times, he needs to begin telling the American people how he intends to lead us. That McCain exists. He can inspire the country to greatness…. For McCain’s sake, this tomfoolery needs to stop.”

What’s striking about this is that Weaver sees McCain as a hero. An example of American greatness. A leader with the kind of character to make the nation strong again. Weaver, to borrow a phrase, is a true believer when it comes to McCain — all McCain needs to do is show voters what’s in his heart, and he’ll do just fine.

But McCain has clearly chosen a different path, and in the process, done something Dems have wanted to do for years — make McCain appear small, self-indulgent, and rather ordinary.

Democrats don’t need to “diminish” McCain; Democrats can sit back and watch McCain “diminish” himself. Over the last few days, I feel like I’m watching Obama play rope-a-dope with a pugilist who seems painfully oblivious to what he’s doing to himself.

The WaPo’s David Ignatius has a column today wondering where the old, admirable McCain disappeared to.

What’s damaging the McCain campaign now, I suspect, is that this fiercely independent man is trying to please other people — especially a Republican leadership that doesn’t really trust him. He should give that up and be the person whose voice shines through the pages of his life story.

I don’t really buy into the notion that McCain is “trying to please other people” — I hold McCain more responsible for his own actions, decisions, and staff hires — but it is interesting to see a growing number of observers argue that Mad Dog McCain is pretending to be something he is not.

Tom Edsall also had an interesting report.

Alex Castellanos, one of George W. Bush’s media mavens in 2000 and 2004, had a different take: “The problem is that ‘advertising’, i.e., anything that smells even faintly false, contradicts his persona,” Castellanos said. “John McCain is the un-cola of politics, the anti-politician. And few things are more political than negative commercials that draw attention to themselves as ‘advertising’ designed to manipulate voters and not as ‘information’ designed to inform them. You can’t be the un-cola and Coca Cola too.”

Democratic media specialist Bill Carrick’s analysis is very similar to Castellanos’. Carrick, who cut his political teeth in South Carolina, said:

“When your political persona and appeal are wrapped around the idea that you are not a typical politician, but an independent, above politics candidate, going negative can back-fire big time. John McCain’s core message is he is a bipartisan leader who will bring the country together. As he becomes a more polarizing and partisan figure, the campaign is undermining his core message and persona.”

Someone has no doubt convinced Senator Small that these tactics will pay off in the end. He’ll have to sell his soul, but come January, he’ll get to be president.

McCain had better hope so, because at this point he’s losing a presidential race and what’s left of his character.

Comments

  • Maria

    says:

    Someone has no doubt convinced Senator Small that these tactics will pay off in the end. He’ll have to sell his soul, but come January, he’ll get to be president.

    Would that someone’s initials be KR? Will John McCain climbing into bed with the man who viciously smeared him in 2000 stand as the most pathetic event of this election? I can’t insult whores by comparing McCain to one. This man has no basement now.

  • Shalimar

    says:

    I was watching ABC’s early, early news program a little more than 3 hours ago and they led off the hour by saying that the Presidential campaign was getting very ugly. I thought that finally there would be some network coverage of what the McCain campaign has become, but instead their two examples were Obama saying McCain is like Bush and McCain saying Obama is like Britney Spears. Ignoring for a second that saying a candidate is like the current President from his own party should be a compliment rather than ugly campaigning (and that it’s true), and also that their McCain example is one of the least ugly things he has said in the last month, why did they have to put Obama first like he started the ugliness somehow and is equally guilty of it? I realize it’s hard to simplify the entire current state of the campaign down to a 20-second blurb to lead your coverage, but that was atrocious reporting.

  • Shalimar

    says:

    Also, as you know, behind-the-scenes stories over the years plus the very low esteem in which he is held by colleagues suggests McCain’s supposedly good character and positive image were media creations all along. The man seems to have always been an arrogant, mean-spirited, insufferable jackass to everyone other than our gullible press (and even with them I wonder how much of their affection was based on sitting with him in the back of the bus and making vicious jokes about the non-cool kids they didn’t like).

  • JoeW

    says:

    I sense the next meme to come along in McSame’s defense is that he’s a good and righteous guy who was dragged into this, because that’s just how presidential politics are. It’s completely out of his control, so he shouldn’t be held accountable.
    Naturally, this is utter nonsense, but when has that ever stopped repubs before?

  • Andrew

    says:

    I don’t buy the notion that McCain is some kind of hero. Alexander Cockburn has been talking about his contradictory actions for years. Granted, I admit I voted for him in the primary in 2000, and at the time I liked him more than Bush, but I also wanted to participate in the embarrassment of Michigan’s governor at that time, who promised Bush Michigan would be a “firewall” for him.

