A savvy former official from a past GOP administration had a keen observation about the McCain camp and the media feeding frenzy earlier this week. He said simply, “They don’t get rattled. They are grown ups.” I think there is evidence of this — Steve Schmidt briefly appeared on Monday, answered a few questions and then shut down further discussion coming from the campaign. This is a disciplined and confident team. And after the speech, there was virtually no end zone dancing and “we told you so” sort of reaction.
The media, of course, was pushing the notion that the McCain camp blundered by the Palin pick and hasn’t a clue what they are doing. But this was a rather spectacularly successful Convention: President Bush and Vice President Cheney were virtually non-issues, the speech of the millennium introduced the most popular candidate of the four presidential ticket participants, McCain gave a solid speech which garnered media praise and the polls are narrowing again. It might be that the McCain camp is one of the more competent ones we’ve seen, one that is overperforming and operating under perhaps the most vicious media assault ever launched against one ticket.
And Obama keeps telling us that we should judge a candidate’s future by his campaign. So should we conclude that the calm under pressure, daring, execution and discipline which characterize the McCain camp portends well for a McCain administration?
