McCain Forges Ahead in Final Week
TOOLBOX Save/Share + COMMENT
|
| |||
|
||  Comments | ||||
| Polls show McCain not making up ground in Ohio (0) | 2008.10.29 |
|---|---|
| Obama Campaigns in Final Days Before Election (0) | 2008.10.29 |
| Poll Gives Obama 8-Point Va. Lead (0) | 2008.10.27 |
| Campaign Finance Gets New Scrutiny (0) | 2008.10.26 |
| Obama Has Burst in Ad Spending in Early October (0) | 2008.10.26 |
McCain's advisers acknowledge that his way back is difficult, but they maintain that there is a way. It requires a combination of smart campaigning, traction for his arguments and what the McCain team hopes will be fears among the electorate at the prospect of a Democrat in the White House with expanded Democratic majorities in Congress.
McCain plans in the closing days to focus on taxes and spending, national security, and what one adviser called "the perils of an Obama presidency with no checks and balances."
The campaign will point to congressional Democrats' claims about the agenda they plan in the new Congress, Obama's "spread the wealth" remark to "Joe the Plumber" and Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr.'s comment that his running mate would be tested internationally early in his presidency.
"We will focus like a laser on those messages in the closing days," said the McCain adviser, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to talk about strategy.
McCain's team dismisses the most dire polls -- those showing the race nationally with a double-digit lead for Obama. Advisers believe the contest's margin is in the five-to-seven-point range, about the same deficit, they say, that then-Vice President Al Gore faced at this time eight years ago against then-Gov. George W. Bush. (A Washington Post poll at the same point in the 2000 race showed a tie.)
In the advisers' analysis, the margin narrows or widens based on events. The uproar over Obama's comment to plumber Joe Wurzelbacher tightened polls, they said, and the endorsement of Obama by former secretary of state Colin L. Powell widened them. But their bet is that things will settle quickly, and then they will attempt to move the margin steadily toward the too-close-to-call range heading into Election Day, Nov. 4.
Still, the McCain team has no illusions about the situation, knowing that the environment is extraordinarily difficult for a Republican.
The depth of their challenge was made plain yesterday by eight surveys produced by the Big Ten Battleground Poll. Obama not only leads in all eight Midwestern states by hefty margins but has improved his standing since the last time the group surveyed these states.
The numbers are startling. Obama leads by 12 points in Ohio, 11 in Pennsylvania and 13 in Wisconsin. In Michigan, where McCain's campaign has pulled out, Obama's lead is 22 points. In Indiana, a strong red state, his lead is 10 points, larger than in other recent polls.
Quinnipiac University also released polls yesterday from Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida that show Obama leading in all three. In these surveys, his lead in Pennsylvania is 13 points. In Ohio, which is a must-win for McCain, Obama's lead is 14 points.
The one bright spot for McCain, if you can call it that, is Florida, where his opponent's lead is just five points and slightly narrower than it was the last time Quinnipiac surveyed the state. But that's not really a cause for celebration: McCain can't afford to lose Florida any more than he can afford a loss in Ohio.
| Obama Has Burst in Ad Spending in Early October (0) | 2008.10.26 |
|---|---|
| McCain ad uses Biden to attack Obama on security (0) | 2008.10.25 |
| Political robocalls flood phone lines (0) | 2008.10.24 |
| “Obama T-Shirts, Tees, and Change You Can Wear” (1) | 2008.10.24 |
| McCain Tries to Push Past Palin Backlash (1) | 2008.10.24 |
Jill Biden still teaches Monday through Thursday back in Delaware in the frantic last days of the presidential campaign.
Her students may know who she is, or they may not. She tends to think not. They are busy people, community college students, many of them holding down jobs and raising kids while they put themselves through school. And if they've Googled her and figured out who she is, they've mostly been too polite to say. When asked if she is Joe Biden's wife, Jill always has told her students she is his "relative," and let the question drop there. She is their English instructor, and that's the most important thing.
