Who won the week?

July 11, 2008

Political insiders and pundits seem to enjoy arguing over which presidential candidate won the day, and even more often, who won the week. In theory, the idea is that the candidate who wins more days and weeks tends to ultimately win the election. I have no idea if that’s true, or if the exercise is just a way for the political establishment to pass the time.

Time’s Mark Halperin helps drive the conventional wisdom, and this morning declared John McCain the “Winner of the Week.” Halperin pointed to three areas that gave the Republican the edge — Obama’s “apparent move to the center,” which has Republicans “questioning his credibility and integrity”; Obama having “shifted” on Iraq; and the Republican National Committee coming to McCain’s rescue with a new ad campaign.

I’m wondering if I’ve been watching the same presidential race as Halperin. McCain has had an awful week.

The Weekly Standard’s Dean Barnett summarized things surprisingly well:

That sound you’ve been hearing all day is me hitting my head in Boston with a baseball bat, trying to forget all the silly things the McCain campaign has done this week. First, McCain surrogate Carly Fiorina engaged in some freelance idiocy as she riffed on abortion. Next the candidate himself made some intemperate remarks about social security and killing Iranians. The former will almost surely come back in the form of an Obama advertisement in the fall, and may even surpass “100 years” as McCain’s biggest misstatement of 2008. Now, ranking McCain economic advisor Phil Gramm has told America to stop whining about the economy while pronouncing the country in the throes of a “mental recession.” Brilliant.

Max Bergmann went so far as to argue that this is the kind of week “that should have effectively ended John McCain’s efforts to become the next president of the United States.”

That may sound vaguely hyperbolic, but each day this week has been slightly worse than the day before it.

Let’s take this one day at a time….

On Monday, McCain unveiled his “plan” to eliminate a $410 billion deficit in just four years. The plan was immediately panned as incoherent nonsense, bolstered by the realization that McCain’s plan didn’t actually include any numbers.

On Tuesday, Iraqi officials, including Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, publicly speculated about the need for a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq, the opposite of McCain’s message of an indefinite war followed by an indefinite “presence.”

On Wednesday, we learned that McCain had described the Social Security system as a “total disgrace.” We also learned about McCain’s latest odd attempts at comedy, which included joking about killing Iranians. On Wednesday afternoon, there were then reports that some of the 300 economists who had “endorsed” McCain’s economic plan don’t actually support it after all.

On Thursday, we learned that McCain’s top economic advisor, former Sen. Phil Gramm, believes the current economic downturn is a “mental recession,” and that the U.S. is a “nation of whiners.” The same day, we watched McCain humiliate himself when trying to describe his record and policy when it comes insurance companies and birth control.

And on Friday, McCain’s personal life — which, in this case, includes adultery and lies about adultery — finally got picked up by a major domestic newspaper.

Mark Halperin thinks McCain won the week? Unless Barack Obama was filmed aiming his car at small, defenseless puppies, I don’t see how that’s even remotely possible.

As digby put it:

McCain has had a very bad week…. His fans in the media seem to be treating this gaffe-fest as if it’s their avuncular old neighbor just popping off after having a few too many brewskis, but I would think the voters might become alarmed if this continues. (His comment about social security should be a deal breaker among the senior citizens, many of whom are already skeptical of his abilities and I hope the Democrats play it incessantly during the campaign.)

McCain is just a disastrous presidential candidate — unorganized, somewhat dumb, cranky and undisciplined. Except for the dumb and cranky parts, that’s what makes him a maverick Republican.

I sure hope voters are paying attention.

Update: It looks like John Cole was thinking along the same lines about Halperin’s analysis, and John got there first.

no, you are not watching the same race.

you’re watching actual performance with critical intelligence.

halperin is watching the beltway conversation.

  • Voters are paying attention. But to the Helperins. Nauseating… Nonetheless Obama is moving slowly to the center and the lead.

  • What do you expect from an imbecile who allows Drudge to “Rule his world’?
    Halperin is just another right wing hack who tries to set himself apart from the pack by using a civil tongue. He’s George Will without brains or baseball.

  • I think it is calling Social Security a disgrace after 75 years of the program being exactly what is has always been and 20 years of JSMcC*nt serving in the Senate and achieving nothing to change it as far as I can tell that will kill him in the Fall, if the Obama Campaign takes up the Guantlet.

    Tape an ad of Teddy Kennedy for the Florida market telling the retirees there that JSMcC*nt calls them a disgrace. Spend more the further south in the state.

  • Well, the press is his base. He could have shot jesus and still won the week with them.

  • Obviously – the bush administration and the telecoms won, hands-down, winner take all.

    obama, by sitting on his hands, played a major role in this. So if you define “winning” as doing the dirty-work for your corporate sponsors, he was a BIG “winner” too.

