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Home > Blogs > Campaigns Don't Count > Archives > 2007 > December > 28 > Entry
McCain Re-Rise Foreseen Here
Last week I admitted to imperfection in predictions. But, given all the talk about John McCain being alive again, you’ve got to see this: My column of last July 13, in the Dayton Daily News, when EVERYBODY else was saying he was dead.
You can judge for yourself to what degree my incredible insight derives from my immersion in the Lichtman system for predicting general-election outcomes.
The column:
John McCain Should Ignore the Experts and Hang in There
A news story from the presidential campaign trail: “(The candidate’s) staff troubles - which he predicted would be ‘a one-day story’- turned farcical yesterday when he was forced to apologize for sneering at two campaign aides who quit.
“Seeking to right his foundering … presidential bid, the … senator this week fired his campaign manager, longtime loyalist Jim Jordan. In protest, two top aides quit.
“Then, in an interview with The Associated Press, (the candidate) dissed his outgoing spokesman and deputy finance director.
” ‘When you change one person, it is not at all unusual that a couple of people that person hired - that I barely know, who are not really involved with me - decide to go,’ he said.
“The senator later called the ex aides to apologize.”
That story appeared in November of 2003. The candidate in question was John Kerry.
It is offered here because of all the talk about John McCain’s campaign being in turmoil, and all the suggestions that he might - or should - give up.
The circumstances are strikingly similar. Kerry, an early favorite, was doing badly as Howard Dean, an early unknown, was becoming a rock star.
McCain, the early favorite, is doing badly, with money drying up and poll ratings dropping.
Charlie Cook, of the respected Cook Political Report, says, “It’s effectively over. The physicians have left the hospital room, and it’s the executors of the estate who are taking over.”
Another insider publication, The Politico, says: “Six months ago, the consensus among many leading Republicans was that the party’s presidential nomination was Sen. John McCain’s to lose. By outward appearances, he has done just that.”
In November 2003, The Bulletin’s Frontrunner, another insider outlet, had the headline: “Pundits Already Writing Post-Mortems For Kerry Campaign.”
The moral: McCain should hang in there.
Kerry’s campaign didn’t gel until the week before the Iowa caucuses in early 2004. There are a hundred theories about why it finally gelled:
The other candidates killed each other off with negative ads that ignored Kerry; Kerry got better on the stump; people finally decided he was the best candidate to win in November because of his war record.
The correct theory, however, is this:
In the many, many months of a presidential campaign before the primaries, there are all manner of ups and downs for all manner of reasons. In the end, though, a lot of undecided people decide that a couple of the candidates are qualified, that all are flawed and that their philosophical differences are not very big. At that point, people simply pick the one who seems most ready to be president, the one who is already most like a president.
Kerry was the senior senator in a field not abounding with presidential qualifications. The jump to the presidency would be smaller for him than for Howard Dean, John Edwards or Dick Gephardt.
And, yes, Kerry’s war record helped.
McCain has similar cards to play. At a certain stage, the man who showed conspicuous courage in years spent in a godawful prison for being an American serviceman, who has been near the center of national affairs for years, and who has been willing to take unpopular positions might look pretty presidential to people who are simply looking for a president.
By all accounts, McCain has paid a big price for his support of an immigration bill that many Republican activists see as too soft on illegal immigrants. Money has dried up.
But for all anybody knows, the harm that will come to him over that issue has already come, and the good - the credit he gets for taking the tough path - hasn’t, but will, when the people who care more about character than policy issues make up their minds.
McCain earned some abuse early in the year for fuzzing up his independent image of 2000 by cozying up to the religious right. He’s made other accommodations with conservative Republicans, too.
But you’ve got to respect him on this immigration thing.
At bottom, McCain has shown as much independence as any candidate for president in either party can be expected to show - maybe too much for the political market to bear.
People are now pointing to mistakes he has made as a candidate. Indeed, in the current McCain-bashing frenzy, everything he does is seen as a mistake by somebody.
But all candidates make mistakes in the course of a long, long campaign.
These mistakes tend to cancel each other out, and the big picture tends to prevail. Big picture: In a field in which nobody stands out immediately as the obvious, natural choice, McCain still has a lot going for him.
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