Of course, the Secret Service has made it slightly more difficult to remain undercover. The officer dresses down, but still.
The other day "one of the students in my 10 o'clock composition class said to me, 'Hey, Dr. B, can I ask you something personal?' And I said, 'Yeah, long as it's not my age.' "
Jill Biden, 57, is leaning forward in a hotel room chair here, her glasses dangling from one hand. She exaggerates her Philadelphia suburbs accent, which is already pretty strong. "He said: 'You know every morning I come in here, there's a guy with an earpiece in his ear. What's that all about?' I said, 'I don't know,' " Biden says, widening her eyes and raising her arms in an expression of true (fake) wonder.
On the campaign trail, it's the opposite. There, many people don't know her except
as Joe Biden's wife, the woman who will be second lady if Barack Obama
wins the presidency. They see a wife who is not the most polished
political performer, reading carefully from her speeches and talking
through applause. They may not know she's been teaching for 27 years,
or that she earned her education doctorate just last year, or that she
graded three essays on the way to this event. They don't know that last
week she came home from a Pathmark grocery store and told her daughter,
"People are comin' up to me I don't even know" -- and that her daughter
had to remind her, as if patiently instructing an elementary school
student, that yeah, Mom, that's what happens when you appear on
national TV.
Strangers sometimes act as if they know her, and in a way, maybe they do. She seems real. And familiar. At one stop, while Biden is working the room, a woman reaches out to pull a loose blond hair from the back of her black sweater dress. The Secret Service agent makes a please-don't-bother face, but the woman shrugs and persists, gently snagging the hair without Biden noticing. "Dr. Biden doesn't wanna have a loose hair hangin'," she explains.
Here in Excelsior Springs, at a luncheon for the Clay County Democrats, Biden makes a speech and then works a rope line, where she is buttonholed by a woman in her early 50s who is crying. The woman wants to thank Joe Biden for writing the breakthrough Violence Against Women Act, which became law in 1994. If that law had been on the books when she was a teenager, the woman tells Jill, "my sister would still be alive." Jill hugs the woman and says that she will tell Joe, and then she reaches out and peels off the adhesive name tag the woman is wearing. She lifts the bottom of her suit jacket, exposing a white blouse, and presses the name tag against her abdomen . ("So that I could write her a note," she explains later. "So I wouldn't lose it.")
The woman, Diane Simonds-Carrell, a former legal secretary now on disability, sits back down at her table. Tears are still running down her face. "Finally I got heard by somebody who counted," she'll say later.
She sees Biden afterward in the lobby and gets her autograph. Biden writes, "To Diane: Things will get better, I promise."
| “Obama T-Shirts, Tees, and Change You Can Wear” (1) | 2008.10.24 |
|---|---|
| McCain Tries to Push Past Palin Backlash (1) | 2008.10.24 |
| Obama Poised to Help 10 White Democrats (0) | 2008.10.22 |
| Is McCain Coming Back? (0) | 2008.10.21 |
| Obama reaction to powel. (0) | 2008.10.20 |
It belonged to Larry Kissell, a Democratic candidate for Congress, and Miller was eager to tell him why, at 49, he is quietly panicked.
He showed up for work one day at Alandale Knitting to find the factory doors locked. He got a job mixing mud at a tile factory, but it relocated to Mexico. He moved 100 miles to work in a meatpacking plant but injured his back lifting an 80-pound vat of scraps.
"The jobs are just disappearing overnight," Miller said. "Something's got to change." That's why he is voting for Barack Obama, and why he will scroll down the ballot to mark Kissell's name, too.
It was Kissell's fourth trip to the church, and he prays that African Americans turning out in unprecedented numbers for Obama will push him across the finish line as well.
Kissell is one of at least 10 white Democrats in white-hot competitive U.S. House races who are counting on a surge of black voters to carry them into office. Most are challenging incumbent Republicans, and they are central to Democratic hopes of picking up as many as 25 additional seats, strengthening the party's control of the House.