    Losers?

    US Constitution
    US Democracy
    Liberals and Progressives
    Democratic Party

    Vote for Cindy Mckinney – we need change, must send a message to the corrupt dems, and will need a new party if we are going to:

    *Get universal health care
    *Save Social Security
    *End the war in Iraq
    *Stop the military-industrial complex and war profiteering
    *Restore the Bill of Rights
    *Throw out the “Unitary Exective” theory of governing

    The dems and obama just stand for more of the same and have nothing but empty rhetoric to address these important issues.

  • McCain has had an awful week.

    Ah, but you’re forgetting that McCain is a maverick. In fact he’s so maverickious that normal standards of good weeks and awful weeks don’t apply. There’s a fairly simple mathematical formula that can be applied here:

    A + M = W

    “A” in this case is Awful week. “M” is “maverickitude.” And “W” of course is “win.”

    I hope this has been helpful.

  • Time’s Mark Halperin is in this for his wallet. The more he promotes the appearance of a close race going, the more pages he has to write for his new book deal about the 2008 election. No fair reporting there. Just another would-be author trying to cash in on the election. All self-interest in his reporting.

  • Phil Gramm is partly right about that “mental recession” thing. Those involved in it consist of two groups, i.e., rich people who keep seeing their personal fortunes rise so for them everything is just peachy, and every citizen still stupid enough to think that the Republican party is worth voting for.

    Oh, and a third subset consisting of the hardcore neocons who still want to blow up more of the Middle East than they have already.

    If that’s not a “mental recession”, I don’t know what is.

  • We all know that McBu$h is the darling of the media, and they’ll give the double talk express a free pass until the election.

    But the question is, why?

  • In theory, the idea is that the candidate who wins more days and weeks tends to ultimately win the election. I have no idea if that’s true, or if the exercise is just a way for the political establishment to pass the time.

    If you truly have not arrived at a conclusion about this, put your money on it being a way for the political establishment to pass the time. And, in Halperin’s case, try to shore up the Republican cause.

    Other than that, I will simply associate myself w/ JoeW”s remarks about Mark Halperin.

  • What utter contempt for working people . It is’nt whining he hears it’s the din of angry Americans about to blow their lid .
    Can’t wait until the American people finally stand up for themselves . Will love seeing those elitist millionaire republicons crying for mercy . Who’ll be whining then ?

  • One definition of a “maverick”

    “… an unbranded range animal (especially a stray calf); belongs to the first person who puts a brand on it…”

    Problem with McBu$h is he can’t remember what his brand was yesterday, can’t figure out what it is today, and has to wait for his advisors (you know, the ones that don’t speak for him) to tell him what he’ll be branded tomorrow.

  • There is NO way that FISA hurts Obama in the fall. None. Nada. Zilch. There is not chance that the Iraq comments will hurt Obama in the Fall. Nada. Zilch. In a debate, with MILLIONS of people watching, Obama will state his Iraq position side by side with McCain’s 100 year position.

    Now, as for McCain, I think the birth control topic will hurt him hard with women. This is not abortion, but birth control.

    Social security will not hurt him because he wil clarify his position and that will be that.

    The mental recession comment is bad, but not long lasting. Unless, McCain says something similar now.

  • What utter contempt for working people . It is’nt whining he hears it’s the din of angry Americans about to blow their lid .

    Gramm didn’t say that they were bitter. That’s all that counts.

  • the problem of course is the very real risk that McCain did win the week precisely because Halperin said he did. With absolutely no offense intended to our gracious host, it takes scores of CB’s out on the blogs declaring this a bad week for McCain to overcome the conventional-wisdom shaping power of Halperin, who – obviously based on some inverse relationship with how deserving one is – is given a megaphone several orders of magnitude louder than that given Mr. Benen.

    indeed, i would bet that if we watch we will see that the worse McCain’s given week is, the more likely the Halperin’s of the world will claim him the winner because of the obsessive need to keep the race ratings-drivingly close, even if they have to pull the wool over the publics’ eyes to do so.

  • “There is NO way that FISA hurts Obama in the fall. None. Nada. Zilch.”

    That is probably true–what are we going to do, vote for McCain? Not vote, therefore in effect vote for McCain? No. We’ll vote for Obama.

    But FISA has hurt Obama. With me. I don’t trust him to do the right thing anymore. I lost trust in my government about 7.5 years ago, and I see no reason to trust it anytime in the foreseeable future, whether the president is McCain, Obama, Nader, or Barr.

  • How has McCain managed to get re-elected over and over in Arizona? Too much hallucinating among the voters from a lack of water?

