What's a good way to generate a lot of buzz? Announce your Vice Presidential selection at an unorthodox time. But this also carries a lot of opportunity cost: this is a card that each candidate gets to play only once.
It wouldn't totally shock me if McCain did announce his Vice Presidential nominee this week -- but if so, it tells you what a huge slam dunk Obama's trip to the Middle East and Europe has been. If McCain had the insight to name his VP just before Obama took off for Iraq, that might have been one thing, but to do it during or immediately afterward creates the perception that you're following rather than leading the media cycle. Moreoever, it denies McCain the advantage of picking his VP last and being able to react to Obama's selection, something which he'd inherently seem to have since the GOP holds its convention later.
But what's a good way to generate a little buzz at no cost at all? Tell Bob Novak that you're thinking about announcing your VP choice -- and then don't actually do it. That is the more likely scenario here.
Either way, it is a reminder of the state of zugzwang that McCain campaign finds itself in. They have to make a move to react to Obama's Iraq trip -- but each plausible move weakens their position.
7.21.2008
Zugzwang
@ 6:43 PM
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Nate, this Obama trip has put McCain in a bind--like your term zugzwang. Just waiting for your polling update.
Today's polls shouln't move the needle very much, I think. Mostly taken before Obama's trip.
Any chance we'll see a regression analysis on how many seats the Democrats will win? Unlike the Senate, I think the GOP will do better than expected and could even post a pickup of 3-5 seats.
I think McCain is the new Hillary. He will have a cring incident (temper tantrum in his case) and a kitchen sink phase (playing race cards, 527s) and only realize how he could have won after he has lost. On the VP choice, he is already trumped and I agree he may not do it and that if he does it will not be seen as anything but questionable defense. Watch for the temper tantrum.
It does seem like a bad idea for McCain to announce it this early in the summer, since Obama will get to announce later.
From a pure theory perspective, it seems 100% illogical to play the best card in your hand to control this small a part of the media cycle. It's a long, long way until the election and Obama's VP pick and the Democratic Convention will ensure that a McCain call now would be overshadowed in the long term.
In the media cycle, his VP pick is the largest arrow in the quiver, and McCain would be wise to use it for maximum impact, which is the Monday after the DNC convention.
Too bad the Rasmussen AK Senate poll came out after today's Senate update.
To make my comment clearer, I'm hoping to see a regression analysis on how many House seats the Democrats will win in this election.
I saw that same discussion on msnbc, I seriously doubt mccain will annouce his VP this weekend. If anything, the second scenario sounds plausible. They are making a fool of bob novak to try to get some attention. Think McCain must hold onto the VP card and play it after the huge Obama acceptance speech.
Is anybody else wondering if McCains strategist are kicking themselves for forcing Obama into this trip?
Safer and more useful would have been to use the travel attack at a time when he couldn't respond with a trip. Then beat him with it without the chance of backfire.
Non-traditional announcement of VP is declaring defeat. I am scrambling, will do anything to postpone my loss.
He won't actually announce this week. All you need is some idiot like Novak to throw the possibility of an announcement out there and it will distract the media away from Obama enough to be valuable.
Mccain better do something this week. Obama is killing him in the press. The polls later this week could be very ugly for Mccain.
Does anyone think Romney would help McCain that much?
My admittedly biased take is that McCain was dead in the water a year ago and only won the nomination by default as the leading candidates took turns as the laughing stock of the nation. If I were in John McCain's walker I wouldn't go near any of them. I can't come up with an untainted Republican ... Colin Powell would be good ... if he weren't already practically supporting Obama! It seems like Lieberman or Lindsey Graham, weasels that they are, would be better choices than Romney, Thompson, Giuliani, or Huckabee.
How about Olympia Snowe?
Bravo for use of the chess jargon. Obama's got one passed pawn with the economy tanking, and Maliki just gave him another in Iraq -- on the opposite side of the board.
mikeel - No way does the GOP gain House seats this year. Just to focus on one region of the country, the Dems have a ton of great pickup opportunities out west. They could potentially win races in AZ-01, AZ-03, NM-01, NM-02, NV-03, CA-04, CA-26, CO-04, and AK-AL. They even have longshot chances in districts like ID-01 and WY-AL.