Many of these races are in Southern states where African Americans make up a sizable minority. But the dynamic is also at play in such states as Maryland, Ohio and Connecticut.
As many as 70 percent of voting-age African Americans could cast ballots on Election Day, said David Bositis of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, who studies black voter patterns. That number would far exceed the 56 percent who voted in 2004 and bust the record for black participation set in the 1968 election.
There is a certain irony in the pivotal role that blacks could play in congressional elections, given how some of the districts were drawn, Bositis said. "When these districts were designed, certain assumptions were made about what black turnout would be so that the district would pretty much favor Republicans," Bositis said. "Now, all of a sudden, you have an election . . . where African Americans are enormously excited and mobilized. Not only that, you have the Obama campaign going out of its way to make sure these voters are registered and are going to turn out."
Add the dampened mood among Republicans and the situation "has the potential of putting the Democratic candidates over the top," Bositis added.
A hint of how Obama might affect congressional races came during a special election in Mississippi this spring. In the contest to fill a vacancy in the 1st Congressional District, Republicans tried to link Democrat Travis Childers, who is white, to Obama, as a way to turn off white voters in the conservative district. Instead, black turnout doubled in the two counties with the largest African American populations and Childers won.
Hundreds of miles north, black voters are playing a decisive role in Connecticut's 4th Congressional District, home to the manicured estates of Greenwich and Darien. Republican incumbent Christopher Shays is fighting a vigorous challenge by Democrat Jim Himes, an investment banker-turned-social entrepreneur.
| McCain Tries to Push Past Palin Backlash (1) | 2008.10.24 |
|---|---|
| Campign Curriculum (0) | 2008.10.24 |
| Is McCain Coming Back? (0) | 2008.10.21 |
| Obama reaction to powel. (0) | 2008.10.20 |
| Funniest campaign ever? (0) | 2008.10.20 |
Eight years later, this time running as the Republican presidential nominee, the senator from Arizona is again criticizing Bush and his financial policies, as he renews his efforts to demonstrate that he would represent a departure from the current administration.
At virtually every campaign stop, McCain is reprising a line he used last Wednesday in his final debate with Sen. Barack Obama: "I am not George Bush." And in a television ad introduced last week, McCain looks into the camera and says, "The last eight years haven't worked very well, have they?"
As he struggles to pull his campaign out from beneath the shadow of a president whose approval ratings have reached historic lows, McCain is offering some of his toughest criticism of the Bush White House. In recent weeks, he has focused his message on the administration's handling of the nation's financial crisis, suggesting that the Treasury Department has been more interested in "bailing out the banks" than helping struggling homeowners avoid foreclosure.
"I am so disturbed that this administration has not done what we
have to do, and that is to go out and buy up these bad mortgages,"
McCain told Jewish leaders in a conference call Sunday morning.
The new rhetoric has drawn roars of applause at some campaign stops and represents a tacit acknowledgment that McCain has not distanced himself sufficiently from the administration in his bid. One senior adviser said the campaign had to do something to counteract the Obama operation's decision to spend "tens of millions of dollars pushing" the idea that McCain is a virtual clone of Bush. "The majority of the swing voters don't believe it, but some do, and we have to convince them that we are different from Bush," said this adviser, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss campaign strategy.
Bush is hardly the only problem for McCain as he struggles to close a gap with Obama. Voters perceive Obama as better prepared to handle the economic crisis, the GOP brand has been severely tarnished in recent years, and McCain is at a huge financial disadvantage.
But with the Republican president's approval ratings languishing, the perceived connection with him is a significant drag on the party's nominee. Nearly half of all voters in a new Washington Post-ABC News poll said McCain would mainly carry on Bush's policies, and among those who would consider a McCain presidency as a continuation of the current administration, 90 percent support Obama. And the prized independent voters who link McCain and Bush also overwhelmingly tilt toward the Democrat.
