#Worried GOP officials watch McCain, hoping for signs of stability -- NY Times
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G.O.P. Officials Hope for Stability From McCain
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By ADAM NAGOURNEY and ELISABETH BUMILLER
Published: October 11, 2008
Republican leaders across the country said Saturday that they were
worried that Senator John McCain was heading for defeat unless he
brought stability to his presidential candidacy and settled on a clear
message to counter Senator Barack Obama.
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In interviews, Republican leaders said Mr. McCain appeared to be
flailing in trying to campaign against the backdrop of an economic
crisis on Wall Street and seemed uncertain about how tough to be in
taking on Mr. Obama.
Again and again, party leaders said they were concerned that the race
was slipping away and that Mr. McCain and his advisers seemed to be
adrift in dealing with an extraordinarily challenging political
battleground.
The expressions of concern came after a particularly difficult week
for Mr. McCain. On Friday night, new questions were raised about his
choice of Gov. Sarah Palin as a running mate, after an investigation
by the Alaska Legislature concluded that Ms. Palin had abused her
power in trying to orchestrate the firing of her former
brother-in-law, a state trooper.
“I think you’re seeing a turning point,” said Saul Anuzis, the
Republican chairman in Michigan, a state Mr. McCain pulled out of last
week. “You’re starting to feel real frustration because we are running
out of time. Our message, the campaign’s message, isn’t connecting.”
In Pennsylvania, Robert A. Gleason Jr., the state Republican chairman,
said he was concerned that Mr. McCain’s increasingly aggressive tone
was ineffective with moderate voters and women in the critical
southeast part of a state that is at the top of Mr. McCain’s must-win
list.
“I just think the voters are a bit more sophisticated maybe in the
southeast — they’re not as susceptible to attack ads,” Mr. Gleason
said. “I worry about the southeast. Obama is making inroads.”
Mr. Gleason, who has generally been optimistic about Mr. McCain’s
chances in Pennsylvania, said Saturday that Mr. McCain’s choice of Ms.
Palin as a running mate did not appear to be helping him with
independent women in the vital Philadelphia suburbs. “It’s a concern,”
he said.
Several party leaders said Mr. McCain needed to settle on a single
message in the final weeks of the campaign, warning that his changing
day-to-day dialogue — a welter of evolving economic proposals, mixed
with on-again off-again attacks on Mr. Obama’s character — was not
breaking through and was helping Mr. Obama in his effort to portray
Mr. McCain as erratic.
“The main thing he needs to do is focus on a single message, a single
concise or clear-cut message, and stick with that over the next 30
days, regardless of what happens,” said Vin Weber, a former Republican
congressman from Minnesota. “He’s had a lot of attack lines. But it’s
time to choose.”
John C. Danforth, a retired Republican senator from Missouri, said Mr.
McCain should turn his attention mainly to drawing contrasts with Mr.
Obama on economic programs.
“I don’t think it’s enough to talk about earmarks incessantly,” Mr.
Danforth said. “He’s made that point. It’s a good point to make. He’s
made it. You’ve got to get beyond that and talk about the very
dramatic taxes and spending in the Obama program.”
Mr. McCain’s advisers said they remained confident of victory, even as
they acknowledged the increasingly steep road ahead.
“My sense of where things are: John McCain beat back what was a
political climate that would have snuffed out any other candidate in
the Republican Party,” said Nicolle Wallace, a senior adviser. “He’s
beat back every hurdle that was ever placed in front of him. Right now
we’re facing a giant economic meltdown, and we’re holding our own.”
Yet there were continued signs of confusion and turmoil in the
campaign, as Mr. McCain’s aides tried to wrestle with conflicting
advice, daunting poll numbers and criticism from state party leaders
who have grown increasingly distressed with the way the campaign has
been run.
One senior adviser, asked whether Mr. McCain would give a major speech
on Monday night, laughed and said he did not even know what Mr. McCain
was doing on Saturday night, much less on Monday.
Mr. McCain’s aides said that he had been hurt by a series of
high-profile rallies with Ms. Palin in which supporters shouted
insults and threats at Mr. Obama, prompting Mr. McCain on Friday night
to chide audience members who did that. The aides suggested that they
were trying to find a balance between attacking Mr. Obama and
presenting him as untested and risky — a line that had been frequently
used by Mr. McCain and Ms. Palin until this weekend — without stirring
unruly crowd reactions.
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a.a. #2211 -- Bryan Zepp Jamieson
Phlip
> worried that Senator John McCain was heading for defeat unless he
> brought stability to his presidential candidacy and settled on a clear
> message to counter Senator Barack Obama.
That won't happen because McCain has two messages. To his real base - the
177 lobbyists on his campaign staff - the message is "business as usual". To
the voters, his message is "uh Change yeah that's the ticket!"
> "I just think the voters are a bit more sophisticated maybe in the
> southeast - they're not as susceptible to attack ads,"
Further - anyone with an internet connection is immune to the attack ads,
because we have all seen it before. This isn't like the olden days, when an
attack ad could actually contain a theme nobody heard of yet.
> "I don't think it's enough to talk about earmarks incessantly," Mr.
> Danforth said. "He's made that point. It's a good point to make. He's
> made it. You've got to get beyond that and talk about the very
> dramatic taxes and spending in the Obama program."
Incredible. A Republican wants McCain to talk about the same old thing
Republicans always talk about. After 20 years of Republicans taxing us (some
literally) to death, they actually think the voters will believe them again.