    This week is the first time I, at least, have really gotten to see him up close. (Admittedly, I haven’t paid him much attention because the potential for appointments to the Supreme Court, if nothing else, makes the election of a Democrat an absolute imperative.)

    When McCain doesn’t have Graham or Lieberman to jump in and finish his sentences for him, he becomes totally incoherent, as in his response to a simple question about insurance coverage for contraceptives. It would be somewhat understandable if he couldn’t come up with facts or figures for something pretty arcane, but do-you-support-covering-contraceptives-in-basic-health-insurance shouldn’t be aconfounding question!

    Reading his remarks in print from his Michigan statement about “Dr Phil” Gramm, gave him a coherence that he didn’t display on stage – he stumbled and rambled and it was obvious when he talked about “the mother who lost her job” that he didn’t know a single person in that situation – it was just words. He may be doing town hall meetings, but he’s not actually meeting us regular whiners.

    He tries to turn every serious question aside with a snappy remark rather than provide a real answer, bolstered with facts or context.Why doesn’t the press PRESS him more?

    But the absolute kicker is that he obviously doesn’t know how Social Secutiry works – after how many years in the Senate? Given his age, he should know better than most how the damned thing works without being in elective office – how many of his peers are trying to survive on it? Has he ever met anyone who hasn’t married an heiress with houses up to her armpits?

    John McCain appears to have even less brainpower than W and is a near-equal in his facility with language (Has either one of them ever heard of verb agreement?). I wouldn’t vote for someone with such scrambled brains for the lowest municipal office – how has he gotten to be a senator?

    Whatever is in the water in Arizona, I hope it doesn’t spread.

  • Who won the week! Obviously the Rev. Jesse Jackson! He got himself back into the news, he’s relevant again!

    Watch you nutz there Barry!

  • I think my big problem, is the default stance that by virtue of Senator McCain’s “maverickness” his gaffes, flip-flops and otherwise campaign imploding issues are less important then any similar type of situation with Senator Obama……

  • There are always reasons not to vote for any candidate. They all have minuses. The media seems to be
    a: Mention all the reasons why NOT to vote for Obama constantly
    b: Never mention any reasons why someone might want to vote for Obama, ever
    c: Never mention any pluses or minuses for McCain. Just where he’s been, where he’s going, who he’s visiting, where he’s given a speech, and who’s endorsing him or his plans (and don’t go over those endorsements too closely).

    Halperin is a prime Exhibit A. HIs reasons why McCain “won the week” (what do you get for that, a cookie? A plaque? Blockbuster coupons?) are based on real (FISA) or assumed & dis-proven (Iraq flip-flops) missteps of Obama and his campaign, followed by the groundbreaking news that the RNC decided to spend money endorsing the Republican candidate. I know, color me shocked, too.

    Spend day after day, week after week saying why one campaign is doing poorly, you never really have to say the other campaign is doing well (which is great, because then you can’t be accused of being a liar), I believe the young kids call it “implication.”

  • We can’t forget that we are giving prisoners at Guantanomo Bay more foreign policy experience every day than Obama has gained in all his time living over seas.

  • citizen_pain said: “One definition of a “maverick”

    “… an unbranded range animal (especially a stray calf); belongs to the first person who puts a brand on it…”

    Problem with McBu$h is he can’t remember what his brand was yesterday, can’t figure out what it is today, and has to wait for his advisors (you know, the ones that don’t speak for him) to tell him what he’ll be branded tomorrow.”

    Actually, the Theocratic Wingnut’s put their brand on JSMcC*nt long ago. Why the MSM hasn’t noticed I can’t tell you.

  • “Let’s take this one day at a time….”

    Don’t forget the removal of a 61-year-old librarian whose only offense was to hold a small sign that said “McCain=Bush”.

    So members of the McCain campaign, who is running on the GOP ticket, find it inappropriate to compare their candidate to the current Republican president?

  • A lot of the missteps or misstatements on either side are being overplayed in the 24/7 cable world and on the net, but I think there are a few substantive policy issues that are going to grow in importance as they sink in with the general public.

    McCain has all but said he is going to cut Social Security benefits and has said he’ll try to institute private accounts. His “disgrace” remarks can’t be interpreted any other way. That is a major, unpopular position.

    McCain has said he wants to eliminate employer deductibility of employee medical premiums and to force individuals to “negotiate” coverage terms individually with huge insurers. He had several spokespeople out spreading these talking points on cable networks this week. Medical premiums would be decuctible only if the employee pays them, not the employer. This would be a radical change in the law, much more radical than anything Obama is proposing, and would likely result in a huge increase in the number of uninsured, as employers drop plans, not to mention leaving people with preexisting conditions outside of group plans furnished through employers, and without coverage.

