{"id":16485,"date":"2008-08-05T13:15:39","date_gmt":"2008-08-05T17:15:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/16451.html"},"modified":"2008-08-05T13:15:39","modified_gmt":"2008-08-05T17:15:39","slug":"note-to-mccain-its-too-late-for-the-original-maverick","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/note-to-mccain-its-too-late-for-the-original-maverick\/","title":{"rendered":"Note to McCain: it’s too late for the ‘original maverick’"},"content":{"rendered":"

John McCain has been pursuing a risky campaign strategy of late, going relentlessly negative and attacking Barack Obama’s character. This has offered a short-term benefit — McCain has made real gains in the polls — but has created a long-term threat, by seriously undermining his “brand.” McCain had developed a reputation for “straight talk” and substance, and he decided to flush it down the toilet.<\/p>\n

Today, in an effort to rehabilitate his former persona, McCain’s campaign unveiled a new ad that doesn’t go after Obama at all. (via Greg Sargent<\/a>)<\/p>\n

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The voice-over in this 30-second spot tells the viewer, “Washington’s broken; John McCain knows it. We’re worse off than we were four years ago. Only McCain has taken on big tobacco, drug companies, fought corruption in both parties. He’ll reform Wall Street, battle Big Oil, make America prosper again.”<\/p>\n

The ad continues, “He’s the original maverick. One is ready to lead — McCain.” The ad ends of course, with the obligatory, “I’m John McCain and I approved this message.”<\/p>\n

It’s a nice effort, I suppose, but it’s way<\/i> too late for the McCain campaign to restore an image that McCain has already thrown away. Indeed, the specifics of the claims only help reinforce the fact that McCain is a shadow of his former self.
\n
\nLet’s unpack this a bit.<\/p>\n

“Washington’s broken; John McCain knows it.” — There’s simply no way to run as a Washington outsider after three decades of being a Washington insider.<\/p>\n

“We’re worse off than we were four years ago.” — Really. Is that so. For one thing, McCain was campaigning for (and hugging) the guy who won four years ago. For another, McCain’s been telling voters<\/a> for a while that Americans are better off than we were before Bush took office.<\/p>\n

“McCain has taken on big tobacco.” — Actually, he used<\/i> to take on big tobacco, and then he shamelessly reversed course<\/a> on the issue.<\/p>\n

“[McCain has taken] on drug companies.” — Actually, he used<\/i> to take on the drug companies, and took an active role in support drug re-importation. This McCain, however, hasn’t mentioned the issue in years.<\/p>\n

“[McCain has] fought corruption in both parties.” — Actually, McCain was part of<\/i> the corruption<\/a> in one of the parties.<\/p>\n

But my single favorite line in the entire ad is the claim that McCain will “battle Big Oil.” Um, senator? Your energy policy was written by Big Oil, and your campaign is being financed by Big Oil. Unless you’re prepared to change the meaning of the word “battle,” this is crazy.<\/p>\n

Obama campaign spokesperson Bill Burton said in a statement:<\/p>\n

“Senator McCain wants Americans to forget that during the Republican primary, he said that Americans were better off than we were eight years ago, and that he thinks we’ve made ‘great progress economically.’ He wants us to forget that he’s fully embraced the Bush policies he once opposed, and bragged about supporting those policies ‘more than 90 percent of time.’ The truth is, being a maverick isn’t practicing the same kind of politics we have seen from Washington for decades, it isn’t having a campaign run by Washington lobbyists, and it’s certainly not promoting the same policies that have led America down the wrong path these past eight years.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Yep.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

John McCain has been pursuing a risky campaign strategy of late, going relentlessly negative and attacking Barack Obama’s character. This has offered a short-term benefit — McCain has made real gains in the polls — but has created a long-term threat, by seriously undermining his “brand.” McCain had developed a reputation for “straight talk” and […]<\/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-16485","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16485","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=16485"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16485\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16485"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16485"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}