The McCain Enigma

The electoral context in the U.S. has rarely been so unfavorable for the Republicans. “When the economy goes bad, power changes hands almost every time. This was the case for Truman, Carter, and the elder Bush,” underlines Professor Terry Madonna of Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster, PA. This year, more than 80% of Americans think the country is going badly, “Add to that an unpopular war in Iraq,” says the Professor, “and you can see that the Republicans have a serious problem.”

John McCain is the first to recognize this. “I am not the favorite. Given the image problem of the Republican party, I am surprised that the difference in polls is not even greater,” he said on ABC in June. An email recently sent to conservative contributors was entitled “The Democrats Take a Crushing Victory.” “I truly fear that this will be the newspaper headline the day after the November elections,” wrote former Senator Bill Frist in that email.

Despite the extent of the challenge, the Senator from Arizona is leading a strange campaign. No clear slogan, even that of “good change” seems to have lasted long. A strategy of changing geometry which could make even his most loyal fans crazy. Between the desire to separate himself from George Bush and the desire to cast a wide net, he has often changed positions and exposes himself to a particularly problematic accusation, which was fatal to John Kerry in 2004–that of a “flip-flopper.”

A BEWILDERED PUBLIC

After being opposed to oil prospecting in Alaska in the name of the environment, he has just came out for the lifting of a 27 year-old moratorium on offshore drilling. After having denounced the treatment of prisoners in Guantanamo, he has just condemned the Supreme Court’s decision to give prisoners the right to contest their detention. He has changed his mind on the tax cuts granted by Bush, on private retirement accounts, on a path to legalization for illegal immigrants….

“McCain’s trajectory has more zigzags than the Macarena,” Dana Milbank noted ironically in the Washington Post, “a slide to the right on judges and arms, a jump to the left on climate change and foreign affairs, a pivot to the right on taxes and Iraq.”

The form is no more understandable than the content. On the podium, the 70-plus year-old candidate’s voice is often weak, his style sluggish. By punctuating each of his sentences with a “my friends,” supposedly to invoke Ronald Reagen, he is trying for a “fireside chat” ambiance. But the contrast with his rival is only greater, an athletic forty-something year-old whose rhetoric electrifies his supporters.

John McCain proposed a series of ten face-to-face meetings without a moderator to Barack Obama, just the two of them in front of the public. An audacious offer by a man who could suffer as a result of the comparison. The Democratic camp has only accepted five such meetings, and the Republican has refused to back down, denoucing the response as a “dodge.”

All the while promising a campaign without personal attacks, he talks down to the Senator from Illinois, with sentences such as: “For a young man with no real experience, he manages quite well.” His stand-ins launch nasty rumors about Obama and his wife Michelle, to the point where the Democratic party had to start an internet site to counteract them, called FightTheSmears.

As a result, polls show a bewildered public. According to CBS, 43% think McCain is following along with the Bush’s politics, 21% think he will be more conservative, and 28% think he will be more moderate. According to the Gallup Poll, Obama is ahead with women, a majority in the countryside (38% vs. 51%), and only has a small advantage among religious voters (47% vs. 42%).

“McCain is perhaps the only candidate from his party who has a respectable chance to win this year, ” analysed The Economist. The old soldier is often at his best when he has his back to the wall. But he would be well advised to wake up soon.