Meanwhile, I can only think of a bare handful of Democratic House seats that are truly at risk, mostly in the south. Look for the Dems to increase their House majority after November.
The polls later this week could be very ugly for Mccain.
God, I hope so. I'm still deeply concerned that McCain has kept it close after a gaffe a day for a month.
The media really has a stranglehold on the general public. Yesterday I visited some very liberal friends in SF who I would have expected to be on top of things and I rattled off a half a dozen McCain gaffes and they didn't know about any of them.
"John McCain called his wife a WHAT??? No way!"
They sounded like the guy in the "He Said it First" youtube video. They didn't know about the Shia/Sunni thing, the dumped crippled first wife, Czechoslovakia, President Putin of Germany, or anything else. They still thought he was the maverick of 2000 with the adopted African child.
colin powell untainted? recall the UN speech with the palgiarized (from a london school of econ masters thesis as I recall) about the WMDS...I wonder tho why the Obama folks think he isn't busting 50% if McCain has no shot - Obama seems to have an anemic lead given the environment - what gives? why is he underperfoming (smaller lead than) folks like Warner and Udall?
Does he run the risk of annoying the hell out of people? Seriously, if the McCain campaign tells the media that they already have their choice but they have not decided whether they feel like telling voters who it is then isn't that just going to piss people off?
Singing, "I've got a secret" is going to result in somebody spilling the beans and everybody being excited or nobody talking and everybody being pissed off.
Huh, I didn't know chess had a term for Go's concept of "gote"
The Republican convention (the latest of all time) starts in September on the Monday right after the Democratic convention, so McCain cannot wait till then. He should not wait for an 11th-hour move by barack.
If he's sure it will be Romney (or whomever) he should announce next week to get maximum summer campaign time from his VP running mate.
Why si there anti Obama adverts on the left hand column?
If I click on them do the ad firms have to pay money? If so I'll click on them all week long!
A new Rasmussen poll shows 49% or so of voters think the media is trying to give the election to Barack via coverage decisions while only about 12% see a media bias in favor of McCain. The remainder are unsure or see no bias in either direction.
Anyone who thinks the media overall is biased in favor of McCain must be watching nothing but Fox News and reading no newspaper but the Washington Times.
NBC called Obamapalooza Barack's "tour of duty."
All signs right now are pointing toward Romney. If that's the case, I think Obama needs to jump on Bayh. He is even younger than Romney, more polished and more likeable. He also gives Obama a great shot at Indiana, and probably helps in those western media markets of OH. If Obama wins Indiana, it's over. Also, as Nate has referenced, a strong Dem turnout in Indiana keeps the Senate seat Bayh would be vacating in Dems hands if Mitch Daniels is defeated.
Along with what everyone else has said, it occurs to me that if he picks his VP this week, Mr. Country-Before-Political-Ambition will have rushed his VP selection -- the guy/gal who will be a heartbeat from the presidency -- just for the sake of winning a news cycle. Cincinattus, he ain't.
When I heard about this rumour today I thought McCain must have decided to go for Romney. With Iraq almost off the debate-table it´s all about the economy now. But can McCain risk shooting his best arrow right now and try to compete with statesman-like Obama pictures from Berlin?
Yes, he might be forced to do that to change the narrative but it would occur at the worst possible point of time.
In addition, there are also rumours that Obama will announce his VP shortly before the Olympics:
http://communities.canada.com/tnr/blogs/the_stump/archive/2008/07/21/the-veep-timetable.aspx
Now I wonder if the Olympics will really be such a dominating event, given the time shift, but if they are it will be hard for the McCain campaign to find a time window before their convention that they could dominate (and thus change the narrative). In fact, the week after Obama´s return might be the best time.
obsessed
We are in accord on Mac's VP. I see no one that can help. I thought Jindal until I found out he's an exorcist.LOL
I don’t really have a convenient place to post this (at least as of the time I am writing it) – it belongs under a “today’s polls “ type item.
OK, it more or less fits here.
