mccain is appearing more like a bumble. as soon as he's up against obama, he's going down quickly. voters are getting smart. they're getting smart about politicians and the media.
mccain is weak on the economy. his gas tax holiday is hokey. extending bush's tax cuts for wealthy americans shows he's out of step with america. anything that's related to george bush is not going to fly. bush has simply been the worst president in recent history, and he's completely oblivious to that fact, which makes us more revolted.
mccain's only perceived strength, if you want to call it that, is national security, but i think more americans are becoming aware that we've been snowed on the iraq war. we know that being secure is about more than running around country to country, picking a fight. it's about diplomacy.
the republicans think that war is a given, that we will always be in iraq. the bottom line is that iraq has always been about oil and not a whole lot more.
john mccain can laugh about arugula and whole foods now (since i don't have health insurance, mccain, that's the way i stay healthy), but he's going to be up against a strong candidate, barack obama, a public fed up with bush, and a more politically savvy and engaged public.
frank rich at the nyt says mccain's turn is coming:
Mr. McCain is not only burdened with the most despised president in his own 71-year lifetime, but he’s getting none of the seasoning that he, no less than the Democrats, needs to compete in the fall. Age is as much an issue as race and gender in this campaign. Mr. McCain will have to prove not merely that he can keep to the physical rigors of his schedule and fend off investigations of his ties to lobbyists and developers. He also must show he can think and speak fluently about the domestic issues that are gripping the country. Picture him debating either Democrat about health care, the mortgage crisis, stagnant middle-class wages, rice rationing at Costco. It’s not pretty.
Last week found Mr. McCain visiting economically stricken and “forgotten” communities (forgotten by Republicans, that is) in what his campaign bills as the “It’s Time for Action Tour.” It kicked off in Selma, Ala., a predominantly black town where he confirmed his maverick image by drawing an almost exclusively white audience.
The “action” the candidate outlined in the text of his speeches may strike many voters as running the gamut from inaction to inertia. Mr. McCain vowed that he would not “roll out a long list of policy initiatives.” (He can’t, given his long list of tax cuts.) He said he would not bring back lost jobs, lost wages or lost houses. But, as The Birmingham News reported, this stand against government bailouts for struggling Americans didn’t prevent his campaign from helping itself to free labor underwritten by taxpayers: inmates from a local jail were recruited to set up tables and chairs for a private fund-raiser.
The Democrats’ unending brawl may be supplying prime time with a goodly share of melodrama right now, but there will be laughter aplenty once the Republican campaign that’s not ready for prime time emerges from the wings.
