I don't remember John McCain being this incoherent - is it his Age?

[liberalpragmatist]

John McCain was never a policy wonk. But he never seemed this incoherent on policy before. In 2000, he seemed to have a reasonably good grasp of what he was proposing and in the Senate, especially between 2001 and 2003, he did too.

Yet when I hear McCain speak nowadays, it's clear he has no idea what he's talking about -- on anything. Not only on foreign policy, but on economics, on domestic policy -- everything.

Some of this may be because he sold his soul to the right, but honestly I don't think that accounts for most of it. It doesn't look like he's uncomfortable saying the stuff he is -- he looks like he genuinely believes it or is genuinely confused.

Honestly, not to sound age-ist, but could that be playing a part? He was 63 when he was running for president in 2000. He's 71 now and will be 72 in August.

[sufrommich]

1. It never seemed to hurt Bush,"incoherent" apparently

isn't a deal breaker with some of our voters.

[question everything]

3. But McCain really appears old and tired

which Bush - the good old fraternity party boy - was not.

[sufrommich]

4. I wasn't really disagreeing with you.

I picture McCain having a tough time getting though this campaign and he does seem to be slipping a lot. I just don't get my hopes up that it would make one shred of difference for some.

[SmileyRose]

11. GWB was not totally incoherent when he was running for 2000

Someone posted a YouTube montage of Bush's speechs over the last 8 years and I was stunned at how much he has deteriorated over the last 8 yrs. You have to wonder how many 55 gal drums of Jim Beam he's downed to kill that many brain cells.

[cags]

2. Could be the crack hes been smoking too

[Pirate Smile]

5. There is some discussion of this over at TPM. I think it is his age.

So Formulaic
TPM Reader MO actually boils it down to a formula ...

MGUT: Age + Over-handling = Cringe

My thoughts on the gauntlet that Josh just threw down. I say this as someone who would be classified as a grudgingly McCain admirer back in '00 (as a combination of Clinton fatigue and a visceral distaste for Bush before it was cool):

The way McCain looks on the stump now reminds me of how my older relatives looked after I came back from college. Before I left, they were the people I always knew. When I got back, the changes that age produces were glaringly clear. As Josh says, a lot happens between 64 and 71. Furthermore, let's compare McCain and Reagan - the last national politician running for office at an advanced age. McCain's charisma has been based on energy and pugnaciousness. Reagan was always avuncular. McCain doesn't do avuncular. And, of course, Reagan in '80 was younger than McCain is now. The Reagan of '84 was given a huge benefit of the doubt with regards to age because of incumbency.

Also, clearly, McCain is being over-handled in the way that reminds me of the Gore of '00. In general, the more times people give you advice about your personal mannerisms, the less you come across as natural. That's what people mean by WJC and Obama (and GWB, alas) being natural politicians.

So, I don't think it has anything to do with the topics he's covering. Sure, better speech writing would help to steer clear of landmines (here's a hint: no jokes and no sarcasm!).

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/203341.php

This e-mail was in response to this question from Josh Marshall:

Can You Help?

Today we're trying to put together a unified theory of John McCain's speech-making crappiness.

My initial theory was that if you look at the most outstanding instances of McCain's awkward, cringe-inducing delivery they're chiefly about domestic issues -- economy and culture war stuff -- that McCain doesn't really care about. When he's talking about the thing he's jazzed up about -- being right about the surge -- his delivery is much more straightforward. A lot of this stuff is also packaged as attacks on Obama, as Ben pointed out.

But then David pointed out that the thing that really comes through to him about McCain's delivery is a sense of entitlement. 'I'm a Senator and I'm John McCain so just get on with it and make me president."

Sort of like he's not disciplined enough to learn to deliver his prefab lines or convincingly pretend he believes or cares about them. I hadn't thought about it quite like this before. But this has the ring of truth to me. And perhaps the two meld together. McCain is big on Iraq and wants to talk about that. But the other stuff is mainly stuff he's changed positions on anyway and doesn't particularly care about. So he just goes through the motions.

Part of the reason may be that, despite a few of his claims to the contrary of late, I don't think McCain has had many contested races in his political career. I don't know exactly how his first election to the House went. But since he's been in, it's been pretty much smooth sailing. So a lot of this is just new to him.

This brings us back to the question of why McCain seems to suck so much this cycle whereas many people -- even political opponents -- thought he was solid as a candidate in 2000. And when I say 'solid', I mean a candidate whose public presentation was a big part of his attraction.