I anticipate that polls in the next several days to a week will show Obama’s margin increasing. (Just today Gallup gave him his biggest lead in a long time – perhaps the biggest this year.) I would not, however, read too much into that (assuming that it happens). As I posted a number of days ago, much of the changes in polling figures at this stage of the campaigns are noise. They could be factors of the sampling or, more likely, they reflect the fact that a large number of voters/respondents are not focusing on the election at this time, and their responses are heavily influenced by ephemeral forces, such as what was in the news on a given day, or the manner or order of the questions.
Come October these factors will be minimized. Until then, take these “swings” with many more grains of salt than is good for your blood pressure.
I am not ruling out the possibility that there could be a real swing – it is just that we will not be able to confirm this until there have been either extremely large swings – far outside the range of the last month and a half, or the boundaries of a new range differ from the range we now have for several weeks.
BTW, with reagrd to the post which commented that McCain could switch course on the VP announcment, even though it would be "making a fool of Novak," I have to say that task was already completed years ago.
If Obama wins Indiana, it's over.
yup ... Kerry + IA + IN = 270
no need for CO, NM, NV, VA or OH (or FL)
It's cutting it close though. NH or a rogue district in ME could really screw things up.
The question is whether Bayh could truly deliver IN. It's hard to imagine winning IN and losing OH.
Robert Novak may be the worst reporter in the entire news industry. He was the guy who said Clinton knew of an Obama scandal that would ruin him, he was the guy who said Huckabee supported Obama, the list goes on. If it were anybody but Novak, I'd maybe believe it.
We're missing another reason to announce early...
The sooner Romney is on the ticket, the more money he can raise. Right now, Obama's fundraising has given him control of the center of the board, and Obama is trying to use the foreign policy initiative to breakthrough McCain's defense. Romney is McCain's counterplay on the funding issue - he's ignoring the potential breakthrough, and trying to go back and fight Obama's fundamental position.
We shouldn't assume McCain is a woodpusher. Every week Romney is on the ticket, he may be able to raise enough to counter Obama in one small to mid-size state.
Obsessed:
You're right, it would be difficult to imagine OH going R and IN going D. But Bayh would probably have an even better chance at putting a close state like OH in the D column, so a D IN and R OH wouldn't happen under this scenario.
I think Romney just comes off as this slick pol...almost like a car salesman/gameshow host (Henry Hill types). Middle america hates those guys as the Music Man and the poor performance of many dems has shown us. Bayh on the other hand has this down to earth, midwestern type of demeanor to him, which the IN folks obviously like. I am thinking western PA, southern OH would have a residual benefit for Obama if Bayh is his choice.
Obssessed, make that it is "impossible" to imagine Obama carrying Indiana while losing Ohio. Indiana is basically indistinguishable from rural Ohio. It just lacks the metropolitan areas present in Ohio. Keep in mind that Dennis Kucinich comes from Cleveland (as well as Stephanie Tubbs-Jones and Sherrod Brown), all of whom are far more liberal than any statewide politician will find in Indiana. If enough rural voters vote for Obama that he is able to carry Indiana, you can bank on a 15-20% victory in Ohio.
Having said that, I think it is worthwhile to attempt to win Indiana. It would carry great symbolic weight with me if Obama were to carry every state won by Lincoln in the election of 1860.
Your blog appears to be neutral in the sense of projecting the election, but you are completely in the tank for Obama, that is why you haven't run that damn computer in 3-4 days because you realize some blue states would go toss up or go red like VA or OH because polls are trending towards McCain. Well gimme a break and you should realize like I do that it is only JULY!
Obama going to Iraq will hurt his case because he has preached for 5 years how bad it is there and preached the past 2 years up to last week how the SURGE WOULD NEVER WORK! It worked dammit and he'll spin it his own damn way with his half dozen positions on IRAQ.
Great Video: CLICK FROM YOUTUBE
Obsessed said:
"My admittedly biased take is that McCain was dead in the water a year ago and only won the nomination by default as the leading candidates took turns as the laughing stock of the nation."