    Obama is not the messiah, but I think he would be a solid president. Of course, at this point, my beagle-border collie mix Annie would be better that Bush.

  • SteveT

    says:

    Maria said:
    I can’t insult whores by comparing McCain to one. This man has no basement now.

    I think you’re being an optimist, Maria. It’s only July and the Republicans have many levels of sub-basements that they can descend into yet.

    One thing I thought of this morning is Rove’s signature dirty trick — using Republican control of the prosecutor’s office to make a the last minute indictment of a political opponent. Since the Republicans have absolutely nothing to fear from a spineless Democratic Congress, they can use the Regent University alums at the Justice Dept. and resurrect the phony Tony Rezco story in late October.

  • Martin

    says:

    I sense the next meme to come along in McSame’s defense is that he’s a good and righteous guy who was dragged into this, because that’s just how presidential politics are.

    It’s as if he was captured while serving his country, held prisoner and tortured and could not escape. Yet he manfully maintained his silence in the face of adversity.

    Great meme, let’s see them run with it;>

  • TomB

    says:

    Where I might disagree with John Weaver is that McCain’s image as a principled man was probably just that – an image.

  • Dennis-SGMM

    says:

    McCain now disagrees with himself more than he disagrees with Bush. His campaign recently implied that he doesn’t speak for his campaign as if he is indeed just a doddering old man who doesn’t know what he’s saying. He wants to be elected more than he cares to maintain his carefully cultivated public persona. In the end he will be neither.

  • Gregory

    says:

    Someone has no doubt convinced Senator Small that these tactics will pay off in the end.

    Or that, since Bush ruined the Republican brand, nothing else would work.

  • GuyFromOhio

    says:

    “McCain had better hope so, because at this point he’s losing lost a presidential race and what’s left of his character.”

    There, fixed that for ya.

    PS – Caught this post off the Google News page, forecast mostly trolls this morning, partly trolls this afternoon, with decreasing trolls this evening.

  • lou

    says:

    Does John McCain exhibit “histrionic personality disorder”?
    http://www.csbsju.edu/uspp/McCain/McCain%27s_%27histrionic%27_personality.html

    “flamboyant, self-dramatizing thrill-seekers with a penchant for momentary excitements, fleeting adventures, and shortsighted, hedonistic self-indulgence. As leaders they tend to lack “gravitas” and may be prone to scandal, predisposed to reckless, imprudent behaviors, with a penchant for spur-of-the-moment decisions without carefully considering alternatives.”

    “poor integrators of experience; they are slow to learn from their mistakes. Politically speaking, this tendency may result in scattered learning, poor judgment, and flawed decision-making.”

    “overexcitable and moody, with frequent—though short-lived—emotional displays. In its most maladaptive form, the histrionic personality is impetuous, mercurial, and capricious, being easily enthused and as readily angered or bored. Leaders with this personality pattern are skilled at staying in touch with the mood of the people but also prone—as at least one observer in the Clinton White House has put it—to periodic “purple rages.” ”

    “engage in self-distracting, mindless activities, often in the form of games or physical diversions. In maladaptive form, histrionic personalities employ the defense mechanism of dissociation (or so-called “compartmentalization”) to cope with conflict and anxiety. The political implications of dissociation include a leader’s failure to face up to unpleasant, dissonant thoughts, feelings, and actions and facile, complemented by cosmetic image-making as revealed in a succession of socially attractive but changing facades.”

    McCain, the gambling maverick crooked talk express.

  • Maria

    says:

    I think you’re being an optimist, Maria. It’s only July and the Republicans have many levels of sub-basements that they can descend into yet.

    No, my point, badly made, was that there’s no bottom to this guy’s tactics. So, yes, down we go, farther and farther and farther. In another metaphor, he has no line he won’t cross.

  • zeitgeist

    says:

    while it is good to see these current and former McCaniacs disclaim his current campaign behavior (“It is so unlike the real hero John McCain that I know!”) i’m still not buying that somewhere under the Rove-tarnished present is some honorable man. I about lost my breakfast reading Ignatius’ hagiography – he talks about how McCain came back from captivity a more mature, wiser man, but conveniently omits how he maturely dumped the family that had waited patiently for his release in favor of a blonde with beer. he hadn’t really changed from the guy who parties his way through the Acadamy coming within a few lucky guesses of the bottom of his class. and he still hasn’t today.

  • TR

    says:

    I thought that finally there would be some network coverage of what the McCain campaign has become, but instead their two examples were Obama saying McCain is like Bush and McCain saying Obama is like Britney Spears.

