The campaign without a candidate
Since reading that NYTimes article yesterday (which I think is pretty damned important,) I have been occupied by a developing theory. The main change to the McCain campaign since Steve Schmidt took over is to, as much as possible, take McCain out of his own campaign.
McCain is currently making only one or two public appearances a day, only five days a week. They've almost completely shut down media access to the candidate (a total of 38 minutes last week.) McCain is no longer really featured in his own ads other than "approve this message." McCain is not involved in the state by state strategies, and seems to be serving only in a "sign off" role on the larger strategies. And, most troublingly to me, the campaign is now trying to limit his access to the outside world by limiting his phone use.
It's pretty bizarre if you think about it. They're trying to run a Presidential campaign somewhat "around" their own candidate. They don't really want him out there. Don't really want him in ads. Don't want him talking to the press. Don't really want him involved in strategy, and are openly afraid he's going to mess up (their?) message.
His main role right now seems to be using his "prestige" to deliver one photo opportunity and one attack line a day to make it on the national media.
I guess you could argue it's part of the effort to turn the campaign into a referendum on Obama, but it all seems very unusual to me.
(We'll have to see how it plays out this week when McCain has the campaign trail to himself.)
McCain is currently making only one or two public appearances a day, only five days a week. They've almost completely shut down media access to the candidate (a total of 38 minutes last week.) McCain is no longer really featured in his own ads other than "approve this message." McCain is not involved in the state by state strategies, and seems to be serving only in a "sign off" role on the larger strategies. And, most troublingly to me, the campaign is now trying to limit his access to the outside world by limiting his phone use.
It's pretty bizarre if you think about it. They're trying to run a Presidential campaign somewhat "around" their own candidate. They don't really want him out there. Don't really want him in ads. Don't want him talking to the press. Don't really want him involved in strategy, and are openly afraid he's going to mess up (their?) message.
His main role right now seems to be using his "prestige" to deliver one photo opportunity and one attack line a day to make it on the national media.
I guess you could argue it's part of the effort to turn the campaign into a referendum on Obama, but it all seems very unusual to me.
(We'll have to see how it plays out this week when McCain has the campaign trail to himself.)
posted by mikevotes at
7:25 AM
2 Comments:
I think they're playing for time, until the back-and-forth starts in earnest ahead of November.
In my opinion, McCain is essentially an angry, disorganized guy from two decades ago, and they'd like to keep that under wraps as long as possible.
After that, their plan is to make Obama seem exotic, weird or 'risky', in order to seem normal by comparison.
To fight that, it's necessary to stay on the issues: a tanking economy, a misused military, and an oligarchical fusion of government and corporate power.
By
Anonymous, at 8:49 AM
I do think they're somewhat hiding him. They want the election to be all about Obama, so it's important that McCain not make any real news unless they intend it.
But then we get to that point again. It isn't McCain's campaign. He's just the product they're selling. The decisions all seem to be elsewhere.
And he wants to run the world.....
By
mikevotes, at 12:59 PM
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