{"id":16510,"date":"2008-08-07T12:30:21","date_gmt":"2008-08-07T16:30:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/16476.html"},"modified":"2008-08-07T12:30:21","modified_gmt":"2008-08-07T16:30:21","slug":"karl-roves-odd-advice-for-john-mccain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/karl-roves-odd-advice-for-john-mccain\/","title":{"rendered":"Karl Rove’s odd advice for John McCain"},"content":{"rendered":"

Back in April, in a WSJ column, Karl Rove urged John McCain to be less reserved about his personal life and background, and run more on his biography. “[I]t is clear,” Rove wrote<\/a>, “that Mr. McCain is one of the most private individuals to run for president in history.”<\/p>\n

Four months later, Rove recycled the exact same point in another WSJ column<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Mr. McCain is the most private person to run for president since Calvin Coolidge in the 1920s. He needs to share (or allow others to share) more about him, especially his faith. The McCain and Obama campaigns are mirror opposites. Mr. McCain offers little biography, while Mr. Obama is nothing but.<\/p>\n

The Republican Party’s convention next month is Mr. McCain’s biggest chance to improve his posture. The best minds in his campaign should be carefully working on its script. Everyone knows conventions are show, but voters want to see if a candidate can put on a good one that rings true.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Rove’s right-wing ideology is obviously pretty far out there, but I’m generally inclined to think he’s at least aware of current events. After reading a column like this, it’s hard not to wonder if he’s been watching the presidential race at all.<\/p>\n

Rove has McCain’s strategy entirely backwards. McCain isn’t a private person at all — as the Weekly Standard’s Dean Barnett put it<\/a>, “You know how you can tell really private people? They spend 26 years in public life as a politician. They also do things like host Saturday Night Live where they sing Streisand tunes before a national TV audience.”<\/p>\n

“McCain offers little biography”? McCain has been offering little but<\/i> biography. He’s been running ads with interrogation footage<\/a> taken while McCain was a prisoner of war. He launched a “biographical tour,” during which McCain highlighted his family history<\/a>. He’s even run campaign videos spotlighting McCain’s experiences growing up<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Is Rove watching the same McCain as the rest of us?
\n
\nThe difference between this column and the one in April, however, was the suggestion that McCain should do more to share “his faith.” That’s not unreasonable advice, given that rank-and-file evangelicals aren’t exactly enamored with the McCain candidacy, and if his support doesn’t improve, his chances of winning will become even more remote.<\/p>\n

But there’s a catch. For one thing, by all appearances, McCain simply isn’t particularly religious. He could fake devout spirituality, but the faithful would almost certainly notice his insincerity.<\/p>\n

For another, if he does start to emphasize his faith, McCain may have to explain why he’s theologically incoherent.<\/p>\n

Long-time readers may recall that last year, McCain kinda sorta switched Protestant denominations<\/a>. In June 2007, McCain identified himself as an Episcopalian. By September 2007, he identified himself as a Baptist. Asked about the switch, McCain ultimately told reporters, \u201cI don\u2019t have anything else to say about the issue.\u201d He clearly made a denominational switch, but decided he doesn\u2019t want to talk about it. Why not?<\/p>\n

Even at the time, some in the faith community balked at McCain’s bizarre remarks<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I read that I said \u2018You gotta be kidding,\u2019 \u201d said David Jeffers, a lay preacher and author of \u201cUnderstanding Evangelicals: A Guide to Jesusland,\u201d who said by not being baptized by immersion, Mr. McCain is out of step with the church he attends in Arizona.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s your words, sir, that\u2019s why we\u2019re contending with it,\u201d he said, adding the issue is not whether Mr. McCain feels more comfortable as a Baptist. \u201cWe have a problem with you trying to say \u2018I\u2019m a Baptist\u2019 while you\u2019re in the middle of the heartland of Baptist country.\u201d<\/p>\n

Complicating Mr. McCain\u2019s explanation is the fact that, despite his church attendance, he never bothered to correct the record during the last 15 years in several authoritative sources, including the Almanac of American Politics and the newly released CQ\u2019s Politics in America 2008, both of which list him as Episcopalian.<\/p>\n

His campaign didn\u2019t return a message seeking comment yesterday.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Why doesn’t McCain take Rove’s advice and share “his faith”? Because it’s a subject he knows nothing about, and if he tried, he’d embarrass himself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Back in April, in a WSJ column, Karl Rove urged John McCain to be less reserved about his personal life and background, and run more on his biography. “[I]t is clear,” Rove wrote, “that Mr. McCain is one of the most private individuals to run for president in history.” Four months later, Rove recycled the […]<\/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-16510","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16510","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=16510"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16510\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16510"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16510"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16510"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}