TIME: McCain's 7 Steps to Beating Obama

[Erin Elizabeth]

Don't know if this has been posted yet, it's a new article and I looked around and didn't see it. What I found most interesting about this is how Clinton and her surrogates have already been doing some of these things. I put three here, the rest is at the link:

http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1739251,00.html?imw=Y

1. Paint Obama as a False Messiah
The big debut for this message came on the night of the Virginia and Maryland primaries. Mike Huckabee was still in the race, but the McCain campaign wanted to pivot towards the general election. So at an Alexandria Holiday Inn, McCain offered these words: "I do not seek the presidency on the presumption that I am blessed with such personal greatness that history has anointed me to save my country in its hour of need." The code was not hard to break. McCain was calling out Obama as an unfulfilled prophet, built up on lofty rhetoric and personal charisma. McCain's advisors have been hammering the theme ever since, privately speaking skeptically of Obama's big crowds and "Yes We Can" ritual chants. "The lofty rhetoric," said Steve Schmidt, McCain's message man, on a recent flight. "It's nonsense." This will not let up. McCain's campaign calculates that it must put a dent in Obama's powerful aura to keep a Republican in the White House.

4. Claim the High Road Without Leaving the Low Road
Almost every day, McCain finds a reason to say that he wants to run "a respectful campaign." Given the mudslinging that is widely expected from all sides, this is a tenuous proposition. In the final days of the Republican primary, McCain came out hard against Mitt Romney, accusing him of saying that he wanted to set a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq, even though Romney had not endorsed such a move. More recently, McCain has not shown that he is willing to lay off hardball politics. He has repeatedly brought up the fact that a Hamas spokesman said positive things about Obama, even though Obama did not reciprocate the compliments. McCain has also tried to tar Obama by his relationship with William Ayers, a once violent anti-Vietnam War activist, by demanding that Obama call on Ayers to apologize for his actions. (Obama has shot projectiles at McCain as well, misquoting McCain's willingness to have American troops in Iraq for "100 years.") The real message behind McCain's call for "a respectful campaign" appears more narrow: As the political debate disintegrates, which is all but inevitable, McCain wants to be seen as a fighter who can float above the fray.

6. Make Inroads Among Traditional Democratic Voters
These days Republicans love to talk about the larger crossover vote that McCain wins in the early and unreliable general-match up polls. In one Pew poll from late February, as many as 14 percent of Democrats say they will vote for McCain, compared to eight percent of Republicans who say they will vote for Obama. With so many months before the election, these numbers are not very meaningful. But they point to a key goal of the McCain campaign: upset the traditional partisan divide with a new generation of McCain-o-Crats. This is a defensive strategy as much as an offensive one, given the nine-point advantage that Democrats have in party identification nation wide. (According to another recent Pew poll, only 36 percent of registered voters identify themselves as Democrats and 27 percent as Republicans, the lowest GOP number in at least 16 years.) Campaign staff say they see hope in Obama's recent trouble shoring up the Democratic base of working class voters.

Edited to add: I think as Democrats we need to be focused on this, rather than the irrelevant Hillary. I know she continues to attack, and that's a damn shame. But McCain needs to be watched, too.

[Triana]

1. "Obama's recent trouble shoring up the Democratic base of working class voters" eh?

Democrats have NEVER done well with the "bubba" vote. BILL CLINTON himself didn't in 1992 and 1996.

This isn't an OBAMA problem. It's a Democrat problem. ALWAYS HAS BEEN.

I'm SICK of the lamestream media and Hillary painting it as an Obama issue. IT ISN'T!

"...it should be noted that Bill Clinton never won the white vote in a presidential election, receiving less white votes in 1992 than George Bush Sr. and less white votes in 1996 than Bob Dole, with only 39% of the white vote in both elections. As a matter of fact, the last time a Democratic candidate for President won the white vote was 1964, 44 years ago. Has any Democrat ever complained that Bill Clinton’s failure to carry the white vote made him “unelectable”?

LINK to the DEBUNKING info right here on DU:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=5930533&mesg_id=5930533

[Erin Elizabeth]

2. Good point, Triana. I noticed that, too.

But of course they'll try to paint it as an Obama problem. One of the other seven things I didn't list mentioned how McCain is going to use the media and I think your point addresses that, too.

[rurallib]

4. Isn't that the "what's th matter with Kansas?" group?

People who vote against their own interests and for things like faith and hating gays?

[FSogol]

3. The GOP is incapable of doing #4. n/t