As an Obama supporter, I nevertheless think you're being overly harsh on McCain and at least some of the rest of the Republican candidates.
McCain DID look dead in the water, and he came back. He deserves some credit for that, even if he ends up getting drubbed in the general election due to a lack of organization and an emptiness of ideas and thoughts.
As for the other candidates, I think you're pretty much right about Mitt Romney. He ran away from his moderate-to-liberal record completely and looked totally hypocritical.
However, Huckabee ran a very creditable campaign (in terms of popular appeal, not necessarily what he said).
I totally agree with you that Olympia Snowe would be an excellent pick, but in Nate's terms, she would be a center reach. Snowe is one of the most moderate Republicans in the Senate and if McCain picked her, I can imagine that Christian Right folks would be apoplectic. Lindsey Graham would definitely be a better pick than Romney, but the thing about Lieberman is that while he's an imperialist/militarist on foreign policy, he's in the mainstream of the Democrats on economic issues and such, isn't he? Again, center reach, Christian Right apoplectic.
The difficult problem McCain has is to satisfy the Christian Right without turning off all the centrists. Lugar, perhaps?
I'm not sure what you mean about "in John McCain's walker." McCain's forgetfulness is a legitimate campaign issue. I strongly believe that his mere age should not be, and I consider ageism just as repugnant as any other kind of bigotry. But I digress...and I realize that since the main purpose of this site is to measure the temperature of public opinion and predict how that will play out in elections, the fact that a very significant percentage of prospective voters do say in opinion polls that McCain is "too old," it's certainly relevant as a political liability. So the short version is that his age shouldn't be an issue, but it is.
Nice to see chess terms used - I had no idea zugzwang had entered the vernacular.
There was an article in Chess Life, the US Chess Federation's magazine, a couple of years ago complaining about the use of chess terms. I think it's wonderful and a sign of the respect for chess in society.
Sorry for the somewhat off-topic comment that won't be of interest to most reading this.
william said:
"I am thinking western PA, southern OH would have a residual benefit for Obama if Bayh is his choice."
Would he play well in Appalachia (WV, et al.)? I think that 2nd-tier states like that are good places for Obama's VP choice to campaign in.
Bayh's only problem is that he wasn't willing to run this year because he hates fundraising. Pfah.
I'm starting to think the Republican's best chance is to pick Huckabee for veep, have McCain claim his melanoma's come back, and run a Huckabee/Romney ticket. But the reality is, there'll be lots more manufactured crises between now and the election, and McCain will bounce back. God knows, he's done it often enough.
Maybe he'll get really lucky and there'll be another terrorist attack on the U.S. :P
A Romney announcemnt now would be a statement from McCain that he doesn't think anyone will vote on VP - so he is going to raise as much as he can from it. A good counter is to find a VP choice that shows off Obama's judgment - a Lloyd Bentson to counter the Dan Quayle. I'm not sure that Bayh is that choice. Maybe someone in Kansas or New Mexico...
On ABC news, Ron Claiborne indicated that the McCain campaign was spending Friday in Louisiana where they would make news 'to rival the Obama trip' - does that indicate a Jindal pick on Friday is imminent?
Nate you must be a chess player.
It would be just plain stupid for McCain to pick first when he doesn't have to. The internal polling must be miserable if this is anything other than a ploy to get some attention this week.
DU: Zugzwang in chess is far stronger than gote in go. In chess, you are not allowed to pass the turn. You must move. And situations in the endgame arise where, if you were allowed to pass, you could draw or win. But you're not, you must move, so you lose.
The political analogy is a little bit stretched, since no one "must move". But it captured the idea that he who moves first loses. They each get one move when it comes to choosing the VP, and the second move is stronger (because it can respond to the first). So no one can afford to move first. (But Obama's convention is first -- in that sense, he's in zugzwang. Fortunately, the chess metaphor doesn't translate entirely, and Nate's more limited use of the term -- McCain can't now lead by choosing a VP -- still holds.)
The reference to zugzwang works nicely lilnev. The implication is simply there is no good "moves" for McCain. Obama has moves. His path doesn't require a perfect pick, he can opt for resume or geography, whatever seems best when the time comes. Plus he has a much better group to select from. None of McCains gain him anything, and some hurt him.
