Wailing Into The Void

Bill Kristol offers more brilliant advice to the McCain campaign in today’s NYT:

When you’re in a hole, stop digging. McCain could order his campaign to pull all negative ads, mailers and robocalls.

For that matter, he might as well muzzle the campaign. McCain campaign senior staff members now seem to be spending more time criticizing one another than Obama, and more time defending their own reputations than pursuing a McCain-Palin victory. McCain should simply say that for the last week of the campaign, no staff member is authorized to speak to the media about anything beyond logistical and scheduling matters.

Then McCain and Palin can spend the final week speaking for themselves. They should throw themselves open full time to the media. Could the press coverage get worse? Next Sunday, McCain and Palin could divide up the talk shows. Sarah Palin live! Lots of people would tune in.

Where to begin?  Well, first off, Kristol is correct in recognizing McCain is in a hole.  I’ll give him credit for that.  But does he seriously think that there’s any way that McCain will stop his negative campaigning at this late stage of the race?  In order for McCain to win this election he needs to wrest at minimum one state away from Obama where Obama holds a sizable lead in the polls.  With the debates behind us and most of the electorate having already made up their minds it would seem the only way for McCain to come back and win at this point would be to either inflict serious damage to Obama’s image or inject a fresh dose of fear and doubt into voters’ minds.  To stop going negative at this point would effectively concede the race.  As much as I’d love to see that happen, I’m actually expecting to see the McCain campaign take the opposite tack.

Kristol is also right in saying that McCain should muzzle the campaign.  The problem is it’s clear that he simply can’t do it.  The McCain campaign, much like the man himself, lacks anything resembling discipline.  Even if McCain were to issue some kind of edict forbidding staff members from talking to the press (and how do we know he hasn’t already done so?) is that really going to stop anyone?  Unless you’re a true McCain loyalist like Mark Saltier what’s in it for you to keep your mouth shut?  Your candidate’s going to lose, so there’s no reward awaiting you in the hereafter of a McCain administration.  While you’re not out there covering your ass and assigning blame to someone else another McCain staffer is probably throwing you under the bus.  Where’s your incentive to keep quiet? 

I suppose if the McCain campaign is feeling desperate enough they might turn Sarah Palin loose on the Sunday morning talk shows.  If I weren’t busy canvassing I would certainly tune in to that just for laughs.  Will lots of people tune in?  Possibly.  Will lots of people who tune in be doing so with the expectation of hearing something that will change their minds about Palin or the election?  I doubt it.  Her fans will tune in for another opportunity to see their sweetheart and her detractors will tune in for a chance to see a really awesome train wreck.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 27th, 2008 at 5:29 pm and is filed under Current Events, Political Musings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.