Advice for the McCain Campaign
By mw | Related entries in 2008 Election, Barack, Iraq, McCain, NewsConventional Wisdom is that Iraqi government statements about a time horizon for our withdrawal from Iraq is a big plus for Obama and a big negative for McCain. It might be true, but it does not have to be that way. Since the McCain campaign is seemingly unable to get out of their own way, I offer this simple three step plan for McCain to retake the political initiative on Iraq.
First, the campaign should realize that Maliki has served up on a silver platter a perfect opportunity for McCain to undercut Obama’s support among independent voters. Whether McCain chooses to partake of this opportunity is another matter altogether.
Maliki and the Iraqi government are behaving like the independent sovereign government we hoped they would become and are clearly stating they are ready for us to leave. McCain can take advantage of this by following this simple 3 step process:
Step 1- McCain must strongly embrace the Iraqi government position on American withdrawal. I don’t mean grudging acknowledgment. I mean a big bear hug embrace. This does not mean any change of position for McCain. All he has to do is say exactly, word for word, what he said in 2004:
Question: “What would or should we do if, in the post-June 30th period, a so-called sovereign Iraqi government asks us to leave, even if we are unhappy about the security situation there?â€
McCain: “Well, if that scenario evolves than I think it’s obvious that we would have to leave because — if it was an elected government of Iraq, and we’ve been asked to leave other places in the world. If it were an extremist government then I think we would have other challenges, but I don’t see how we could stay when our whole emphasis and policy has been based on turning the Iraqi government over to the Iraqi people.â€
Step 2 – McCain should continue to point out that if the Iraq government is ready for us to leave, to a large degree it means that the surge worked. McCain can and has and should continue to state that he was right and Obama was wrong on the surge strategy and pound that point over and over. He can legitimately say that it was his aggressive support for the surge strategy that created the path out of the quagmire. He can even use this construct from his rejected NYT Op-Ed piece:
“Progress has been due primarily to an increase in the number of troops and a change in their strategy. I was an early advocate of the surge at a time when it had few supporters in Washington. Senator Barack Obama was an equally vocal opponent. “I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq is going to solve the sectarian violence there,†he said on January 10, 2007. “In fact, I think it will do the reverse.” Now Senator Obama has been forced to acknowledge that “our troops have performed brilliantly in lowering the level of violence.†But he still denies that any political progress has resulted…”
Then add this one sentence:
The success of the surge in creating room for political progress in now undeniable – even for Senator Obama. The elected Iraqi Government has stated that they are ready to stand on their own. My friends, our job in Iraq is done. We have victory.
Step 3 – After embracing the Iraqi government 2010 timeframe, McCain should leave himself the exact same wiggle room that Obama uses – by holding out the possibility that the pace of the draw-down can and will be “refined” by evolving conditions on the ground.
This would do so many good things for McCain’s campaign. It would render moot Obama’s single strongest issue against McCain. It puts McCain on the same side as the majority of American voters. It creates space between McCain and Bush. It makes it easy for independents, moderates, and libertarians to vote for McCain on the basis of maintaining the checks and balances of divided government.
Finally, this is just the right thing to do and the way for McCain to finally get on the right side of history. Our military leadership want a draw down in Iraq, because we need to rebuild our forces and reinforce Afghanistan. The majority of Americans think it was a mistake and want out, because we cannot afford to maintain this level of military presence in Iraq. And now the Iraqi government want us out by the end of 2010, because they want their country back. It is inevitable that we will be mostly out of a combat role in Iraq in this 2010 timeframe.
Maliki’s comments reinforce that there is no practical difference on what our military posture will look like in Iraq by the end of 2010 regardless of who is elected president. With that realization Obama loses his biggest advantage in November, and we can potentially avoid the disaster of single party Democratic government with expanded and potentially filibuster proof Democratic majorities.
Many independent voters find the prospect of the largest concentration of single party power since FDR to be disquieting – to say the least. I am among them. There is ample reason to be concerned about what might emerge out of the very real possibility of a 100 vote Democratic party majority in the House of Representatives, a 60-40 filibuster-proof Democratic Party plurality in the Senate, all “led” by a 95% toe-the-party-line voting record Barack Obama as President.
Net net. As an independent voter I get my cake and eat it too. I can vote to limit the concentration of single party power in Washington, and get also get a quicker or at least an equivalent draw down in Iraq by supporting McCain. It’s all good.
Will McCain start moving more aggressively in this direction? I don’t know. But he should. After all, It is exactly what this administration said we wanted all along…
“When the Iraqis stand up, we stand down.”
The Iraqi government is standing up.
Time to stand down.
X-posted from “Divided We Stand United We Fall“
This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 22nd, 2008 and is filed under 2008 Election, Barack, Iraq, McCain, News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
July 22nd, 2008 at 12:24 pm
Central to this analysis is the assumption that there are hordes of voters out there whose biggest issue is divided government, which I just don’t buy. Frankly, you’re the only one I’ve ever heard propose it.
I think the more likely outcome of this strategy for McCain would be that (with both candidates identical on future iraq strategy) voters would decide based on the economy or health care (which are the other big issues of the day). I think McCain loses on those issues.
July 22nd, 2008 at 12:33 pm
@mdg
No. Not hordes. About 5-6%. If interested you can get find some others thinking about this in the series linked here.
July 22nd, 2008 at 12:56 pm
I doubt .5% of voters care about divided government.