Time, space and material are in Obamas favor.
mikeel said... that the GOP is going to pickup house seats? According to electoral-vote.com it has the makeup after the election @ House Dem 239 GOP 196
I think this election I'm going to support the troops and the Troops support Obama.
Moondancer said:
"I thought Jindal until I found out he's an exorcist."
Seriously, or is that a joke? lol
After reading today's post(s), and the subsequent comments, I was asking myself how I missed the foreign policy superstar slam-dunk. Then it finally dawned on me that the story of his going overseas IS the slam-dunk because it's a bomb of buzzworthiness making him THE news item of several days in a row.
In my mind, the real questions regarding the overseas trip run something like this: How much does Average Joe from Tipping Point State care about Obama's foreign policy cred, and how much or how little does Obama have to do to change that perception?
My take: In and of its self, just his going there is not going to assuage any doubts in anyone's mind. Obviously, IF he wants the R's to re-write their current script, he has to take some risk and talk a lot of foreign policy when he gets home.
In THAT sense, I think it's a bit premature to call this trip a slam-dunk.
"this is a card that each candidate gets to play only once."
Er, tell that to George McGovern.
As though the evangelical christian right needs an excuse to sit on their hands this time around, wouldn't Romney as a VP pick leave them even less thrilled? Is there not still a wide swath of the nation that considers Mormonism a cult?
But Jindal is a Muslim, isn't he?
Jindal is Catholic, although apparently he performed a rather dubious exorcism as an even younger man. Romney's Mormonism would turn off the evangelicals big time, and even great fundraising would not compensate. Great for Obama if McCain picks either of them. McCain will go for either Pawlenty or Palin or Crist, IMHO. My bet is Pawlenty.
I´m still wondering that only the strangest words of the german language find their way into english...Zugzwang, Leitmotiv, Kindergarten...
There is some logic for McCain choosing now, if we asume that a VP will help his campaign.
McCain's VP could even be presented as a co-president. Given McCains age there is a very real reason to wonder if he will remain fit enough for the next 4 years. Frankly I doubt his mental compitence even now.
I can't believe McCain would be so stupid as to throw away a week worth of coverage of his VP in July!
People coming back from their vacation learn: "he picked who? Oh."
This is just a horrible time, before Labor day to do much because nobody is paying attention to politics.
As we have seen, Obama got a bounce, and then 10% of his younger voters got disenchanted and went back to dating and wind-surfing and said they weren't "certain" to vote. Then the Rasmussen likely voter screen screened them out and "voila" a 2% race.
Now Obama's getting tons of great coverage about his trip and suddenly McCain panics and blurts out his VP?
I know he hasn't run a particularly good campaign so far, but that would be a sign he needs another new team!
Michael: "The difficult problem McCain has is to satisfy the Christian Right without turning off all the centrists. Lugar, perhaps?
But doesn't McCain have to reach center? I don't think the Christian Right can save him by themselves, and the harder he tries to please them the more he'll alienate the demographics he absolutely can't cede to Obama. And, judging by Dobson's conciliatory backtracking of late, I think he'll get the hardcore base whether he tries or not. Like the PUMAs (but for the opposite reason) they'll ultimately give in to the Supreme Court argument, no?
I'm not sure what you mean about "in John McCain's walker." McCain's forgetfulness is a legitimate campaign issue.
On the topic "ageism" - alright, if you're picking a cleanup hitter and you decide against the 106 lb. female candidate, without seeing her hit, are you a sexist? I mean, she might hit 80 homeruns, but based on her physique, prejudice would make a massive amount of statistical sense. With age, it's not so cut and dry. Bach wrote The Art of Fugue when he was an old geezer. Being 72 isn't nearly sufficient evidence to brand McCain as entering senility, but seriously, listen to him. It's really unsettling. Nobody says Vladimir Putin is the president of Germany without noticing the error. He went right past it without the slightest hesitation. If he doesn't have Joe or Cindy to poke him in the back he has multiple trainwrecks without even noticing. I shudder to think how bad he'd be by January 2013, especially considering that the stress of the presidency - especially THIS presidency - could greatly accelerate the aging process.
