Raising McCain

Ambinder, trying to carve an exit door into the hazy daze of summer:

There are two main criticisms of the McCain campaign right now. They both follow the premise that McCain will win only if uses the next 98 days to espouse a unified, coherent message that simultaneously lifts McCain above Obama while highlighting Obama's profound inexperience. One line holds that McCain is too reactive and angry, that his campaign's contempt for Obama manfiests itself too obviously, and that McCain seems small. The other is that there is nothing in McCain's portfolio right now that reminds voters of the guy who capitivated millions in 2000. [...] Put Obama aside. Why is McCain running? What are his first principles? And why can't he articulate them?

As smart as this is, there's a bit of slippage. Or there are a few assumptions at work that may be at cross-purposes. Must a unified message be coherent? (No.) Must a coherent message be unified? (Probably.) What is a unified message? Is a unified message different than a comprehensive one? How is a unified and coherent/comprehensive (UCC) message different from a comprehensive political doctrine, i.e. an ideology? Can McCain issue a UCC Republican message, or a conservative one? Should he do both? Can he? 

And how do all these questions relate to the mystical unicorn of First Principles? How can McCain himself have first principles? Shouldn't he be articulating principles that operate at a superpolonian level? More than simply to his own self being true? Patton was awesome, but he was leading men in the field, not leading a party, a movement, and a country.

Aha: cognitive dissonance, stacking up. This is part of why McCain can't articulate whatever it is we think he should be articulating, and why Obama is doing a kind of multilayered shuffle that oscillates between brow-furrowed focus and the politics of yearning. McCain's problem is both more obvious and more acute, but his ability to fudge through is much greater than Obama's -- both because of his own personal style and history and the persistent reticence of Average Americans to flock toward Obama. 

Which suggests to me at least that McCain may do himself far more harm than good -- and ditto his campaign -- getting hung up on the chimerical need for some Grand Vision. McCain is no Grand Vizier. This isn't Bush Sr.'s problem -- McCain gets the vision thing okay. He's just stymied by the apparent need -- exacerbated by Obama, yes, but by trouble on the right all the more -- to trot out and hammer home some kind of comprehensive neo-Republican program of consistent, coherent, interlocking policy proposals all traced by thick, bold pedigree lines back to the all-unifying nut of a comprehensive doctrine manifested itself by First Principles.

Ain't gonna happen, folks. Asking this of any Republican this year would be unfair and cruel, and asking it now of McCain is tantamount to shaking a baby. It's not even clear on a general level that the Republican Party needs the kind of sweeping/UCC message that seems to be crippling McCain, or that having one wouldn't actually work affirmative harm to the McCain campaign, the generic Republican Congressional brand, or the GOP period. For now, anyway... and at this rate, now could last a very long time.

Comments

[Robert C. Cheeks]

It' to early to call; I learned my lesson with Mrs. Bill Clinton. However, the neocons, e.g. the GOP, stand squarely behind the principles of globalized capitalism,foreign interventionism, and record setting budget deficets. That alone should push conservatives into Barr's camp resulting in a win for Sen. Obama. But, I work with alot of labor Dems who aren't voting for him; yes, I know, its antedotal, so where do they go? No more punditing for me!

[Josh]

Good breakdown of the problems confronting McCain. That Obama is not thrashing him in the polls right now amazes me (even with the pretentious grandiosity of his trip to Berlin), but then again (as you note) there's McCain's "own personal style and history and the persistent reticence of Average Americans to flock toward Obama."

And Robert, I agree with you that a vote for Barr is the best protest vote available for conservatives. The conservative lack of enthusiasm for McCain will come back to bite him, barring [no pun intended] a massive wedge-issue campaign against Obama, a campaign McCain would be uncomfortable with. But I wonder how much of conservatives' apathy/mutiny would be offset in the end by labor/working class whites/Casey Democrats not going for Obama?