There's Still Time, John McCain By Dick Morris
Trailing six points in Rasmussen’s poll, having fallen four points since he suspended his campaign last week, the question for John McCain is: Haven’t you learned anything?
Trailing six points in Rasmussen’s poll, having fallen four points since he suspended his campaign last week, the question for John McCain is: Haven’t you learned anything?
McCain has transformed a minority in both houses of Congress and a losing position in the polls into the key role in the bailout package, the main man around whom the final package will take shape. He arrived in Washington to find the Democrats working with the Bush Administration to pass an unpopular $700 billion bailout.
Before or after every speech I ever give, somebody asks me: "What is O'Reilly really like?"
But he has to fuse the issues of the economy and taxes — to show how Barack Obama’s tax proposals would lead to a catastrophic implosion of the nation’s capital base.
Now that the conventions are over, it is evident that the battle of John McCain is over (McCain won) and the battle of Barack Obama will determine the outcome of the election.
The convention floor was abuzz all yesterday with the news of the CBS poll showing a dead tie (42-42) in the presidential race. And the poll, conducted through Wednesday, couldn't reflect the impact of John McCain's speech, or the full impact of Sarah Palin's late Wednesday night.
With sass and wit, sarcasm and sincerity, courage and strength, Sarah Palin last night showed us a new model of female politician.
The dominant question at the GOP convention is: Will John McCain make the huge mistake of abandoning Sarah Palin?
Republicans shouldn’t mourn the loss of the first night (at least) of their convention. Sarah Palin’s warm reception by the American people and the relative success of preparations to contain the damage of Hurricane Gustav seem to have given the GOP far more bounce than it would’ve gotten from a “conventional” first night in St. Paul.
Many political campaigns run against the wrong candidate. The opportunity to pick on a vulnerable target is so tempting that they are lured into attacking someone who isn’t running. In 1992, the Republicans unleashed their convention barrage at Hillary and left Bill unscathed.
Her words were emphatic: "Barack Obama is my candidate and he must be our next president." Hillary Clinton's endorsement was unambiguous and she held nothing back.
It doesn't take a political genius to realize that Barack Obama needed to nominate a woman for vice president.
For the first time in memory, the two parties are holding their conventions right after one another. Within 72 hours of Obama's acceptance speech on the night of Aug. 28, in front of 75,000 adoring fans outdoors at Invesco Field, the Republican convention's opening gavel will come crashing down.
Hillary and Bill have hijacked the Denver convention, making it into a carbon copy of what it would have looked like had she won until the last possible moment. By the time Obama gets up to speak and put his stamp on the convention, Hillary will have had one prime time night all to herself. Bill will have pre-empted a second night. Hillary will have had all the nominating and seconding speeches she wants. And the roll call of the states would record, in graphic detail, how the voters of state after state rejected Obama’s candidacy in the primaries.
On March 19, 2007, Mark Penn wrote a memo to Hillary Clinton saying: "Every speech should contain a line [saying that] you were born in the middle of America to a middle class family in the middle of the last century."
John McCain has zero charisma. Next to the excitement of Obama, he looks like an old man defending the status quo. Ironically, his career has embodied exactly the opposite. He is what Obama symbolizes – a person who rises above party, confronts the special interests, and wants to change the way Washington works.
The conventional wisdom has it down pat: A bad economy works against the candidate from the party in power as voters take out their rage and fear on the president's party and back the challenger, just like they did in 1992.
Barack Obama had it half right when he said that the McCain campaign would focus on raising voters' fears about him.
When is the McCain campaign going to get serious? It seems to be marking time with softball ads, more appropriate to the soundbites campaign media spokespeople exchange with one another than to strategic paid media hits.
If you read, watch and hear the media describe the campaign of 2008, it appears to be the most one-sided contest since Reagan trounced Mondale in 1984. McCain always comes across as borderline senile, lethargic, and pitiful while Obama is awash in media heroics and theatrical flourishes.