The Left Goes After McCain – To His Benefit
Want to be sure of a McCain victory? Go on the attack early and often. That’s the message of this intriguing piece by John McIntyre of Real Clear Politics:
It’s amusing to watch the slow, yet inevitable shift in the media’s attitude toward their favorite GOP politician these past six years. You always knew that if McCain were to get the Republican nomination in 2008, all of his liberal media pals who had been singing his praises for years as a backdoor way to criticize President Bush and the GOP would find creative ways to suddenly portray McCain as a danger to the Republic.
What’s interesting is that this shift is occurring now in 2006 and is, ironically, strengthening McCain’s chances for the GOP nomination and actually lessening the chances of Democrats winning back the White House in 2008. It doesn’t matter what the state of the Bush Presidency may be two years from now, McCain will beat the overwhelming Democrat favorite, Senator Hillary Clinton, in just about every scenario. It’s possible a moderate like former Virginia Governor Mark Warner could beat McCain, but the bottom line is that any Democratic nominee is almost a certain loser to Senator McCain running as the GOP nominee. (A caveat to that rosy scenario for Republicans is a brutal nomination battle where McCain manages to capture the nomination but angers enough conservatives to give Democrats a window for victory)
Fully aware of McCain’s stratospheric appeal to independents and swing voters the left has begun its assault on the McCain image.
He’s got plenty of good examples, too, so read the whole thing…
Despite his flakiness with Bush, he is one of the few people I would entrust Iraq to.
If Iraq is not decided by that time, the press may as well practice shouting President McCain over helicopters. It will be an eight year term.(This is a guy who could go ‘eccentric’, at least more eccentric.
If the press starts to slow down on Iraq, and reports some of the good things that are happening, they might just have to make it appear less relevant to help the dem nominee’s chance- chance to break 40%, nationally. If Iraq in 91 was still in play, Bush 41 would have won, and Clinton would never have been. H’s mistake was winning one of the most sweeping total victories in the history of world conflict-(the guy never got enough credit for it).
Throw Liebermann and Grassley in with that ‘trusted’ list.
Agreed, McCain is just about the only politician to be trusted with getting Iraq done right and the US out the right way. Bush continues to leave Rumsfeld in command, which is a huge mistake.
And just to set the record straight it’s the liberal blogs who are turning on MccAin. They are turning on him because they believed the lies accussing McCain of being moderate to liberal. He’s conservative and always has been. We should be asking ourselves if the Republicans who voted for the Medicare Perscription Drug bill are true conservatives.
The Press in Iraq: Reporters cannot go out and report the good news (new schools, water treatment facilities, etc) because if they did the insurgents would simply blow the thing up. Which goes to the issue of security. Which (last time I checked) was Rumsfeld responsibilty and the last time I heard the President say something about Rumsfeld it was to tell the public what a fantasic job he’s doing.
I’ll give a small pass to the media…violence is what people want to know-and there is only so many minutes they can give it news about Iraq. They seem to be extremely guarded, fearing to be seen a cheerleader, but the cracks are forming in their ranks.
Ignatius was swayed by Ralph Peters, maybe a few more will stand up.
Rummy is a genius.
He was told that the troops just had to hold the fort til the UN, or at least NATO came to help. I really can’t blame him for his honesty-
“you go to war with the army you have.”
Our military is a third the size it was in 91. IF some one is out there, democrat or republican who is pushing for a REagan-like build up, I don’t see it.
Rummy ran Afghanistan, keeping our deployment to just 20,000 or less of our Spec Forces. Any other invasion would have been about 100,000, and it would have been twice the casualties, and 10 times the cost of Iraq for infrastructure and support.
Just curious, what do you blame Rummy for? (It is not unreasonable a sentiment, as a majority seem to hold it…just asking your beef.)