The recent shakeup in John McCain's campaign leadership points to the road map he will follow in his presidential bid. The primacy of issues-oriented former lobbyists is over; the ascendancy of politics-oriented campaign professionals has begun. Given the realities of the 2008 election environment, the change is a smart move for McCain and will increase his chances for victory against Barack Obama in November. It also gives us a good idea about the kind of campaign McCain will wage, for the new team is heavy with the proteges of George W. Bush's election wizard Karl Rove.
Rick Davis retains the title of campaign manager but will yield the day to day control of the campaign. Davis headed McCain's 2000 presidential effort. A lobbyist, he founded Davis Manfort in 1998, which has earned $2.8 million lobbying Congress. His firm represented SBC and Comsat in 1999 while he was McCain's campaign chief and the two companies had merger proposals before the Senate Commerce Committee which McCain chaired. The committee gave them the approvals they sought. Davis Manfort also represented Ukrainian Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich and other East European business interests.
Now in as CEO of the McCain campaign is Steve Schmidt, a member of the Bush team's inner circle. Schmidt learned the ropes as a daily attendee at Karl Rove's morning political meetings. He ran the Bush-Cheney "war room" in the '04 campaign. After that he served as counsel to Cheney and shepherded the Rogers and Alito Supreme Court nominations through the Senate. Showing a lot of flexibility, he next headed Arnold Schwarzenegger's California re-election drive in 2006, managing the governor's successful effort to, ironically, distance himself from the Bush-Cheney White House. Schmidt is a pro and a practitioner of no-nonsense hardball. Also joining the McCain campaign from the Rove circle are strategist Terry Nelson, media specialist Mark McKinnon and communications expert Brian Jones.
The McCain operation, which Davis had decentralized into 11 semi-autonomous regional units, will now become highly unified under Schmidt's central control. As in the Bush campaigns we have witnessed under Rove, there will be a message of the day and the candidate and all his surrogates will be briefed on the common talking points to deliver. McCain being McCain, he will still engage in a lot of the question and answer which is one of his campaign strengths, but he will try to open and close his appearance remarks on the daily message. His surrogates will have to maintain much stricter message discipline.
Just as importantly, that message will have to change focus. McCain has taken little advantage of the past four months since he putatively clinched the Republican nomination while the Democrats continued to battle. The reasons for that are simply that the American people generically prefer the Democratic Party over the Republican and trust Barack Obama over John McCain on the issues this year.
An NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll taken June 6-9 of 1,000 voters found the Democrats with a 10% identification advantage, 44 percent to 34 percent. The Republican Party was viewed favorably by only 28 percent, unfavorably by 47 percent and neutrally by 24 percent. The Democratic Party enjoyed a 15 percent advantage, as 43 percent had a positive view, 32 percent a negative and 24 percent a neutral one. Much of this no doubt was related to the unpopularity of President Bush, who had a 28 percent favorable rating to 66 percent negative.
A Gallup/USA Today survey on the candidates conducted June 15-19 gave Obama a 25-point advantage on "understands the problems Americans face," 22 points on "cares about the needs of people like you," 16 points on "is independent in thoughts and actions," 13 percent on "would work well with both parties to get things done in Washington," 10 points on "has a clear plan for solving the country's problems," 8 percent on "shares your values" and 4 percent on "is honest and trustworthy." They were tied on "can manage the government effectively." McCain's only edge was 6 points on "is a strong and decisive leader."
The same poll asked who would do a better job on eight issues. Obama led by 25 points on health care, 19 points on energy and gas prices, 16 points on the economy, 9 points on taxes, and a statistically insignificant 1 percent on moral values. The two were tied on "the situation in Iraq." McCain had his own statistically insignificant 2% lead on illegal immigration. The only issue where he clearly held the advantage was on terrorism, which he won by 19 points.
With these factors in mind and considering that a Karl Rove-trained campaign team will be running things, there are a few things we can expect in the months ahead.
First, we can expect McCain to distance himself from President Bush and the Republican label. He will do this by burnishing his "maverick" and "Straight Talk Express" reputations. This will be done in mostly general terms along the lines of his past statements about lobbyists and special interests in Washington. McCain has already retreated from the actual stances he took that were not in line with Bush, such as on taxation, campaign finance and the religious right because his former views tend to anger the Republican base.
Second, he will hammer away at the only truly winning issue he has, terrorism. He has begun doing this, taking questions on the economy, for instance, and finding ways to weave the threat of terrorism into his answers at every opportunity. To paraphrase what Joe Biden said about Rudy Giuliani, a lot of McCain's sentences will come to consist primarily of a noun, a verb and terrorism.
Third, an all-out effort will be made to destroy Barack Obama's credibility. This will not be undertaken primarily by McCain himself. It will be left up to surrogates and "unafffiliated" advocacy groups. If the issues are against you the only way to win is on personality factors, and no one has mastered the art of character assassination better than Mr. Rove. His political progeny, now in charge of McCain's national effort, have learned this at the feet of the master.
Expect any statement by Obama or his supporters that can be misconstrued or twisted into something untoward to be given that spin right away by McCain's surrogates. We are already seeing the beginning of that. If Obama doesn't wear a flag pin, why does he "hate America?" He has a Muslim middle name. Rove himself has taken to describing Obama as "that guy at the country club." Obama's appeal will be minimized as being "mainly to the inner city" (i.e. to blacks). His wife will be derided for being too outspoken. Count on this. These guys are very good at this kind of politics and they know it is their best, and perhaps only, avenue to victory.
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