I write this diary with some trepidation. After all, the 2008 campaign so far has been like a crazy car, with the predictable falling by the wayside time after time. But, now time is running short for severe changes in momentum, and this time I think it's pretty clear: The McCain campaign has managed to drive their straight-talk campaign bus straight into a ditch.
This should come as no surprise. It's the McCain campaign as it truly is (well, hell, it's the candidate as he truly is). Maverick doesn't mean change, maverick really means erratic.
And - probably - it's going to put him into a hole he cannot and should not be able to crawl out of. See below...
I should start by saying this: You cannot out-Rove Karl Rove. Say what you want about the boy-wonder, turd-blossom of the Bush 2 years, he knew what he was doing when it came to campaign strategy. He lied, he twisted, he contorted facts - but he was able to do it and get away with it.
John McCain, Sarah Palin and their team just can't. Like the next James Bond actor, they seem to be trying this just a little bit too hard, and taking much too far. And they've been caught.
There was this strategy, which Sarah Palin has been employing over and over again: Tell a lie, and keep telling it, and everybody will think it's true. That works, but only if there isn't a critical mass of journalists telling everybody it's not. They forgot that part.
In developing the "maverick" myth of the Alaska Governor, they've got her - still - saying she refused the Bridge to Nowhere - incredibly - even after every news organization on the planet has proven this to be a lie. Her image tarnished, this gives new credance and larger attention to every single new piece of untruth she comes up with, from her story about ad-libbing her speech at the GOP convention, to her mind-boggling excuse for her-open-government-reformer-highness fighting the Trooper-Gate investigation, to the campaign's floated reasons for her purchase of a tanning bed in the Governor's mansion (she's seasonally depressed).
Like Britney Spears, her celebrity has gone from good to goofy, from saintly to seriously tarnished. Palin's favorability ratings plummeting like the NYSE in just 3 days.
But this is not another Palin diary. John McCain is a whole other tornado, and hence another strategy: Eviscerate your opponent personally, lie if you must, but do it in the shadows. McCain was the victim of this one in 2000. Running ads where you accuse Barack Obama of supporting sex education for kindergarten students by twisting the language and intent of anti-pedophile legislation - that's not in the shadows. That's overt and stupid. He got caught lying, and the media has to do it's job. No really, they do. And once caught, they're onto it, so they see if he'll do it again. That's an even bigger story.
So, there's Senator McCain yesterday, as the stock market melts down over 500 points, intoning like Herbert Hoover, "the fundamentals of the economy are strong." And - smartly - Senator Obama hammers him on it. And - stupidly - back comes McCain with a response out of another Rove play: Never admit a mistake, redefine it so it becomes a strength. Easily said, but the redefinition actually has to make sense. Back to John McCain, then, who redefines economic fundamentals as the American worker. That makes no sense at all, so it doesn't work. One day later, he is forced to backpedal into admitting the economy is actually not good.
Thus in less than three days, the McCain/Palin momentum has evaporated. Now, some of this was bound to have happened anyway. The convention bounce McCain received was going to recede no matter what. But, look at what events have done:
- Ripped the growing myth of Sarah Palin to shreds.
- Revealed the real lack of authenticity of the John McCain brand.
- Reminded the public the Barack Obama cares more about people like them.
- Created an almost insurmountable credibility gap for the McCain campaign
- Married McCain to the reviled Republican party.
There's still a good deal of time and four debates left for things to shift again. But, regardless of how those turn out, the Republicans will not be able to go easily to the well of Rovean politics and change the agenda yet again.