McCain has made progress in distancing himself from the president. Among independents, 54 percent now see the senator as offering a new direction, up from 44 percent before the third presidential debate, where he introduced his new language on Bush.
Among all likely voters, the percentage associating McCain with Bush is less than 50 percent for the first time, albeit barely, at 49 percent. Forty-eight percent said McCain would mainly continue to lead in Bush's footsteps.
A senior Republican close to the campaign said internal GOP polling underscores those findings.
"It's night and day," the source said. "You have somebody whose public approval is in the 20s. There's just not a 'there' there anymore in terms of residual support."
| Will Microsoft Buy Research in Motion? (0) | 2008.10.22 |
|---|---|
| The Coming Pink Slip Epidemic (0) | 2008.10.22 |
| Fed to Lend Up to $540B to Backstop Money Market Mutual Funds (0) | 2008.10.21 |
| The Wildest Ride (0) | 2008.10.21 |
| Bush: Americans' Economic Attitudes Shifting (0) | 2008.10.21 |
Does recent polling suggest a McCain comeback at the right time or something else? Photo by Ricky Carioti -- The Washington Post
Does recent polling suggest a McCain comeback at the right time or something else? Photo by Ricky Carioti -- The Washington Post
Amid the wall-to-wall coverage of Barack Obama's $150 million fundraising take in September and the endorsement of the Illinois senator on Sunday by former Secretary of State Colin Powell, the campaign of his Republican opponent -- John McCain -- believes the media is missing one critical thing: the Arizona senator is making up ground.
McCain advisers insist that since last Wednesday's final debate in New York, their candidate has slowly but surely cut into Obama's edge -- carving a double-digit lead down to the mid-single digits in both national polling and surveys conducted in key battleground states.
While the final debate was widely cast by the media -- and by a series of instant reaction polls -- as a win for Obama, McCain's senior strategy team argues that it was, in fact, a critical turning point in their favor in the contest.
"That debate injected taxes, ideological difference and abortion" into the dialogue, said a McCain operative granted anonymity to speak candidly about strategic matters.
The result, according to the source, was significant gains for McCain among white men -- those with and without a college degree -- as well as with "soft" Republicans (a term to describe voters with only a loose party affiliation) and voters who consider life issues as central to their vote for president.
The bump-up in support from white men -- an absolutely critical demographic for McCain if he hopes to come from behind -- also explains the relentless focus on "Joe the Plumber" a.k.a. Joe Wurzelbacher, a man made famous by his confrontation with Obama last week.
Don't trust the McCain internal poll numbers? Look to a series of tracking surveys over the last week, the campaign argues.
Among the surveys they cite:
• An Oct. 19 Gallup tracking poll that shows Obama leading McCain 49 percent to 46 percent according to a "traditional likely voter model" it has employed for past elections which, Gallup's Web site explains, "factors in prior voting behavior as well as current voting intention." It's worth noting that among registered voters in the Gallup survey, Obama held a 10-point edge, and in the other (broader) likely voter model presented by Gallup the Illinois senator led 51 percent to 44 percent.
• A Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby tracking poll that on Oct. 11 showed Obama ahead 49 percent to 43 percent and, one week later, had Obama's lead at narrower 48 percent to 45 percent. Zogby, a favorite of Matt Drudge, is looked at somewhat more skeptically by some within the polling establishment.
• A poll jointly conducted by Celinda Lake, a Democratic pollster, and Ed Goeas, a Republican pollster, for George Washington University that had Obama at 49 percent and McCain at 45 percent. That survey was in the field Oct. 12 to Oct. 16, however, meaning that only one day of polling for it was conducted after the Oct. 15 debate at Hofstra University.
• A CNN/Opinion Research survey out today has Obama at 51 percent and McCain at 46 percent.
