Death of McCain’s Campaign

Max Bergman, HuffPost

 
This is the week that should have effectively ended John McCain's efforts to
become the next president of the United States. But you wouldn't
know it if you watched any of the mainstream media outlets or followed
political reporting in the major newspapers.
During this past week: McCain called the most important entitlement program
in the U.S. a disgrace, his top economic adviser called the American people
whiners, McCain released an economic plan that no one thought was serious, he
flip flopped on Iraq, joked about the deaths of Iranian citizens, and denied
making comments that he clearly made -- TWICE. All this and it is not even
Friday! Yet watching and reading the mainstream press you would think McCain was
having a pretty decent political week, I mean at least Jesse Jackson didn't say
anything about him.
But let's unpack McCain's week in a little more detail.
1. McCain unambiguously called Social Security "an absolute
disgrace." This is not a quote taken out of context. John
McCain called one of the most successful and popular government programs, which
uses the tax revenues of current workers to support retirement benefits for the
elderly "an absolute disgrace." This is shocking - and if uttered
from Obama's mouth would dominate the news coverage and the Sunday shows, as
pundits would speculate about the massive damage the statement would cause him
among retirees in Florida.
2. McCain's top economic policy adviser calls Americans a bunch of "whiners" for being worried about the slumping economy. Words cannot fully
explain how devastating this statement should be from Phil Gramm. You would
think it would be enough to sink McCain's campaign. Of course McCain only
thinks that the economic problems are psychological.
3. Iraqi leaders call for a timetable for U.S. withdrawal, McCain
gets caught in a bizarre denial and flip flop. The Iraqis now want us
to begin planning our withdrawal - McCain however wants to stay
foooorrreeevvveerrrr. So what does McCain say - First, he refuses
to accept Maliki's statement as being true. Then he concedes that it was an
accurate statement, but was probably just a political
ploy to curry favor with his own people and WOULD NOT influence his
determination to keep US troops in Iraq indefinitely. Yet, McCain in
2004 at the Council on Foreign Relations said that if the
Iraqis asked us to leave, we would have to go. No matter what. But that was
apparently a younger and less experienced John McCain.
But let's just look at his comment that Maliki's statement is "just
politics." If that is true, then it must also be true that the American
military presence in Iraq
is so unpopular with Iraqis that the government is forced to push for a
timetable in order to survive at the ballot box. That's a reason to stay for
100 years.
4. McCain's economic plan to cut the deficit has no details and is
simply not believable. There are
so many things here. McCain pledges he would eliminate the deficit by the
end of his first term (the campaign latter flip flop flipped about whether it
was four years or eight years), but does not provide any details about
how he would do it. Economists on both sides of the political aisle said
that this was simply not believable, especially given McCain's other proposals
to a) cut individual and corporate taxes even further, b) extend the Bush tax
cuts and c) massively increase defense
spending on manpower (200,000 more troops) and d) maintain a long-term
sizable military presence in Iraq.

5. McCain's deficit plan includes bringing the troops home represents a
major Iraq
flip-flop. Speaking of the long-term military presence - a story
that has gotten absolutely no attention is that McCain now believes the war
will be over soon. The economic forecasts made by his crack team of economists
predict that there will be significant
savings during McCain's first term because we will have achieved
"victory" in Iraq
and Afghanistan.
The savings from victory (ie the savings from not having our troops there) will
then be used to pay down the deficit. The only way this could have any
impact on the deficit in McCain's first time is if troop withdrawals start very
soon. So McCain believes victory is in our grasps and we can begin
withdraw troops from Iraq
pretty much right away -- doesn't sound that different from Obama's plan does
it. Someone should at least ask McCain HOW HE DEFINES VICTORY - and why he
thinks we will achieve it in the next couple of years.
6. McCain campaign misled about economists support. In the
major press release the McCain campaign issued to tout its Jobs for America
economic plan that would balance the budget in 4 years, it included the
signatures of more than 300 economists who the campaign claimed to support the
plan. Only problem is that the economists were actually asked to sign up to
SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT. Um, hello?
7. McCain makes a joke about killing
Iranians. Haha... that's just McCain being McCain. I am sure that
is exactly how it is being reported in Tehran.
This guy is running for President not to become a talk radio pundit. Yet
according to the AP
this was just a humanizing moment between candidate and spouse - I am not
sure when joking about the deaths of civilians became humanizing.
8. McCain denies, flatly, that he ever said that he is not an expert in economics. Are
you kidding?

9). McCain distorts his record on veterans benefits
in response to a question from Vietnam
Veteran, who then proceeds to call McCain out on it.

 
10.) McCain demonstrates he knows nothing about Afghanistan and Pakistan. McCain said
"I think if there is some good news, I think that there is a glimmer
of improving relationship between Karzai and the Pakistanis." Pat
Barry notes how crazy this
comment is..."Just what "glimmer" is McCain talking about??
Maybe he's referring to President Karzai's remarks last month, which threatened
military action in Pakistan
if cross-border attacks persisted? Or maybe McCain is talking about Afghanistan's allegations that Pakistan's ISI
was involved in a recent assassination attempt on Karzai? Maybe in McCain's
world you could call that a silver-lining, but in reality-land I'd call it
something else."
Any one of these incidents and comments would dominate the news cycle if
they came from the Obama campaign. Yet McCain barely gets a mention. The press
like to see themselves as political referees - neutral observers that call them
like they see em'. But they want this to be a horse race and so all the calls
right now are going one way. How else can you explain the furor last week over
the Obama "refine" comment - which represented zero
change in Obama's position on Iraq - and the "swift boat" mania over
Wesley Clark's uncontroversial comments (psss... by the way McCain exploits his
POW experience in just about every ad - yet he says he doesn't like to talk
about it).
This Sunday expect the ten incidents above to get short shrift from pundit
after pundit, because after all Jesse Jackson said he wanted to cut Obama's
nuts off.

Note: The leadership knows McCain can't win. A fair election
could end the Republicans as a party.

Since there is nothing to prevent the administration from
opening a preemptive war against Iran, Mr Bush can declare Martial
Law and suspend the elections.