Inevitably, one part of the explanation is age. A lot happens between 63 and 72. But we also forget that much of the punch of McCain's candidacy was his anger at key segments of the conservative establishment that attacked him for not toeing the line on issues important to the religious right and on tax policy. That was his punch. That got his goat up. But most of his snark lines this season are meant to kow-tow to those same folks. And in any case, his manner seems to say, why am I up here having to do this anyway? I'm John McCain. Who's Barack Obama? Just make me president!

In any case, we're still looking for the grand unified theory. So your thoughts are most welcome.

--Josh Marshall

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/203323.php

[jobycom]

6. I don't think it's age. I think it's lack of conviction on what he's saying.

In 2000 he could say what he believed. He was running as his own candidate. Now, he's had to ally himself to a group he fundamentally disagrees with, and he's too decent a person to enjoy lying about what he believes. Sadly, he's not decent enough to avoid lying.

Remember in 03 when he seemed against the Iraq war, and even in 04 he was ambiguous? He was considered for Kerry's VP slot. After that, he decided his fortunes lay with BushCo, and he became a staunch ally of Bush and a promoter of the war. He never seemed to truly believe what he was saying, but Bush used him to create the illusion of unity, and McCain swallowed his pride, honor, and morality for a weak chance to succeed W in the White House.

Keep the math in mind. A third of voters love Bush, and McCain expected to have them in his fold. One third he has no shot at--they will vote Dem no matter what. There's a third of voters in play, and McCain expected to win them with charm, pannash, experience, and the usual attacks on liberals. Suddenly, the Republican message is hated by those swing voters, and at the same time Bob Barr is threatening to strip away a tenth to maybe even a fifth of his base if he strays from the conservative message. So the BushCo message he had expected to win is unpopular with the voters he has to win over, and if he strays from that message he loses voters on the right to the upstart. This was the same dilemma Gore faced, in the opposite direction, in 2000, when Nader forced Gore to campaign more towards the middle to make up the votes he lost on the fringe.

So right now he has no message. He is trying to stay undefined long enough to let Obama define himself, and to get an idea of what voters are breaking what way, and how serious the Barr voters are going to be. In 2000, he said what he believed. Now, he can't, and he may not even know what he believes.

He has speech writers, so even if his mind blanked, he would have a clear message. The fact that his message is vague is because he doesn't know what message he wants yet.

Don't get too excited yet, though. Bush Daddy had the exact same dilemma in 88. He despised Reagan, but had allied with him. He was a moderate, and in the early primaries seemed unsure of how to campaign, and he fell way back in the polls. At the convention, however, he committed entirely to Reagan's message ("No new taxes!") even though he disagreed with it, and campaigned with no hesitation after that, and he won. Different times, of course. Reagan was more popular than Bush, so Reagan's message was more likely to be a winner. But the point is, McCain may define himself at the convention, position himself perfectly, and get a huge boost in the polls. By remaining ambiguous now, in the neutral zone between primary and convention, he keeps his options open.

That's my take, anyway. He's still a dangerous opponent, if he finds himself.

[fasttense]

7. He sounds as if he is reading a children's story to

a third grade class. You known you raise your voice overly dramatic when you get to the scary parts and use a sing song sound when you get to the happy ending. He sounds patronizing and stiff. I think republicans like to be talked down to.

[TwilightGardener]

8. Yep--he does use that weird sing-song:

"THAT'S not...change..you can...BELIEVE in!" (followed by creepy, smug, self-conscious grin, three seconds too late)

[Cosmocat]

9. It IS age ...

call it for what it is ...

Campaigns are BRUTAL ...

I ran a COUNTY level race for a ROW office, my opponent had diabetes and had strokes after both the primaries and general elections ... Just the tension and stress of that small race can bring on significant health issues ...

With McCain's age, and the MASSIVE physical, mental and emotional stress he is under ... He is only going to continue to deteriorate ... Heck, look at BO, even at his relative young age, being in fantastic natural shape, being sharp as a tack, you can see where it wears on him signficantly from time to time ...

[nxylas]

10. Age + desperation

I think, deep down, he knows the odds are against him (to put it mildly) and is in the position where he'll say anything he thinks will help him win. That's not a recipe for conviction and coherence.

[MGKrebs]

12. Needs a better campaign pharmacist.

They haven't got his meds balanced yet.