Why McCain Will Lose

When Howard Wolfson analyzes the ruins of the McCain train wreck, it should be noted that the train has not in fact, crashed... yet.

Wolfson would love to be the biographer of the failed opposition, and in three weeks he will have that privilege, because in fact, he has attacked both McCain and Obama, and one of them will lose on November 4. (As a Hillarian, Wolfson considers both of these men the opposition.)

If McCain loses, there are several watertight rationales:

10) Obama Played Him Like A Chump On Financing

John McCain has no business receiving public financing for the campaign. TV advertising costs big money and Republicans have a lot of it. Unfortunately, Barack Obama pledged public financing and didn't keep his pledge. More unfortunately, McCain pledged public financing and he kept his pledge. Now, Obama leads McCain in TV spending by 3-1. You'd think that McCain would have learned how to operate in the wake of McCain-Feingold, but McCain dropped the ball on getting money for his campaign.

9) Wouldn't Cry Foul

Instead of cocaine, Obama is now addicted to power and he keeps hitting foul balls (ACORN, shady overseas contributions, whackjob associations, Soros, Rezko, and total lies in the paid media and the friendly media.) McCain could have aggressively confronted Obama but he did not.

8) The Lame Campaign

McCain's ratcheted tenor sucks, especially compared to Obama's smooth bass. The "Straight Talk Express?" Oh, give me a break. That woman narrator on the TV ads sounds stilted. The stump speech is boring. Until Sarah Palin was chosen for VP, America was asleep, and we're starting to nod off again. When people get excited about the candidate and think the candidate will win, they start giving. Right now McCain is the underdog, which is where he has been during most of the time he has been running for President.

7) Equivalences And Smear Wars

When McCain started to say ACORN, Obama's folks pointed to the 2006 photo of an ACORN event McCain attended. When Palin mentioned Rezko, Obamatites reached back to the 1980s and found the Keating Five. When conservatives mention the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, Obamatites link McCain to John Hagee. The O-B-C-Y-A campaign has always come up with a way to equivocate Obama's mountains of shame with McCain's molehills - in between bombing
McCain with the "smear campaign" charge.

6) He Didn't Treat It Like A Race

I've seen John McCain in a number of venues but the McCain that annoys me the most is the one who is too busy complimenting Obama to attack him. McCain believes in a principled debate, and maybe he has a background of principled opponents. The Viet Cong were not principled and neither is Obama. McCain should always lash out at this enemy with every limb.

5) Legislative Failures

McCain "suspended" his campaign to attend to the bailout bill, and didn't get any boost in so doing because he didn't sell the idea that the original bill was crap and the revised bill had the protections we needed. He didn't even sell the notion that the Democrats created the housing crisis in the beginning. Another thing that really gets my goat is, much of the really lousy legislation of the last 20 years has the name "McCain" on it at the top. McCain-Feingold, McCain-Kennedy, and McCain-Lieberman are all bad pieces of work, and two of those lemons are law now.

4) Republicans Aren't "Mavericks"

When you get right down to it, Republicans are the establishment in this country and not the anti-establishment. Democrats riot, rumble, and rage. Republicans have to go to work. We don't want to go across the aisle. We want to win. We don't want hope and change. We want low taxes and less government. For many years, Republicans have seen McCain loved by the popular prints as the moderate Republican defector.

3) Just Plain Too Old

Reagan wasn't balding, wasn't graying, and was still riding horses and chopping wood as he sought the Presidency. John McCain is an old man who looks and acts his age, and the statistical odds do not favor eight (or four) years in the Oval Office. McCain's good shot at the Presidency was in 1996 or 2000, not now.

2) Didn't Want It Enough

Obama is aggressive, assertive, and vulnerable. McCain didn't effectively rebut Obama's charges of "third Bush term" or "tax cuts for wealthy," and they stuck. Obama is very vulnerable in 2008 because politically, he's just a kid. No governorship, no leadership, just a sound follower to the most left-wing elements in a party headed by no-goodniks and 1960s hippies. For McCain, life goes on after November 4 and it's "business as usual" on November 5. At least Bob Dole wanted it enough to quit the Senate when he was the Majority Leader.

1) Not Conservative Enough

John McCain believes in the sanctity of human life, and this is a fine thing. Other than that, McCain has been dragged kicking and screaming away from the open-borders position; he didn't support the Bush tax plan; and although he did choose a conservative VP, rumors that he would pick a left-winger like Lieberman had weight because, well, we all wondered that he just might. Bob Dole was not a conservative but tried to play one for six months, and never really pulled off the trick; ditto McCain.