Since clinching the nomination, John McCain hasn’t quite disappeared from the national stage. But little that he has said or will say could overpower the question that will dominate political journalism from now until June — and perhaps until August: Hillary or Obama? That question, and the daily jab-and-thrust on the Democratic side, will be the focus of every front-page story for months.
The McCain camp is largely fine with this. The country has endured marathon primaries that effectively began in January 2007. Most American voters aren’t political junkies. For them, summer will be about blockbuster movies, vacations, and baseball — not three months of relentless back-and-forth attacks. And little that is said by Hillary or Obama between now and the crowning of the Democratic nominee will be flattering to either of them.
As the all-but-official GOP nominee, McCain has done some of the traditional moves for a newly crowned champion — the international tour, the biographical tour, an appearance in the Senate to query Gen. David Petraeus. Another tour of non-traditional sites for Republican candidates is promised. All of these are fine efforts — but hardly earth-shaking or headline-grabbing.
So a major question for the campaign is: Can John McCain drive the news agenda? Every candidate is reactive to a certain extent: think George W. Bush having spring 2004 dominated by pictures of Abu Ghraib, or John Kerry trying to ignore the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, or both candidates responding to a video featuring Osama bin Laden in the final days of the campaign. But unless the news cycle naturally spotlights a candidate’s preferred issues — which, given the U.S. media’s political leanings, is always easier for Democrats than Republicans — a candidate sometimes needs to make their own news and force the chattering classes to focus on their issues.
Last month, McCain offered a speech on the housing bubble, adamantly opposing a federal bailout, and offering the outlines of common-sense reforms. As sensible as McCain’s remarks were, the speech’s biggest news impact may have been in spurring Democratic ads claiming, in effect, that “John McCain offers no solution.” Let’s hope McCain’s speech in Pittsburgh today holds steady on this original theme. However the press would like to spin it, the fact is that McCain’s don’t-rob-the-responsible-to-bail-out-the-irresponsible theme will resonate with most Americans, if he can deliver that message to the country in the right circumstances, without creating opportunities for media distortion.
McCain aides note that the candidate’s preferred form of campaigning, town hall meetings with extended question-and-answer sessions, tend to be reactive and aren’t the perfect vehicle to set a message agenda. But there’s little chance of that format being dropped or modified. The candidate relishes them, usually wins over the majority of the crowd, and almost invariably gets glowing local press coverage.
And McCain’s people know that part of the price of that format is the inevitable off-key answer, such as the candidate’s impromptu parody of the Beach Boys, “bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran.” At the time, the crowd laughed; today liberal bloggers insist it is
ipso facto evidence that he is Dr. Strangelove.
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