Michael Gerson's Wishful Thinking

Michael Gerson today:

Obama's current success is not enjoyable for conservatives. But this does not make McCain an incompetent. Maybe he is a great man running at the most difficult of times.

Gerson's thesis is that McCain was doing well until the financial crisis intervened. Perhaps. Certainly there is polling evidence that can be cited to support such a view. And yes, there was a spell when Democrats fretted that Obama was, relative to the generic Democrat vs Republican race, under-performing. According to Gerson:

Previous to this economic free fall -- and after his transformative vice-presidential choice -- McCain was about tied in a race he should have been losing by a large margin. The public clearly had questions about Obama's leadership qualities. But the McCain campaign also proved itself capable of constructing an effective narrative: Obama as lightweight celebrity, McCain as maverick reformer. Until history intervened.

Up to a point. Once a race is over, of course, everything falls neatly into place. It was always going to end like this, wasn't it? Naturally, this is not actually the case. True, it's because the underlying circumstances were so favourable to the Democrats that the party could take  risk by nominating a youthful, black, liberal Senator rather than the safer (in terms of known unknowns), if still problematic, option of choosing Hillary Clinton. Noentheless, Gerson is mistaken. In the first place, he ignores the impact of the Palin pick: yes, the Barracuda helped in the short-term and yes gave the base reasons to believe, but she also undermined the central thrust of McCain's candidacy in terms of how the GOP was trying to frame the debate: experience, wisdom, judgement and reform vs callow inexperience.

Equally, "constructing" a "narrative" of Obama as a "lightweight celebrity" was a strategy that depended upon Obama showing himself to be nothing more than a lightweight celebrity candidate. But what if he showed more than that? What would the McCain campaign do then? In other words, McCain's strategy depended upon Obama failing, not McCain succeeding. As such it was vulnerable. Indeed, it was predicated upon an analysis that was not the GOP's to control.

Then again, this was rather the strategy that had worked for McCain in the primaries. McCain did not so much provide a reason for voting for him - the apparent success of the "surge" notwithstanding - as outlast his opponents. Rather as Booker Prize judges frequentlyend up choosing everyone's second or third choice novel, so the GOP turned to McCain once the other candidates - Giuliani, Thompson, Romney - had, one way or another, disqualified themselves.

Once Obama demonstrated at the convention and then in the first two debates that he had the look of a President about him, the McCain campaign's strategy had little left to offer. It was trying to sell the public a product voters didn' believe in, spinning the punters a line that was contradicted by their own perceptions. Whereas John Kerry did often come across as a flip-flopping doofus, Obama doesn't come across as a recklessly inexperienced Hollywood candidate. At the risk of labouring the point, if Obama - still relatively unknown to many voters just a couple of months ago - showed the posise and gravitas voters expect, then the McCain "narrative" was left in tatters. Equally, the Palin pick, as I say, undermined McCain's own claims to leadership experience and judgement. 

[Via Daniel Larison, who has more to say on the matter.]

Comments

[MattF]

I also think that McCain is just not good at running a political campaign. Remember-- Bush and Rove simply crushed him in 2000. This was not an inevitable result-- Obama has demonstrated that there are effective ways of dealing with smear campaigns. But the sort of political know-how that Obama has exhibited just isn't part of McCain's repertoire.

[SimplerDave]

So, let me check I have this correct: Gerson thinks McCain was running a great campaign right up until it came into contact with actual events? Brilliant...

[toby]

McCain placed tremendous relianceon just one shot in his locker: the Surge.

He seemed to believe that because he supported the Surge and Obama did not, it automatically gave him a massive advantage.

But victory in Iraq has been a minor issue. I think the public lean more to Obama on Iraq than McCain. The irony is that maybe the Surge took Iraq off the table just that bit too much to help him.

The economy was unfertile ground was someone who was busting his guts to be a War President. Otherwise McCain's campaign has just been a sequence of expedient gimmicks and improvisions: Sarah Palin, Obama's "celebrity", campaign suspension, William Ayers ... and so on.

[pianoguy]

My conservative friends were all thrilled that Obama defeated Hillary, whom they feared as much as they loathed. But they then proceeded to talk about Obama as though he were another Carter or Dukakis - as if there were any realistic chance that a candidate who could defeat the Clintons would be a Carter or Dukakis.

Lots of things have made the presidential race difficult for Republicans this cycle, including the last eight years, current economic events, and McCain's scattershot campaign. But a major reason is that Republicans have consistently underestimated Obama. And because of this, Obama's success is inexplicable to them. Blinded by their conviction that he's another Dukakis, they're continually caught wrong-footed when he doesn't act like Dukakis.

[Andrea]

excellent points and comments. you are absolutely correct about them expecting Obama to fail, and hadn't considered that when I wrote this: http://www.englandforobama.com/its-not-just-the-economy-stupid

I also think that McCain's lack of strategy - or to put it another way: dominance of tactics over strategy - was a predominant reason for the failure of his campaign; and stems utterly from the fact that his running for president seems to stem solely from naked personal ambition. unlike Obama's, there is no coherent vision behind it; no principles; no greater sense of purpose. so as a result, McCain and his team have blown this way and that, while Obama's has steered a steady course. thank goodness the American people have seen through all this, is all I can say.

[Jake]

There are a lot of reasons that Obama is winning, and it's impossible to try to narrow it down to one or two major issues (like the economic downturn, or the choice of Palin).

Some other reasons:

- Obama outshining McCain in the debates

- the (correct) perception that McCain is engaging in nasty tactics

- Obama's superior ability to run a campaign

- McCain's "I won't debate - wait, yes i will" debacle

[George in Texas]

Neocons and Fundamentalist! Todays Republican Party! Forget fiscal responsibility and limited government. That was the Republican platform of yesteryear! What a shame.