Convinced? Is it possible that the McCain comeback is happening right under our noses and is not being picked up due to the media's focus on the possibility of an Obama presidency?
Maybe, but a detailed look at the polling and the national playing field suggests that McCain's growth -- to the extent he has enjoyed it -- over the past week is as likely due to a natural tightening as election day approaches as any sort of major surge in support.
From Sept. 7 -- the day that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were bailed out by the U.S. government -- through the first week in October, the news was unequivocally bad for McCain and his party.
Voters overwhelmingly blamed the GOP -- particularly President George W. Bush -- for the economic morass. McCain's numbers tanked nationally and in key battleground states (Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Florida among others) as did the numbers for Republicans seeking Senate and House seats.
In that free-fall it's possible (and, perhaps, likely) that McCain's poll standing dropped below what any generic Republican presidential candidate could expect to receive in the way of support. During that period, voters who were almost certainly in McCain's camp before the financial crisis jumped ship -- heading either to the undecided camp or to Obama's side.
The last few days -- particularly given McCain's return to a very traditional "big government, tax raising liberal" attack against Obama -- may well have brought some of those voters who left McCain in a huff back into the fold as the debate reminded them of why they vote for Republicans in the first place.
But, simply re-claiming voters long expected to be on your side (and we are thinking of life voters in particular here) is not the same thing as turning a corner with critical independent voters -- either nationally or in battleground states.
While the polling outlook may well have improved marginally for McCain over the past week, the structural problems revealed in the most recent Washington Post/ABC News poll remain.
The election is a referendum on the economy and which candidate is better suited to correct its problems. Due to the strong sense that the country is headed off in the wrong direction AND the huge unpopularity of Bush, Obama is far better positioned to win the economic argument than McCain.
And, never forget the continued financial advantage that Obama enjoys over McCain. It's extremely difficult for a candidate trailing in the polls to overcome being outspent three to one and, in some cases, far worse without some sort of major external event intruding.
In sum, can we buy that "Joe the Plumber" and Obama's pledge to "spread the wealth" has helped bring white men back to McCain's side? Absolutely. Is it enough to change our current analysis that Obama is the clear frontrunner to be the next president of the United States? No.
| Campign Curriculum (0) | 2008.10.24 |
|---|---|
| Obama Poised to Help 10 White Democrats (0) | 2008.10.22 |
| Obama reaction to powel. (0) | 2008.10.20 |
| Funniest campaign ever? (0) | 2008.10.20 |
| John McCain: 'I love being the underdog' (0) | 2008.10.20 |
"We're going to be in a tight race and we're going to be up late on election night. That's just -- I'm confident of that. I've been in too many campaigns, my friend, not to sense that things are headed our way," McCain said Sunday on Fox News.
Sen. Barack Obama leads McCain by 6 points, according to CNN's latest average of national polls.
"I love being the underdog. You know, every time that I've gotten ahead, somehow I've messed it up," the Republican candidate said.
Asked if Gov. Sarah Palin has become a drag on his ticket, McCain said, "As a cold political calculation, I could not be more pleased."
"She has excited and energized our base. She is a direct counterpoint to the liberal feminist agenda for America. She has a wonderful family. She's a reformer. She's a conservative. She's the best thing that could have happened to my campaign and to America," he said.
In response to a question from Fox's Chris Wallace, McCain said he has considered the possibility that he could lose, but added, "I don't dwell on it."
"I've had a wonderful life. I have to go back and live in Arizona, and be in the United States Senate representing them, and with a wonderful family, and daughters and sons that I'm so proud of, and a life that's been blessed," he said.
"I'm the luckiest guy you have ever interviewed and will ever interview. I'm the most fortunate man on earth, and I thank God for it every single day."
McCain said if things don't turn out his way on Election Day, "Don't feel sorry for John McCain, and John McCain will be concentrating on not feeling sorry for himself."
CNN's latest poll of polls shows Obama drawing 49 percent of voters nationwide, while McCain stands at 43 percent.