    MSNBC just showed Obama’s ad pushing back against the Germany lies — the one where he cites news coverage saying it wasn’t true — but the anchor (Tamron Hall) said it was pushback against the Britney Spears comparison. Unbelievable.

  • Capt Kirk

    says:

    I found it amazing all week to see each ad from McCain featuring nothing but video footage of Obama. Especially bizarre was beginning a McCain ad by saying, “Barack Obama is the world’s biggest celebrity.” Where are the policies? Where is the message?

    Then when I saw McCain’s speech in front of the oil derrick, up against Obama’s meeting with Democratic and Republican officials, the McCain footage reminded me of one of those filler pieces that feature some “wacky, off the wall” guy who is running for president…somewhere out there. McCain just really comes off as an amateur. Strange for a guy with a long political career.

  • Bernard HP Gilroy

    says:

    To quote one of the greatest compilations of modern wisdom ever:

    CALVIN: People complain that the entertainment industry caters to the lowest common denominator of public taste, but I disagree.
    HOBBES: You do?
    CALVIN: Yeah, I think it’s a fallacy that taste bottoms out somewhere.

    Perhaps this ties into Senator McCain’s tendency to play Calvinball…

  • sparrow

    says:

    What’s striking to me is that Republicans who have pushed “personal responsibility” as one of their themes are perfectly willing, along with some in the media, to cut Mr. Integrity a break by now framing him a victim of dark political forces, i.e., the devil made me him do it.

  • Jim G

    says:

    The rope-a-dope strategy rarely works in real life… In fact the opposite strategy in boxing, getting your opponent against the ropes so you can wail on him as hard as you can, is vastly more common, and vastly more successful. Rope-a-dope can work by allowing a fighter to lay on the ropes and rest, but it is only successful if the fighter can consistently defend his head and take a beating on his body. It worked for Ali and some others because they had the speed and toughness to do this.

    I’m saying this only partly to warn against using the rope-a-dope terminology. Someone who uses rope-a-dope can also be lulled into thinking he’s resting while his opponent is tiring, only to find himself knocked out.

    McCain is probably using the go-negative strategy because it has worked so well for so many decades for the Republican Party (beginning with Nixon and his ubiquitous “my opponent is a Communist/Stalinist” strategy.

    I agree it diminshes McCain… but let us take care not to get lulled into thinking we can rest on the ropes.

  • Steven Smith

    says:

    Check this out

    “What the McCain campaign doesn’t want people to know, according to one GOP strategist I spoke with over the weekend, is that they had an ad script ready to go if Obama had visited the wounded troops saying that Obama was…wait for it…using wounded troops as campaign props. So, no matter which way Obama turned, McCain had an Obama bashing ad ready to launch. I guess that’s political hardball. But another word for it is the one word that most politicians are loathe to use about their opponents—a lie.”

  • olderthanadam

    says:

    All of these negative ads are an attempt to sympathize with all the angry Hillary supporters and thus win their vote. Make it about bashing Obama and the Hillaryites will all join in. Not a bad strategy if it works, but how many true believers can McCain afford to lose to gain a few bad loser Democrats.

  • joey

    says:

    Quit trying to help the bastard. Stop giving him advice on how to be a better man and a better politician. “You just don’t know McCain”. His whole life is made-up bullshit. You can sober up a drunken asshole horse thief but in the morning you still have an asshole horse thief. McCain had the misfortune of being captured and tortured in a war based on lies. But he was an asshole whose family covered for his screw ups before getting captured and he remained one after being released. Only now he had one more manipulating weapon to add to his arsenal of ruthless ambition.

    Watch him talk and tell me you don’t see an irritating little creep who always got away with stuff like a Bush brat. He could deliver in politics to those special interest while manipulating every one and every thing around him. The peopole he fools are those who cannot or refuse to see him clearly as he attempts to talk himself out of any negative image and act a phony to get what ever it is he wants at the time.

    He’s not bright, or a maverick or a straight talker or anything but a manipulating ambitious person willing to say or do anything to make you fear him or to get what he wants. He has no integrity, personality, or substance but says whatever to make you think he does.

    He would be the biggest embarrassment to the country as president that ever took the world stage. He lacks the energy and stamina demanded by this job and most certainly lacks presidential stature. He is compromised by the two worst military qualities a person can have…Hot-headedness and stupidity. Any change you would have McCain do would not be genuine but merely a masked pretense.

    So let McCain be McCain and continue on with his self-destruction. McCain…Wrong On Everything…and Lying About It.