The Osterley Times: McCain Manager: 'This Election is Not About Issues'

Wednesday, September 03, 2008

McCain Manager: 'This Election is Not About Issues'

At last Rick Davis has come out and said what I have been saying here for months, the Republicans never want elections to be about issues, because their position on the issues is toxic, and they always want the election to be fought on "character" so they can, once again, try to con the American people into voting against their own economic interests. They rarely admit this, certainly not as openly as Davis has done:

Rick Davis, campaign manager for John McCain's presidential bid, insisted that the presidential race will be decided more over personalities than issues during an interview with Post editors this morning.

"This election is not about issues," said Davis. "This election is about a composite view of what people take away from these candidates."

He's also admitted that the press have not taken to Sarah Palin and, as they are refusing to put only softball questions to her, that she will not be available for interviews until the press learn their place.

Davis demurred when asked when Palin will sit for interviews with major news organizations, pointing out that now would not be the right time given the "combative" attitude the media has seemingly adopted toward Palin.

This, of course, begs the question: How can we believe that this woman is ready to face down Putin if she can't even face a "combative" press? And she's avoiding the press to avoid another very obvious question to which, I presume, she has no answer: How can you continue to campaign on a platform of "abstinence only" when your own family is the proof that this policy doesn't work?

I presume once the press learn not to be "combative" regarding the commander in chief of the Alaska National Guard - and admit that she is ready to fill Cheney's shoes - that normal relations will resume.

This problem is totally of their own making. Is this "hockey mom" secretly as hard as nails or is Dick Cheney a big fake? Either the problem is as big and bad and dangerous as Cheney has been telling us all these years, or it's really not a problem at all and can safely be handed over to a "hockey mum" who only last year got her first passport.

That's the quandary that McCain's pick puts him in. The Republicans have spent the last seven years telling us all to be afraid, very afraid, and now they are proposing elevating to Vice President a person who freely admits that she doesn't even know what Vice Presidents do.

Either Cheney is a fraud or this woman is simply unsuitable. There is no middle ground here.

And Davis did admit that this is not a good year to run on a Republican ticket.

"We are in the worst Republican environment since Nixon in 1972," said Davis. "We take that seriously. We get the joke."

The Obama camp have pounced on Davis' comments, quickly pointing out the cynicism behind his claim that this election is not about policy.

"We appreciate Senator McCain's campaign manager finally admitting that his campaign is not in fact about the issues the American people care about, which is exactly the kind of cynical old politics people are ready to change."

This is the problem when the Republicans try to play the change card, they make childish mistakes like the one Davis just made because they don't really know how to change. They are traditionalists to their core and, after eight years of disastrous rule, it's hard to admit that it all went wrong and ask for a second chance. Especially if they won't tell us where they think it went wrong.

McCain is specifically running on the Iraq war, the very place where most Americans think the last administration crashed so spectacularly.

So I'm really not sure what kind of change it is that the Republicans are proposing. And I don't suppose anyone else is either.

And it's hysterical that Davis thinks the election is not about issues but about the character of the candidates and then admits, in the same session, that he's keeping one of those candidates away from the press because they are being "combative" towards her.

This campaign is a bloody mess.

UPDATE:

A further indication that Palin was a last minute gamble came with this admission:

As for the speech itself, Davis said a generic, "masculine" speech was being prepared before the pick was made and, now that Palin is the choice, she is adapting the speech to her own needs and personality.

Hmmm. Maybe that's why Lieberman's speech was such a dud. Palin's busily rewriting the original.

UPDATE II:

This is getting funnier by the day. Now McCain's hiding from the press as well. He's refused to go on Larry King because people are saying nasty things about Sarah Palin's suitability to be Vice President.

The McCain campaign said it believed that exchange was over the line and as a result the interview scheduled for Larry King Live with Sen. McCain was pulled. CNN does not believe that Campbell’s interview was over the line. We are committed to fair coverage of both sides of this historic election.