McCain new strategy: Run against "One Party Rule"

grantcart

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Sat Sep-13-08 11:25 AM
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McCain new strategy: Run against "One Party Rule"

http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/mccain-urges-against-one-party-rule-2008-09-13.html

Now Sen. Obama wants you to believe that things will get better if Democrats control both the Congress and the presidency," said Sen. McCain (Ariz.), the Republican nominee for president, in his campaign's weekly radio address. "But when Americans demand change in Washington, one-party rule where power is an end of itself isn't exactly what they have in mind."

Last Thursday I suggested that McCain would change his strategy and run against both Republican and Democratic parties and against "One Party Rule". For many independents this is a very effective strategy and I think that we need to start preparing a counter argument now.

Here are some suggestions

The "Divided Argument" Case - the McCain/Palin campaign's next and final hurrah
Posted by grantcart in General Discussion: Presidential
Wed Sep 10th 2008, 05:36 PM
You don't find people much straighter than Obama. Yet under the intense scrutiny of national politics words taken out of context and guilt by association made this very normal extremely intelligent guy look different. In the end the thing that is so strange about Obama is how intelligent he is and how dispassionate his diagnosis of what is wrong with the American system.

As the scrutiny starts to bear down on Palin and McCain the media will develop a blood lust of trying to expose their weakness. Once they smell blood and the faux dance/reform team of Palin/McCain team is understood to be wounded they will surround and be relentless.

Part of it will be absolutely stupid things that Palin has said. Contradictions between pork hustler and new born reformer. Part of it will be the embarrassing comparison of how small McCain's crowds are when Palin isn't there. Finally there will be some interviews. Palin will have to explain Palin and McCain will have to explain Palin.

Over the next 14 days their numbers will subside and then everyone will be claiming that they "told you so" that it wouldn't last. Just like all of the pundits who now dismiss the Iraqi war after cheer leading it in the beginning.

When McCain sinks down to 42% national support and the McCain campaign faces a long slow decline into oblivion they will be left with a single selling point, "the Dems will control the House and the Senate, so vote for McCain so that no one power has complete control. Divided government is the best"

You can already hear them saying it on Fox and on Sunday talk shows. David Broder column today in the NYT says "If I were McCain, I'd make the divided government argument explicit. The Republicans are intellectually unfit to govern right now, but balancing with Democrats, the might be able to do some good. I'd have McCain tell the country that he looks forward to working with congressional Democrats, that he is confident they can achieve great things together."

David Broder is serious about this - he thinks its an amazingly great idea.

It is also an idea that will have a great deal of support among independent Americans, many who have not been impressed with our lackluster congressional leadership.

The idea has one upside and 3 major problems. The upside is that it would cause major rifts in the Republican Party. Its hard to see how the Republican Party would spend their money supporting a candidate who openly was arguing for people to vote for him and vote for Democratic Senators and Congresspeople. McCain has inched closer and closer to this formulation. The man who betrayed his wife and has capitulated on all his ideals is inching towards a final betrayal, screw all the other Republicans - vote Democratic and for me for President.

And here are the three major problems:

1) John McCain is highly likely to be replaced as President during his term. It doesn't have to be for a fatal reason, it can be a simple stroke or other debilitating disease or return of cancer. Palin as President is completely unacceptable it actually makes Bush look good.

2) The power of the executive has been so elevated that whatever benefit arises from dividing power will be eliminated by the fact that McCain/Palin will almost certainly respond to a provocation (like Ahmadinijaed) with a military strike. Beyond the cavilier use of force you are faced with the appointment of literally thousands of senior and midlevel bureacrats from the Judiciary and the Department of Justice to the Environmental Protection Agency, etc etc etc hang in the balance.

3) The divided government approach condemns us to incremental change. Sometimes that is ok but now we need systemic changes. There is a very simple reason why among all of the developed countries in the world we are the only one that doesn't have socialized health care, divided government. The other countries with Parliamentary systems accumulate the power of both legislative and executive branches into single party leadership, and as soon as they lose favor they are out. When it comes to health care, combating global warming, redirecting our economic system from fossil fuels it is going to take bold steps not incremental ones.

We should be prepared for the final McCain message - vote for me for a balance of power.

Our answer has to be that; he has endangered the country with his reckless choice of VP and they cannot be considered for office under any circumstances, the power of the executive is too great to be bartered away, and the time has come for the country to take some carefully considered but big steps - if we had divided government in the 1930's then many of the things that we now take for granted - like Social Security - would never have been passed.