McCain’s Four Quarters
- 05.08.2008 - 3:31 PMAlthough I loathe sports analogies in politics, this one seems irresistible: For John McCain, the presidential season has four quarters. He will lose the first three. Will he be able to make it up in the fourth?
The first quarter began when the Republican race became a fait accompli and the Democratic battle between Clinton and Obama got more interesting. This started in earnest soon after New Hampshire. Obama took it simply because he has been involved in a more exciting race that garnered constant media attention while McCain and the Republicans became predictable and tedious. With Obama now certain to be the Democratic nominee, the second quarter has begun. Obama has more money, a new gust of wind in his sails, and a cheerleading press corps that will boost him up all summer. Without a real issue or a heavy ad buy, McCain will find it very difficult to penetrate voters consciousness over the summer. He will lose the second quarter.
The third quarter will begin and end with the two conventions, the Democrats in late August and the Republicans in early September. The Democratic convention will be a Hollywood studio boss’s dream, what with Obama’s gorgeous family, the spectacular videos, the unity theme that has been presaged since January, the lineup of celebrities walking the convention floor, Oprah’s opening night speech. Held in Denver — the New West — it will be young, full of Camelot references, and more racially and ethnically diverse than a Benetton commercial.
The Republican Convention, by contrast, will be held in Minneapolis, during the week that the entire country is focused on what time they can leave work Thursday to start Labor Day weekend. The third quarter goes to Obama in a walk.
The fourth quarter, after the conventions, and during the fall debates, is McCain’s only chance. This will be the first time that country really sees the two candidates directly going after one another. It will be the first time McCain will feel he is on a level playing field. The narrative of the first three quarters is the young and new vs. the old and tired. McCain has to reframe the debate around ideas–on Iraq, the economy, bipartisanship, taxes, and experience. No one looks or sounds better in victory than Obama. He is a lot less attractive, as we have now seen, when he is confronted or put on defense. When the country is paying attention in October, McCain will have his chance to knock Obama on his heels.
The meaning of all this: Republicans need to gird themselves for a long summer of horrendous polls and deepening despair. Obama will keep putting points on the board through early September. It will look hopeless. Until the fourth quarter.
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May 8th, 2008 at 3:43 PM
I agree with this analysis. It is frankly incumbent upon Republican 527s to raise the issues of taxation, Iran, Iraq, and Obama’s various skeletons in his closet. This is an uphill race for McCain. Still, it’s better that the Republicans picked a centrist American hero than any of the other Republican candidates.
May 8th, 2008 at 3:59 PM
How about some genuinely new ideas? So far, these have been scarce in both parties’ campaigns. If McCain offered some really good, doable ideas, through channels that the media could not block (this could be the one good use of today’s type of “debate”), that would put him more on offense. Ideally, he could expose Obama through this as a windbag with nothing substantive or practical to say.
May 8th, 2008 at 4:00 PM
I might quibble on some of the details, or at least how they’re weighed, but I agree that the scheme outlined in the main post amounts to the default program. Yet, as we’ve already seen, unpredictable events can shape the “game” much more consequentially than positioning of the conventions for ratings relative to Labor Day Weekend.
Consider that while the extended campaign and media compliance gave Obama greater exposure and momentum during the First Quarter, he hardly came out of it all unscathed. Instead of running up the score on McCain, he at most came out with a small lead. Many have gone so far as to argue that the revelations about Obama and his mishandling of them have already doomed his candidacy.
Just to give one obvious yet easily neglected further example, McCain holds what looks like an unsurmountable lead on trustworthiness in a national security crisis. At any time between now and the election, and as the turbulence in Lebanon should remind us, an event overseas can turn current national priorities upside down, and make the electorate a lot less interested in taking a flyer on the pretty boy who, though they don’t trust him as far as they could throw them, makes them feel pretty, too.
May 8th, 2008 at 4:03 PM
I disagree. During the summer, no one is paying much attention to anything political, so this idea of four quarters is silly. First, Obama did not at all win the first quarter, not when the polls in many key states, and even the less useful national polls, show McCain either ahead or virtually tied. At this stage of the game, the Repubs are usually way behind. And Obama has had a miserable time of it, and is not through with it yet; Hillary has bloodied him, he has bloodied himself, and she is staying in this at least for another month if not longer. This was supposed to be Obama’s big moment, and it’s been anything but. The first impression he’s made to swing state voters has been abysmal.
After Labor Day, the battle gets joined. Then we’ll see. But McCain is in very good position right now.
May 8th, 2008 at 4:09 PM
I agree with both CK and Bob. Another (yet another) crisis in the Middle East, this one in Lebanon, would show how clueless Obama is. It’s easy for him to say, Iraq is a failure, I would pull us out of that quagmire. Hardly any policy of any external actor has been an unqualified success in the Middle East in the last 60 years (I don’t expect the Camp David Accords to last permanently either). This region is always a quagmire for those who intervene. Let Obama take the lead in explaining how he would handle the next MidEast crisis in Lebanon, rather than condemning McCain for the less than pleasant results of the last crisis.
I also think, like Bob, that McCain must come up with new policies, including those that deviate strongly from the current Bush-Cheney policies in lots of areas, to show that he is not as brain dead as much of his party is. He has new ideas on the environment, energy policy, and healthcare. He should be very upfront about these ideas, once the media starts to pay attention to him, and emphasize how they deviate from the Bush-Cheney policies. This will not only make him look like a thinker and change agent, but will defuse the whole 3rd term of Bush line of Obama.
May 8th, 2008 at 5:22 PM
Even money that Mav’s people end up suggesting that voters split their tickets.
May 8th, 2008 at 5:54 PM
I love sports analogies and metaphors. This one is great!
May 8th, 2008 at 5:57 PM
Correction (and it’s relevant): the Republican Convention convenes on September 1, which *is* Labor Day.
May 8th, 2008 at 6:52 PM
there are plenty of opportunities during the summer for Obama to make more gaffes. He may be more careful now but I think he still doesn’t get just what he’s done wrong, so he is going to keep doing it.
May 8th, 2008 at 7:39 PM
McCain needs to start criticizing Obama for failing to address ANY of the international situations which threaten America’s stability. Obama is a United States Senator. Why doesn’t he propose legislation to solve the problems he constantly whines about? Other than the fact that he’s a complete and incompetent phony, of course.