    McCain has introduced tax and spending proposals that would add $4 trillion to the national debt over a 10 year period, chiefly with cuts weighted to the richest few percent of taxpayers, as he pointed out himself in 2001 and 2003.

    These are all big issue items, and they are not gaffes or misstatements. McCain has not just moved to the right, he has moved to the radical, destructive part of the right, the part that wants to intentionally, as a matter of policy, lower the living standard of the working class in this country (theoretically more competitive with sweat shops in third world countries?) and turn our economy into some type of Dickensian-era “free market” system in which accumulation of wealth in a small upper class is the economic goal, to the detriment of all else. As Hillary Clinton said, their goal is not just to overturn the Great Society, it’s to reverse the New Deal and return us to the Lochner-era “freedom of contract” under which government could not set base regulations affecting wages, hours, working conditions, etc.

    I really think this has not sunk in with the public yet. In part this is because McCain has just recently converted to this movement, largely in the last year.

  • actually, there’s a very clear way that FISA hurts obama, as long as that comes up: for example, when i was called a couple of days ago by the obama campaign, i said pure and simple “i’m going to vote for obama but after the FISA vote he can campaign on someone else’s nickel.”

    i am not alone.

    that is a price.

  • What to make of this at Newsweek.com?

    Glow Fading?

    The latest NEWSWEEK Poll shows Barack Obama leading John McCain by only 3 points. What a difference a few weeks can make.

  • hortenze, see my comment #30!

    that said, july polls aren’t any big deal, but the FISA decision was one helluva good way to discourage a large percentage of the most enthusiastic supporters, and if they’re discouraged, then the independent voter (a group among which mccain made gains in the newsweek poll) certainly might pause and think.

  • I’m optimistic that the protection of McCain by the press can’t last through the election. In fact, I think we may even be better off if it gets more outrageous through Labor Day, as that should inevitably lead to a build-up of cognitive dissonance about McCain in the minds of many reporters and some voters (he keeps saying stupid stuff that is getting a little general press, but pundits keep stressing positive stuff about him), and that may lead to a swell of contrary reporting as reporters try to find something fresh to say. It’s best if the dam breaks in the fall, rather than still in the summer. Summertime bad news is early enough to be accomodated and dismissed, like some of the mid-2000 exposes about Bush, whereas a flood of negativity in September can be unrecoverable.

  • Watching CNN talk about Hillary Clinton, now, after the primary is over. Here is my take on this whole scene.

    For me early on Mark Penn seemed rather very “Gay”. In a position of this importance was curious to me and why Hillary Clinton chooses Mark Penn as a strategic political person. Remember I am a rookie at this stuff but during this time was able to participate in dialogs on different blogs namely Americanblog which is a very biased “Gay” blog that did not like Hillary Clinton and still does not. Also Crooks and Liars have an anti Hillary format. Both with major smear and character assassinations took place in these blogs through out the primary and now.

    For what ever reason this part of the Gay community decided to out Anderson Copper of CNN as gay. I had no idea Copper was gay and now closely watch his presentations. And who he favors, his obvious gay ties. Basically ever since the Clintons embraced the gay movement during Bill’s first term, I did carry some respect for the issues and the gay’s that worked in the Democratic Party. For me it’s more of a “Hard Hunch” that these particular gays turned and decided to ditch Hillary and support Obama.

    For what ever reason and with the Mainstream Medias resources it worked. Now we have Obama who has no clue on how to defend the basics in our Constitution for instance in the latest FISA legislation Obama voted for it in the way Bush wants. Totally disgusting and makes me wonder why on earth gays would want to support such an individual as Obama rather than Hillary she voted against the FISA bill. Seems these gays are part of the Neo-Con group that have only greed and money as an ends rather than those gays that are struggling for civil open opportunities. For heaven sakes how could a culture have a closet class all the while wanting open equal rights in marriage. It does not fit giving me the conclusion that gays themselves are in an internal fight and the American people along with Hillary are caught up in a sea saw of angry gay back lash that could very well not be justified.

    I don’t even know why I make this comment but do seem to see something going on between Laura Ingram and Randy Maddow both gay girls hosting, Fox, and MSNBC respectively. Its as if there is a Gay popularity war going on here. Or who can schmooze the electorate the best. So far it appears Randy is wining don’t you think?

    Are we getting our scoops from the gay twirl girls? Sure are…

  • Here we go again! McCain wants the occupation of Iraq to last for 100 years!
    If you believe that the soldiers and the Blackwater guys which Obama intends to leave behind, indefinitely at this writing, are armed with bows and arrows you should immediately make an appointment with your shrink. Obama does not tell us how long he wants them to remain in Iraq simply because he too wants the US occupation of the country to last as long as possible. The price of gas at the pump here at home demands it.

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