This week's Weekly Standard recommends that the McCain campaign attack Obama Ford-style, by raising the questions they raised against Carter in '76. (Carter won, but that's somehow irrelevant). The three questions concern experience, record in office and whether the candidate is sufficiently known.
Since McCain rendered the first two questions moot by choosing Sarah Palin, I suspect they'll focus on door number three. Well, two can play at that game. They like to call him a maverick (whether it fits or not), but in fact he's more of a mystery man. And mystery serves him well: it's no accident that both his health and his wealth are largely hidden from public view. But I'm even more concerned about his elusive agenda and his missing integrity. Even before last week's bizarre behavior, there was ample cause for concern. Selecting the uninformed Palin for his ticket, and cleaving to the fundamentalist "base" he once despised, is the work of a man capable of reversing fundamental principles for political convenience. Now he's reversing his quarter century of anti-regulation agitation. Just who is this man?
Hiding these secrets and unknowns may be key to his election strategy. He doesn't want folks to know too much. Since the press lets a lot of these things fall under the radar, I decided to make a helpful little list of the troubling question marks we need answered. And this list should send chills up our collective spine.
What do people really know about McCain? And what do people need to know before the election? Can we afford to have this unknown quantity contend for the highest office in the land?
1. Health Mystery
As OpenLeft reported a few weeks ago, Senate Democrats were at the time increasing pressure on McCain to release his medical records (economic circumstances intervened). According to Senator Chuck Schumer,
When you're running for President everything should be public including your full medical records. I believe in the right to privacy but when you're running for President which is such an important job the need of the public to know supercedes it.
Or as Harry Reid said,
When we're talking about the President of the United States, health issues are extremely important. We learned that going back a long time ago, when you guys weren't around, when Tom Eagleton because of his depression had had shock treatment. So this isn't something we just dreamed up, it's important, Eagleton had to drop out, and select a new Vice Presidential nominee. So I think there should be total transparency when a person is running for President of the United States.
Senator, your health records, please. Even mavericks can have health issues, and voters need some reassurance that you will be healthy enough to school Governor Palin sufficiently in the basic job requirements should she be so anxious privileged as to succeed you at some point.
2. Money Secrets
As McCain reinvents himself as a populist following the recent financial crisis, and champions all the regulation and oversight he fought tooth and nail to prevent in the last quarter century, it's pretty inconvenient to reveal his wealth. The lavish lifestyle he enjoys derives directly from his wife's assets, and we still don't know how wealthy she is.
The Mccains' net worth is clearly considerably higher than the six million Cindy McCain reported as her taxable income (as opposed to wealth) last May.
As commentators noted last April, when calling for Cindy's finances to be released,
McCain's lifestyle is largely financed by his wife's wealth; she has been estimated to have holdings worth roughly $100 million. Most of her money stems from a family fortune.
Senator, people need to know more about your elitist financial situation, your net wealth, the precise number of homes you own, their net value, the exact complement of cars (and golf carts) in your possession, so that we can judge whether or not you are capable of understanding the housing meltdown Americans are facing every day.
3. Covering Up the Palin Record
The McCain campaign is deeply implicated in an effort to quiet or suspend investigation involving Sarah Palin in the "Troopergate" scandal, to the extent that the campaign now apparently controls the Governor's office itself.
The takeover of Alaskan government by the campaign of John McCain, which is determined to shut down an investigation into running-mate Sarah Palin's burgeoning abuse-of-authority scandal has become so complete that aides to the governor are no longer answering questions about state business.
They are directing calls to McCain campaign operatives, who have flooded into the state to try and manage the so-called "Troopergate" investigation. That bipartisan inquiry was launched -- with approval from Republicans who control the state legislature -- after the governor's July dismissed of Alaska's public safety commissioner, who would not fire her former brother-in-law as a state trooper.
A Superior Court judge dismissed a lawsuit by Alaskan legislators who wish to halt the investigation last Thursday; they have appealed to the Alaskan Supreme Court, which will rule on the case this Wednesday.
In dismissing the lawsuit, Superior Court Judge Peter Michalski said the Legislature has the ability to investigate the circumstances surrounding the firing of a public officer the lawmakers had confirmed.
...
Palin pledged her cooperation with the probe until she became the vice presidential candidate. She has said through her lawyer that she only will cooperate with a separate investigation, one that she calls unbiased but is conducted in secret and can last for years.
Senator, what role is the McCain taking in this state investigation? How can the campaign justify its active interference with the state sovereignty of Alaska, and specifically its elected legislature's bipartisan investigation into ethics violations and abuse of power solely to protect the McCain/Palin ticket?
4. Reversing Course on Regulation
McCain's attempts to bend 26 year of anti-regulation cheerleading to fit the current crisis would be laughable if they were so troubling. His own history with the Keating Five scandal makes his new vigilantism suspect. In any case, in a time of crisis people need to have confidence that political leaders aren't just talking out of both sides of their mouths. But how else can we interpret his flip belly flop on September 15?
"The fundamentals of our economy are strong" [morning] and "The fundamentals of our economy are at risk" [afternoon]
What's mind-boggling is that the Senator thought the fundamentals were strong on the morning of September 15, 2008, at least before the political reality of this statement sank in and changed his mind. Official stats now show a five year high in number of jobs cut alongside a continued five-year high rate of unemployment in September.
Even if he didn't know that yet, it's hard to believe that he hasn't been hearing the economic blues playing across the country, including the rapidly tanking mortgage situation that's been beyond obvious to anyone who reads the papers since early summer, if not before. The man must be living in a cocoon. Hard times have been "trickling down" for many months now.
The unemployment rate leaps to a two-year high, record numbers of people are forced from their homes and Wall Street nose-dives again. Such is the fallout from a housing meltdown that threatens to slingshot the country into a recession. MSNBC January 13, 2008
Neither he nor Governor Palin seem to have a clue about what needs to be done. They offer regulation with one hand, and use the other take a swipe at government oversight.
Senator, the era of US economic dominance is over. What are your plans for putting America back on the road of fiscal health, restoring faith in American financial institutions, instilling pride in domestic craftsmanship and entrepreneurial growth? Beyond 'drill baby drill,' that is?
And, Senator, what specific measures can you propose to rein in all those nasty Wall Street firms that got us into trouble here? Besides, "I'll try to find ya some and I'll bring 'em to ya"?
5. Waffling on Straight Talk
If a maverick is just another name for unbranded cattle (sorry to repeat the link, but it's just too tempting to pass up), it's not clear how even this flattering portrait fits this candidate and this ticket.
True, he has reached across the aisle (mostly so as to cleave to the eager--and essentially Republican--Joe Lieberman), but is he constitutionally capable of rising above his political party for the greater good?
Just to cite a recent example, when the crisis hit the Senator's consciousness, he elbowed his way into the fray, ultimately siding with conservative Republican opponents to the bill who just by coincidence happen to be important to his election bid. He took credit for the bailout bill's success before it passed, and then, when it failed, issued an extraordinary statement that calls into question his basic ability to stay on the straight talk message in a single statement:
Now is not the time to fix the blame, it's time to fix the problem....Senator Obama and his allies in Congress infused unnecessary partisanship into the process."
This from a man who prides himself on his straight talk, his truthfulness and integrity (except when misinformation serves his campaign strategy).
Senator, do you believe in straight talk?
Looks like this week's GOP strategy will be to paint Obama as an unknown. It'll be tough proving that, because in fact the man's life has been scrutinized so intensely for months now he's the most open book candidate we've seen in years.
But we know what they're capable of. So as an act of pre-emption, it's time for us to turn the spotlight back on the truly mysterious figure in this campaign: John McCain.