Home >> United States & Canada >> Elections & Politics

     Email   Print 

McCain's 'Hail Mary' Tour

Ryan Mauro - 10/28/2008

As we speak, Senator McCain’s advisors may well be drafting his concession speech. The outlook is dim. Democratic turnout in early voting is huge; most polls show Obama with a five to twelve point lead, aside from the occasional outlier; Obama is pulling away in Colorado and even Virginia; the Republican base is depressed, and the media’s pre-emptive appointing of Obama as the next president may well decrease Republican turnout.

McCain must throw a hail-mary that causes a media firestorm, resurrect doubts about Obama, and most importantly, sells voters on his candidacy. Taking a page out of Obama’s playbook, McCain needs to embark on a tour—not meant to impress European crowds by becoming Germany’s new David Hasselhoff, but by impressing Americans that actually can vote in this election.

Senator McCain should embark on a week-long “Change Tour” with three stops, one in each battleground state, preferably Colorado, Nevada, and Virginia. One day will focus on change in the economy; another on the government and another on foreign policy and national security, each with bold, hail-mary plans that get the voters talking, and perhaps allowing one day between each event so the campaign can suck up the free media that will result.

The first day should be the economy. McCain has one final chance to reverse his embarrassing performance after the economic crisis began. While the same old tax-and-spend-liberal rhetoric can hurt Obama, it won’t win this race. Voters are so desperate for change that old prejudices against tax hikes and socialistic solutions are willing to be discarded. McCain must not talk about minor tax decreases here, he needs to talk about something major and headline-grabbing, such as eliminating or drastically reducing the capital gains tax (along with other taxes), perhaps going so far as embrace a flat tax or some other overhaul of the tax system.. There will be critics, for sure, but backing your opponent into supporting the current tax system or the IRS can only help. Another idea, put forth by attorney David Storobin, would be to declare a one-year period where money made overseas would not be taxed if moved to the United States. He says that the overall amount of money made by Americans overseas is $11 trillion, which is 15 times the size of the bailout package. There are many big ideas that could be put forth but the message has to be clear: McCain is the one with the most dramatic plan for economic recovery.

McCain must also raise doubts about Obama on taxes and the economy, something which he is starting to do effectively. He should mention Obama’s ties, and suspected membership, in the socialist New Party, making it crystal clear the type of change Americans are voting for. He should use the dreaded words “great depression” in discussing Obama’s tax increases and their impact on the economy.

The second day should be focused on the government. McCain should emphasize the record of reform that he and Palin have, as he always does. He should vow to balance the budget, while criticizing Obama’s failure to make a similar pledge. He should reiterate his desire for a complete review of every government agency and vetoing pork barrel spending, and take it one step further. He should take it further and give a timetable.

He must say that within a certain period of time, this review will be completed, suggestions made, and reform enacted. He should make a promise that the government will be smaller by the end of his first term, and contrast that with Obama’s promise to make government bigger. And he must announce a team to restore confidence in the government.

As Nicholas Guariglia and I stated in our previous article, we’ve discussed privately for weeks that McCain must announce Mitt Romney will be the Secretary of Treasury, and Mayor Rudy Giuliani as attorney general (an idea recently put forth by the you-hate-him-but-you-watch-him Fox News host Bill O’Reilly). The public must be told they are being given specific tasks: Romney—to shake up the economy and make sure appropriate oversight takes place, contrasting that with the Democrats’ recent performance on Fannie & Freedie; and Giuliani—to prosecute anyone who is ripping off Americans through illegal practices, and to oversee the review of the entire federal government. This act would essentially give McCain two more running mates, and as we stated, would send the following message: “Send us to Washington and we’ll knock some skulls around.”

The message of this day against Obama should simply be that Obama wants the federal government, the same government that caused this economic crisis, to run health care and have greater trouble over your lives. Again, the socialist label can work here.

The third day should focus on national security and foreign policy, because when the Obama camp responds and makes this the argument, McCain gains and any increase in discussing this topic in the final days of the campaign could decide the race. In addition, this topic touches upon the previous two.

McCain, unlike Obama, can say “I won’t telegraph my punches” with credibility when it comes to ideas on preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon or capturing Osama Bin Laden. His message must go one step further and demonstrate that his strategy will be a clear break from that of the Bush Administration. He needs to emphasize that he’s far more competent on national security than either Obama or President Bush, and should bring up Obama’s statement in 2004 where he said, “There’s not much of a difference between my position on Iraq and George Bush’s position at this stage,” which was the same time that McCain was warning of the coming disaster due to a flawed strategy. He can also tie the inexperience commonly held by both Bush and Obama, and mention their unity on the recent deal-making with North Korea.

McCain should announce three new pillars of reform that will fundamentally change the national security apparatus and foreign policy of the U.S. He should repeat the words “Lexington Project,” his code-name for his massive undertaking to attain energy independence, and specifically compare it to the Manhattan Project. In addition to its affect on national security, it also could allow McCain to win on the energy issue and thus, gain significantly in the debate on the economy. This is a no-brainer, and it is astounding that McCain didn’t equate his plan with the development of the atomic bomb during the convention.

The second pillar should be restructuring the national security apparatus of the government. He should emphasize consolidation and radical reforms of the Intelligence Community and other departments, such as State. He can restore Americans’ confidence in the governments’ war-fighting capabilities by contrasting his strategy of reform with that of President Bush, and this also will touch upon the topic of government reform from the second day.

The third pillar should be Iran and other rogue states. He needs to emphasize Obama’s statements about Iran not being a “serious threat” and Hamas and Hezbollah having “legitimate claims.” He should bring up the potential of an Iranian EMP strike that disables significant portions of the U.S. infrastructure; waking Americans up from the idea that Iranian nukes are mainly an Israeli concern and don’t threaten us directly. Again, though, McCain must go further and state that neither Bush, nor Obama, have the correct formula on tackling Iran.

He must propose a third solution besides war or never-ending diplomacy, and that’s assisting the democratic opposition of Iran. He can recast himself as the new Reagan, comparing such assistance with the help given to Solidarity and other forces that helped win the Cold War. This approach, if properly articulated, will appeal to both hawks and doves: For hawks, it hurts the mullahs far worse than the sanctions ever could and threatens regime change; and for doves, it will allow the Iranian people to solve the problem themselves, and may be the only way to stop Iran from sponsoring terrorism and building nuclear weapons without war.

McCain may float other ideas, and that is fine. The main point is that bold, headline-grabbing ideas must be offered that change the course of the discussion beyond the typical conservative vs. liberal ideological debates. McCain was successful in choosing his running mate and had a successful convention, but failed to seal the deal by proposing bold new plans that proved he was the candidate of change and ideas. In these final days of the election, such a tour as described would allow him to replicate his successes, while reversing his failures—and prove once again, that McCain is the comeback kid of modern politics.