It’s only partly the economy, stupid

The McCain campaign is on the slide, lagging in the national polls and in all the key toss-up states and fighting in several (like North Carolina) that should have been locked up ages ago. I am not ready to start writing the obituary of the campaign just yet - there are too many unknowns and this race has had too many turns already - but a lot of people on the right seem to be willing to do so.

Specifically, they are seizing the opportunity to say that the financial crisis has thrown the media’s and the country’s attention almost entirely onto the economy, ground that tends to favor democrats. There’s some truth in that, but it is only a convenient excuse and if republicans ignore the major reasons for their defeat - if defeat it turns out to be - then they are in for a long walk in the wilderness.

I’m not entirely convinced that the public automatically trusts democrats with the economy and republicans on foreign policy. That is certainly what the media always says. Certainly too the republicans have spent a lot of money trying to establish themselves as the party of foreign policy strength and the democrats have all too often ceded them that ground. I do think people think of the democrats as the party that cares about kitchen table issues like healthcare, education and social security, but that’s not the same as sound economic stewardship.

If you look at the recent track record, Bush Junior, Bush Senior and Carter all presided over recessions, downturns, economic calamities; Reagan and Clinton presided over 8 years each of economic prosperity. There’s no real reason for people to assume that the democrats will do a better job with the economy. Of course, there is a recency bias and things are going badly right now, so there is a tendency to want to “throw the bums out” but the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are hugely unpopular and yet the republican advantage on foreign policy persists.

I think that democrats start out with an edge on kitchen table issues and republicans on foreign policy, but it is ultimately all about your actually policies and how well you communicate them. If Mitt Romney were the nominee, he may be trailing for a bunch of other reasons. He might be behind because he doesn’t seem to know much about foreign policy, or because he’s a mormon, or because his hair hasn’t moved since 1986. But you can’t convince me he would be behind on preparedness to lead the economy.

The truth is that McCain has proven himself to be a very inept candidate and that is where the blame must squarely be placed for his so far awful performance. I will save the post-mortem for when the campaign’s heart monitor officially goes flat (and - please god, saints be praised and inshallah it will) but consider this:

* He started the race as the only republican running ahead of the generic republican ticket. Perceived more as an independent than a republican, he was the only nominee the GOP could pick that would have a fighting chance given the political climate
* He squandered the three month lead he had between sealing the nomination and Obama sealing his by trying to remind everyone that he was a war hero and very very experienced - Jesus fucking Christ who didn’t know this already? His campaign should be fired for “reintroducing” someone so familiar while Obama was actually introducing himself - and his ideas - to the country
* He spent a lot of time, money and free media in the summer taunting Obama for being … popular? Is he not aware that this is about getting the most votes? It is, in its most basic sense, a popularity contest
* He has repeated the mistakes of the Clinton campaign, relying on an expensive and unfocused “air war” of ads and PR versus a balanced air and ground attack. If the polls end up under-estimating Obama’s lead / margin it will be because of his ground effort, and the fact that he conserved cash through the summer to allow for a final month bombardment
* Then things got whacky, when he capitulated to his grumpy but inert base and picked the radically under-qualified Palin as his running mate, trading three days of “he’s a maverick” press and poll bounce for six weeks (and the rest of his life) of “Oh, actually, he’s a dickhead. What was he thinking?” coverage
* When Palin’s numbers started to crater with everyone but the base, he got desperate - the whole campaign suspension and his role (or non-role) in brokering a deal (or non-deal) on the financial system bailout began a series of miss-steps on the economy

And that, in the end, is the main point: the economy has crushed McCain, but not because it was impossible for him to win on the economy, because he failed to do it. Perhaps had he picked Romney as VP the race would be very different. Even with Palin at his side, he might have positioned himself as a wise old man who would be (as he said in the second debate) “a steady hand at the tiller”. The problem is, he just isn’t. His message has bounced around all over the place - I’ve got experience, I’m a reformer, I’m a maverick, I was a soldier in the Reagan revolution, I’m a true conservative, I’m a Teddy Roosevelt republican and now, I’m a fighter. He has not presented a clear and consistent image of who he is beyond a POW with a bad temper and none of his incarnations has been very appealing.

Here’s a tip for McCain, for the remainder of the campaign and the next debate in particular: if you want to convince people that you’ve got a steady pair of hands, try to keep the mic still when you’re doing it.