The 6-point lead represents no change from a CNN poll of polls released late last week, though it is 2 points smaller than one week ago.
The national poll of polls consists of three surveys: Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby (October 15-17), Gallup (October 15-17) and Diageo/Hotline (October 15-17). It does not have a sampling error.
McCain on Sunday was campaigning in Ohio, the state that put President Bush over the top in his re-election bid four years ago.
The Arizona senator had rallies scheduled in Westerville and Toledo, Ohio.
The most recent CNN poll of polls in Ohio suggests that 48 percent of voters there are backing Obama and 46 percent are supporting McCain.
Obama on Sunday was campaigning in North Carolina, a once reliably Republican state in presidential contests that is now up for grabs.
The last Democratic presidential candidate to win North Carolina was Jimmy Carter in 1976. The most recent CNN/Time Magazine/Opinion Research Corporation poll in the state has the contest deadlocked at 49 percent for each candidate.
Obama's campaign events come on the heels of a big endorsement from Colin Powell, the former secretary of state. 
Watch what Powell says about Obama »
"I think he is a transformational figure, he is a new generation coming onto the world stage, onto the American stage, and for that reason I'll be voting for Sen. Barack Obama," Powell said as he announced his endorsement Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press."
As for the running mates, Palin on Sunday had a rally scheduled in New Mexico, a state that narrowly went for President Bush four years ago.
Democratic vice-presidential nominee Joe Biden was holding a campaign rally in Tacoma, Washington, on Sunday. Recent polls in that state suggest Obama has a 10 point lead there.
| Obama reaction to powel. (0) | 2008.10.20 |
|---|---|
| Funniest campaign ever? (0) | 2008.10.20 |
| Obama Shatters Fundraising Record (0) | 2008.10.20 |
| Colin Powell Endorses Obama (0) | 2008.10.20 |
| Arduous Transition Awaits Next President (0) | 2008.10.19 |
If Sen. Barack Obama wakes up as the president-elect on Nov. 5, he will immediately assume responsibility for fixing a shredded economy while the Bush administration is still in office. If Sen. John McCain wins the election, he will face an imminent confrontation over spending with a Democratic Congress called back into special session with the goal of passing a new economic stimulus package.
Either way, the 77-day period between Election Day and Inauguration Day, traditionally known simply as the transition, is sure to present difficult challenges to a new president buffeted by intense forces, political and economic, without any chance to recover from the long and bruising campaign.
The challenge of putting the country back on a sound financial track has altered what under the best of circumstances would have been a frenzied period spent forming a new government. Instead, Obama or McCain will be forced to assemble a new administration even as he helps shape policies to ward off further declines in the economy.
And whoever is the new president will be under intense pressure from his own allies to live up to his campaign promises. Antiwar groups would press Obama to start the process of ending the war in Iraq, and conservatives would demand tax cuts from McCain. Either side would want to know that its candidate has an agenda to enact on his first day in the White House. With the outcome of the election still in doubt, neither campaign is eager to discuss plans for that day or the transition that precedes it, other than to acknowledge the urgent circumstances the 44th president will confront.
"I don't think he's thinking about [Inauguration Day on] January 20," said one top Republican involved in the McCain campaign. "He's thinking about November 5."
David Axelrod, Obama's chief political strategist, promised last week that if "we are successful, we will be ready to act quickly to put our plan in place."
McCain has tapped John F. Lehman, a close friend who was a Navy secretary in the Reagan administration, to lead the transition. Former Clinton White House chief of staff John Podesta is running Obama's effort.
Neither would be interviewed for this article, but advisers to both campaigns say they are aware of the problems that can arise if careful thought is not given to how to handle those first days and weeks. They believe that much of President Bill Clinton's ineffectiveness in his first year can be traced to bad decisions during the transition and his first days in office. And this year's economic crisis is certain to heighten those concerns, both sides said.
