{"id":15071,"date":"2008-04-01T08:30:06","date_gmt":"2008-04-01T12:30:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/15071.html"},"modified":"2008-04-01T08:30:06","modified_gmt":"2008-04-01T12:30:06","slug":"mccain-obama-scratch-their-itch-wrangle-over-iraq","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/mccain-obama-scratch-their-itch-wrangle-over-iraq\/","title":{"rendered":"McCain, Obama scratch their itch, wrangle over Iraq"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last week, Jonathan Martin noted that it seemed as if Barack Obama and John McCain were “itching<\/a>” to take each other on directly: “They just can’t wait to go at it.”<\/p>\n

And there is not just an appetite for blood, but some strategic political imperatives at work. In the science world, they call it “symbiotic.” <\/p>\n

For Obama, it’s all about psychology and perception. The more he can set up a head-to-head narrative with the Republicans, the better to press his inevitability with superdelegates. […]<\/p>\n

McCain and his campaign view Obama as something of a preening showhorse who hasn’t paid his dues, so naturally they were happy to engage. But they also have good reason to get in this scrap: Engaging Obama on a daily basis keeps them in a news cycle that is largely focused right now on the Dem primary back-and-forth.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Quite right. I don’t doubt that McCain and his team enjoy the benefits that come with a prolonged Democratic nomination fight, but they also don’t want to spend the next five months waiting on the sidelines while the Clinton-Obama show dominates the political world’s attention.<\/p>\n

With this in mind, we saw a hint<\/a> yesterday of a what a general election campaign might look, at least with regard to the debate over Iraq policy.<\/p>\n

In one of their sharpest exchanges of the presidential campaign, Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama clashed over the Iraq war on Monday, with each challenging the other’s credentials on national security.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Good. This is the way it’s supposed to be.
\n
\nMcCain goes on the offensive…<\/p>\n

Responding to Obama’s frequent mocking of McCain’s suggestion that U.S. troops might remain in Iraq for 100 years, the Republican nominee-in-waiting said the Illinois senator failed to understand that America has kept forces in Korea, Japan, Germany and Kuwait long after wars in each country ended.<\/p>\n

“In all due respect, it displays a fundamental misunderstanding of history, of how we’ve maintained national security, and what we need to do in the future to maintain our security in the face of the transcendent challenge of radical Islamic extremism,” McCain told reporters on his campaign plane.<\/p>\n

“And I understand that, because he has no experience or background in any of it,” McCain added.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

…and the Obama campaign fires right back<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Barack Obama doesn’t need any lectures from John McCain, who has consistently misunderstood American national security and the history of the Middle East in arguing for an invasion and 100-year occupation of a country that had nothing to do with 9\/11. Instead of spending trillions of dollars on permanent bases that the Iraqis don’t want and that won’t keep the American people safe, Barack Obama will end the war in Iraq and finally press Iraq’s leaders to take responsibility for their future.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Obama is inexperienced, while McCain is misguided. There’s a good reason the Democrats want to have this debate in the fall — it’s eminently winnable.<\/p>\n

As for broader context, I think we can glean a few tidbits from all of this. First, McCain is very<\/i> sensitive<\/a> about the whole “100 years” line, which suggests Dems might want to keep emphasizing it.<\/p>\n

Second, I’m encouraged by the fact that the Obama campaign isn’t backing down when it comes to national security and\/or foreign policy. McCain is used to getting a free ride; the sooner it ends, the better.<\/p>\n

And third, it seems the best way for Hillary Clinton to engage at this point is to go after McCain, too. Yesterday, her campaign seemed largely focused on process — criticizing calls for her withdrawal and pushing for progress on Michigan’s and Florida’s convention delegates. This probably isn’t what the campaign wants right now: stories about McCain and Obama debating Iraq policy, while Clinton is addressing the nomination fight.<\/p>\n

The more Clinton goes after McCain, the more McCain will have to respond, and the more that<\/i> will generate attention for her campaign.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last week, Jonathan Martin noted that it seemed as if Barack Obama and John McCain were “itching” to take each other on directly: “They just can’t wait to go at it.” And there is not just an appetite for blood, but some strategic political imperatives at work. In the science world, they call it “symbiotic.” […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15071","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15071"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15071\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}