Hey McCain, Give em a Buckeye and Milk it for all it's Worth!

A memo from Rick Davis of the McCain campaign states:

Until John McCain secures 1,191 delegates, we must campaign aggressively for the Republican nomination, and that requires additional resources in some of the most populous states in the country. We cannot turn our attention to the Democrats and their enormous war chests until this nomination is secure, and we cannot accomplish that goal without your additional help.

Okay, so, this is a fundraising letter - but I do think there is a misconception here, in my opinion.
That is - there's no reason McCain can't run against the Democrats and for the nomination at the same time.

It is true that Texas is a big state with a lot of delegates that McCain will win in November anyway, and so wouldn't need to spend much time there. But there's also some oppurtunities McCain can take advantage of while he's fighting to get the rest of the delegates he needs to make the nomination official.

For some of the states coming up, such as Vermont and Rhode Island, McCain is a pretty sure bet to win the nomination and yet it is unlikely, given recent trends, for the GOP to win there in November. On the other hand there are some places which McCain can build up enthusiasm for his nomination at the same time as he seeks out voters for the general.

This month, the next big state primary is Wisconsin. A few weeks later is Ohio. In these two cases we have states that McCain needs to appeal to not in order to win the nomination contest, but also because these are "swing" states. Considering trends in recent elections, in order for John McCain to win the Presidency he will need to win one or the other. Bush lost Wisconsin both in 2000 and 2004 by a margin of less than 0.5 %. Bush won Ohio both times by less than 4 %. Since Ohio is worth 20 electoral votes to Wisconsin's 10, Ohio is more crucial. Still, Wisconsin could prove vital as well, especially if Iowa or another state goes Democratic. And the fact that McCain has worked closely with Sen. Feingold may help swing independents. Ohio and Wisconsin are both real possibilities for McCain to win in November, but neither is a sure bet right now. It would make sense to take this opportunity to focus on these two states and reach out to general election voters while at the same time reaching out to the Republican base. Both independents and Republicans are able to vote in the primaries of Ohio and Wisconsin, and McCain will need the support of both groups in order to win in the general.

Senator McCain, Come to the Old Dominion !

Well, now that Romney's out, finally the two leading candidates will be respectful and courteous to one another - even if sometimes their supporters won't.

Now it must be said that after losing California in almost every county and congressional district after spending millions of dollars of his own money, Romney really had no way of winning this thing.

But what he has still managed to do is give us the possibility of a brokered convention. And this may be even more likely now that he's officially out of the race.

The news media are still underestimating Huckabee and his supporters, even after all this time. No, there is no way for Huckabee to catch up with McCain. But this thing still has the possibility of being extended a few months if not all the way to the convention in the Fall.

How does Huckabee stay in the game? For one thing, he's very likely to win the caucus in Kansas this Saturday.

On Tuesday we have primaries in Maryland, D.C. and Virginia. Huckabee is very competitive here in Virginia. The last thing McCain needs now is the idea that he is inevitable, thus leading his supporters to stay home on primary day.

If Huckabee wins Virginia, he'll be competitive in Texas and Ohio. That means this thing could go on until Pennsylvania in late April.

McCain needs to officially wrap this nomination up as soon as possible.

The best way for him to do that is to stay on the campaign trail.

So Senator McCain, Virginia will be honored to have you with us!

McCain campaign ad smears McCain

This ad, entitled "Consider," is not what I'd call a high point in the candidacy of a man who should clearly be our next president. After I first watched it I had to watch it again and again to see if I'd missed something, that maybe it wasn't so negative as I thought.

Then I realized what it was that I couldn't figure out. Check out the graphic of the Concord Monitor article versus the voice-over at seconds 23-24.





Look for the words "Mitt Romney is such a candidate" on the graphic. It's not there. It indeed *is* in the original article, but the ad makes it ambiguous as to whether this is the McCain campaign's summary rather than a direct quote.

That the producer of this ad would leave this ambiguous is astounding. This is an egregious mistake. It makes McCain out to seem - if not nastier than Mitt, then at least more sloppy about it.

Whether or not Mitt Romney is a phony should not be what this campaign is about. McCain has the experience, Mitt doesn't. McCain is a war hero, greatly respected by Americans of both parties, has knowledge of the issues, demonstrable foresight, etc. It's time we stop voting against someone and start voting for someone, and McCain is the first one in a long time who will allow us to do that.

The ad should have stuck with just the positive words of the conservative Union Leader, or any of a plethora of others. But instead it implied that a great American is a phony. I don't mean Mitt Romney, whom voters have a hard time trusting anyway. I mean John McCain, who is better than that, and deserves much better.

Webtangle: memo to candidate - don't go negative, stick to substance

In this day of the blogospher, in the pluripotent snarl of contemporary spliced-soundbyte ludicrous-speed digital telegram news, even a scent of smoking adverseriality can soon become explosive if things get too personal. It can become near impossible to recover original nuance from under the decontextualized debris of hyped hostility.
In such an environment, a candidate would be well advised, for exmple, concerning another candidate whose former business associate is coming under heat, to stand clear and let the news cycle ferret out the details until they are sufficientl exposed to the primary voters consciousness. Cable news is perfectly capable in this regard, being able to harp and nag upon the same question again and again completely unselfconsciously, even if it isn't leading anywhere.
And as far as that candidate who turned down an oppurtunity to serve on a panel concerned with crafting a policy bearing upon our military and security of nations, it should not be in any way suggested that such refusal demonstrates a lack of sympathy for the people and issues which that policy would effect. Let it rather be admitted plainly that such candidate had little expertise on the subject to begin with, and so was ill-prepared to engage in such study group, his withdrawal from it thus being perfectly understandable.