Those involved in planning a possible McCain transition say he is genuinely interested in bipartisan governing and would immediately reach out to the opposition. But his interest in working with the other party may run afoul of the likely rage many Democrats will feel if the White House slips from their grasp in the final weeks of the 2008 campaign.
"If they lose this one, you are going to have a lot of really angry Democrats," said Rep. Paul D. Ryan (Wis.), a McCain ally and the ranking Republican on the House Budget Committee.
Top advisers said McCain would move quickly to implement the economic agenda he has promised, including tax cuts, business incentives, lower trade subsidies and controls on government spending that he says are bankrupting the country. But Democratic leaders have already signaled their intention to pass a stimulus package during November's lame-duck session.
"If they try to put together a $300 billion stimulus package that's throwing money at problems -- feel-good money -- and we haven't gotten the accountability and reform in place, then we'll have a fight," predicted Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), a McCain confidant.
| Obama Shatters Fundraising Record (0) | 2008.10.20 |
|---|---|
| Colin Powell Endorses Obama (0) | 2008.10.20 |
| McCain-Palin use the 'S' word (0) | 2008.10.19 |
| Biden hits Palin remark on 'pro-America' areas (0) | 2008.10.18 |
| McCain's Conundrum: What More Can He Do? (0) | 2008.10.17 |
CONCORD, North Carolina (CNN) – John McCain stepped up his rhetoric against Barack Obama on taxes in his weekly radio address, comparing his plan to 'socialist' programs that would “convert the IRS into a giant welfare agency, redistributing massive amounts of wealth.”
The remarks were part of a theme McCain has used since the final presidential debate that criticizes Obama’s philosophy, but his most recent comments were the first time he directly invoked the word 'socialist.'
His running mate, Sarah Palin, has used the word in speeches the last two days as well.
In the pre-taped radio address, McCain said, “At least in Europe, the socialist leaders who so admire my opponent are upfront about their objectives. They use real numbers and honest language. And we should demand equal candor from Senator Obama. Raising taxes on some in order to give checks to others is not a tax cut it's just another government giveaway.”
McCain did not repeat the wording in his appearance at a rally in Concord, North Carolina Saturday morning, where the latest CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll shows the two candidates tied at 49 percent.
And on the campaign trail in Concord, North Carolina, he added that Americans have seen spreading the wealth around in other countries before. But he did quote Obama as saying he wants to 'spread the wealth around.’
"Spread the wealth around. We have seen that movie before in other countries and attempts by the liberal left before," McCain said.
| Colin Powell Endorses Obama (0) | 2008.10.20 |
|---|---|
| Arduous Transition Awaits Next President (0) | 2008.10.19 |
| Biden hits Palin remark on 'pro-America' areas (0) | 2008.10.18 |
| McCain's Conundrum: What More Can He Do? (0) | 2008.10.17 |
| McCain and Obama Argue Over the Economy, Campaign Tactics (0) | 2008.10.16 |
By Dan Balz
NEW YORK -- The final debate of Campaign 2008 was not, in the catch phrase of the day, a game changer. But the campaign certainly changed during the debates, leaving the two candidates in significantly different positions than they were. Barack Obama is now warning about overconfidence and John McCain claims to relish being the underdog.
After Wednesday's debate at Hofstra University, the question for McCain is what more -- or how much more -- he can do to affect the race. Instant polls offered a harsh verdict on a McCain performance that was judged by so-called experts as perhaps his best of the three. In both the CNN and the CBS polls, Obama was judged the winner by a large margin.
Does that invite more drastic attacks by McCain, or a shift toward a less confrontational, more positive campaign during its final 19 days? Can he do both? Can he disqualify Obama while persuading voters he is not the angry challenger? That is among the choices McCain and his team will have to make quickly as they look toward the last days of campaigning. Beyond that, he must decide how to fight to the end against the huge advantage in resources Obama enjoys.