I think you’re giving McCain sound advice, but he’s screwed either way. He had 1 1/2 campaign issues: Iraq and Offshore drilling. He just lost Iraq as an issue. It’s not coming back. Which means he’s got drilling.
Obama has the economy, health care and his message of “hope.” Who do you think wins that fight?
July 22nd, 2008 at 2:33 pm
How does Obama suddenly have “the economy?” He’s pushing for fiscal policy that’s been proven multiple times to reduce federal revenue. It will be interesting to see in November the extent to which we’ve become sheepishly enthralled by media, rhetoric and marketing.
July 22nd, 2008 at 5:22 pm
Hmmm. Looks like I need to threadjack my own post. What Michael says may be true in a literal sense, but that does not really speak to my point. This is in part my fault and an artifact of the the way I use the term.
Divided government is, of course, not an end goal in and of itself, but a means to an end. Because I do write about it so much, I tend to use the words “divided government” as a kind of shorthand, standing in for the benefits we historically get in a divided government state. Specifically, historical political scholarship shows those benefits to be restrained growth in spending, more oversight, more fiscal responsibility, and (arguably) more carefully considered legislation and fewer wars. It also is a way of avoiding the worst of the rampant corruption and abuse of power that we always get with single party control, regardless of party. Now I’ll suggest those are all things that people do care about. To the degree that people connect divided government as a means to achieve those ends, people will care about divided government. Those are certainly things I care about, hence my quixotic obsession.
That said, the “divided government” vote is a vote on the margin. In a landslide it gets swamped, but in a close election (like many races in 2006), it can be determinative. I expect interest in the divided government meme to ramp in the last two months before the election, much as it did in 2006. Consider this screenshot of a graph comparing blog posts mentioning “divided government” and “unity08″ for the six months prior to the mid-terms. With no money or organized effort, “divided government” was getting as much attention as the richly funded, professionally staffed, P.R. driven Unity08 at its peak, when it was first announced with much fanfare in June 2006. In part the interest at the end is fueled by the party that benefits from its promotion. In 2006, Dems promoted it and Reps dismissed it. In 2008 Dems are dismissive and Reps are supportive. Surprise.
I could go on, break down the electorate, and quantify the size of the voting block that will consider the meme in casting their vote, but I better save something for a future post.
July 23rd, 2008 at 3:17 am
Gaffes Happen has become the official teeshirt of the McCain campaign and they may come to regret ‘whining’ for more news coverage.
Politicians put their foot in their mouth on a regular basis. Sometimes it may be the result of long hours on the campaign trail, sometimes because they simply can’t keep their facts straight and sometimes because they can’t keep their lies straight. Sometimes it’s simply because they do not understand the facts.
Couric/McCain Interview:
http://www.cbsnews.com/sections/i_video/main500251.shtml?id=4284432n%22%20rel=%22nofollow%22%3E
Per President Bush and Col. MacFarland, the Anbar awakening was already well under way through organized efforts by the tribal leaders well before the surge began. These events took place months before the surge was even announced. Per McCain, the surge ‘began’ the Anbar awakening.
http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/transcript.aspx?transcriptid=3738
McCain also neglects the fact that although the surge helped to support an awakening already in progress, the new troops headed for Baghdad, not Anbar. He also gives little credit to the ongoing Sadr truce.
The Couric interview gets even more interesting as McCain tries to distance himself from the numerous failed Iraq policies under the Bush administration:
“McCain: The fact is we had four years of failed policy. We were losing. We were losing the war in Iraq. The consequences of failure and defeat of the United States of America in the first major conflict since 9/11 would have had devastating impacts throughout the region and the world.â€
Why would McCain support a president responsible for four years of failure?
“no one has supported President Bush on Iraq more than I have.†[John McCain, 03/28/08)
“The fact is that I have agreed with President Bush far more than I have disagreed. And on the transcendent issues, the most important issues of our day, I’ve been totally in agreement and support of President Bush.†[John McCain, 06/19/05]
“I am proud of this president’s strategy in Iraq.†[John McCain, upon receiving endorsement from President Bush, 02/13/08]
Gaffes and old quotes are a living history of our thought processes, how well we think, what we think and when we think it. Even Carly can’t change that fact:
“To say that John McCain was aligned with President Bush on the prosecution of the war in Iraq is to change history.†[Carly Fiorina, McCain Campaign Advisor, 07/13/08]
The McCain campaign should be thankful the media has let them slide on many major issues, such as his voting record on veteran health issues and successful effort to shut down all investigation into remaining POW/MIA over the protests of their families and veteran groups in order to open up trade with Vietnam (his father-in-law immediately opened up a multi-billion dollar beer industry there).
http://www.aiipowmia.com/sea/schanberg_mccain.html
McCain has been given no media coverage on the very real probability he suffers from PTSD.
“Among U.S. servicemen taken captive during the Korean War, as many as nine out of 10 survivors may suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and other mental disorders more than 35 years after their release, psychologist Patricia B. Sutker of the New Orleans Veterans Administration Medical Center and her colleagues report in the January AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PSYCHIATRY.â€
My advice for McCain:
Perhaps he should not look a gift horse in the mouth.
July 26th, 2008 at 12:59 am
John! – Remember that “Iraq stands up, we stand down” bit?…
John McCain wisely decided to take my advice today. “During a Friday interview with CNN, McCain called a 16-month withdrawal from Iraq “a pretty good timetable.”
X-posted at Donklephant….
July 26th, 2008 at 12:11 pm
[...] he reads Donklephant. Who knew? Or perhaps my advice was just so obvious that even the McCain campaign could figure it [...]