For Obama, overconfidence is just one of the problems he faces. Assuming he now believes he has a good chance of winning the election, he faces of choice of balancing the need to stay focused on the task at hand and thinking about how he wants to gain the broadest public trust possible in the event that he is president-elect on Nov. 5.
Why the disconnect between voters and commentators on the outcome of the debate? One reason is that many voters have already decided for whom they're going to vote and see the debates through that prism. Given his widening lead, it's not surprising that Obama scores well with the viewers. He delivered a steady and smooth performance through all the debates and particularly while under attack through most of Wednesday night's encounter.
There's also a difference between giving McCain high marks and delivering a verdict on who won the actual debate. It's likely both candidates got good reviews on Wednesday night. But in the end, the candidate who arrived at Hofstra with the advantage was the same candidate who left Hofstra with the advantage.
McCain was under pressure to take the argument directly to Obama and he did, with greater clarity and aggressiveness than he had in the previous two debates. CBS's Bob Schieffer also did a good job of trying to force the candidates out of their boilerplate rhetoric, with some success. That produced the liveliest of the three presidential debates.
Both were forced to confront some of the ugliness that has enveloped the campaign the past two weeks. Both claimed to be the victim of the worst of it. But it's not likely that part of the debate resonated much with most voters, especially those still making up their minds or those whose minds might be changed.
For those voters, two things may count more. One is the philosophical divide between Obama and McCain on the big economic and domestic issues. Both candidates have embraced the Bush administration's economic rescue plan, which has radically changed the relationship between government and the private economy. From there they go in dramatically different directions.
McCain's most memorable line was when he tried to distance himself from President Bush. "Senator Obama, I am not President Bush. If you wanted to run against President Bush, you should have run four years ago. I'm going to give a new direction to this economy in this country."
But the policies he proposed for the economy are mostly in line with Republican orthodoxy.
The second area of note is style. McCain was aggressive in making his case against Obama, but less positive in pushing his own. Obama projected steadiness and calm. That difference has played to Obama's advantage over the period of the debates and there was nothing that happened Wednesday night to change that.
Republican strategists were impressed with McCain but still questioned whether it would be enough. "I think McCain was better than before," said Mike Murphy, a GOP strategist and former McCain adviser. "But it remains to be seen if he convinced America to take a new look at his campaign over the next two weeks."
"McCain had a really strong night," said Tom Rath, a New Hampshire-based GOP strategist. "He forced Obama regularly to defend his positions and used that tactic to differentiate ... I think McCain runs to the party base now. He will live in the Bush states and hope to hold it together one last time. This was not about the middle tonight. It was about the Republican right."
Democrat Simon Rosenberg said he thought McCain was aggressive and combative, but he did not think it would be enough to change the race. "In the last few weeks, the American people have learned a lot about these two senators. In Senator Obama, they've decided they see a future president. In Senator McCain, they see an admirable but aging politician who seems a little out of step with the moment."
Obama is now channeling Bill Clinton from 1992, focusing on the economy and deflecting attacks from McCain and the Republicans with the insistence that the final weeks of the campaign should be about the voters and their needs.
McCain's challenge is much greater. Having delivered what he hoped to deliver on Wednesday night, the question is what more he can do.
| McCain-Palin use the 'S' word (0) | 2008.10.19 |
|---|---|
| Biden hits Palin remark on 'pro-America' areas (0) | 2008.10.18 |
| McCain and Obama Argue Over the Economy, Campaign Tactics (0) | 2008.10.16 |
| Exclusive: Verizon and AT&T Provided Cell Towers for McCain Ranch (0) | 2008.10.16 |
| Trailing in Polls, McCain Looks For an Opening in Final Debate (0) | 2008.10.16 |
|
| 일 | 월 | 화 | 수 | 목 | 금 | 토 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | |||
| 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 |
| 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 |
| 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 |
| 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 |
Why Do I Have to Log In Again?
View All Comments »