We're all tuned into every detail, but I've been discovering that huge amounts of people really haven't actually seen and listened to McCain in years. By November, everyone will get a very clear sense of the 2008 McCain, the way he looks, talks, and acts NOW. Again, I'm biased, but to me, even the 2008 Bob Dole seems sharper than McCain. I think it's going to get painful - to the point that even the left will start to feel sorry for the guy.
I mean ... he's a prick and a crook, but he's got a sense of humor and he's been through a lot and has some good qualities. I don't want to see him completely humiliated.
Well ... now that I think of it, I guess I just don't want to see him so humiliated that he drops out and they run someone else!
DU: Huh, I didn't know chess had a term for Go's concept of "gote"
They aren't at all the same concept.
lilnev: The political analogy is a little bit stretched, since no one "must move".
It's just plain wrong. Nate said, "They have to make a move to react to Obama's Iraq trip". But that's not zugzwang, that's being under threat. Zugzwang is a situation where the player's position is secure, but any move breaks the defense. There, the player has to make a move because of the rules, not because of the situation on the board.
But it captured the idea that he who moves first loses.
First, that has nothing to do with zugzwang unless both players are in zugzwang. Second, that isn't what Nate was talking about. Third, that isn't the case. This isn't any sort of zugzwang, it's simply McCain being in a lousy position with no good options, and on top of that he's a crappy player.
I was asking myself how I missed the foreign policy superstar slam-dunk.
By paying absolutely no attention, apparently.
My take: In and of its self, just his going there is not going to assuage any doubts in anyone's mind
Ignorance is bliss.
Very well stated, obsessed. We've already had at least one President with Alzheimer's (Reagan, at least in his 2nd term, when I believe he actually did not know that he was trading arms to Iran for hostages), and if McCain's forgetfulness now constitutes the beginning signs of Alzheimer's, God forbid, I certainly don't want him anywhere near the Oval Office, except as a Senator meeting with President Obama.
And I definitely feel that Dole was much more with it in 1996 than McCain is now. His problem wasn't that he was incompetent but that he gave voters no positive reason to vote for him other than his biography. It's very possible to like and respect a person but vote against him for President.
Since we seem to have a theme going of showing off whatever much or little we know of games and terminology, and since I don't know jack about chess, I'll jump to contract bridge and say that McCain has squeezed himself. By essentially double-dog-daring Obama to go to Iraq, he has created the present situation, where he now has no next play that will not hurt him.
Rasmus: Also, schadenfreude.
This is close, but not exactly the proper useage of the term zugzwang. In chess, it means that the compulsion to move puts the player at a disadvantage, as opposed to the ususal case of improving a player's position. Here, you are saying that the McCain's move don't gain him any advantage because Obama always has a superior response. True, but not quite the same thing.
As a left-wing political junkie, fantasy baseball playing former chess master, I have to say that I love this site! Nate uses chess terminology and lilnev corrects him in the comments.
lilnev is correct---this isn't zugzwang. For a position to truly be zugzwang the player in zugzwang (with "the unfortunate compulsion to move") would be fine if he didn't have to move. If the player would be busted whether it is his move or not, then it is not zugzwang. That is not McCain's situation here.
Fortunately, there is another German chess term that is more applicable to this situation. McCain's bluffing about picking his running mate is a classic zwichenzug (in-between move).
I don't think McCain will name the VP anytime soon. Even if it was a plausible strategy to blunt coverage of Obama's trip, the benfits of that would be outweighed by the appearance of naked calculion on his part to do just that.
The Rasmussen tracker actually shows a slight uptick for McCain today and runs contrary to yesterday's big jump in Gallup. Not sure how to explain that.
Ras also reports that Gore's recent bloviation on the environment went over like a lead balloon, further demonstrating how the Democrats are in danger on the energy issue and if they appear too green (think the Denver convention!) they are going to scare voters. McCain's new energy ad directly linking Obama to the problem is a powerful one and should continue to resonate. It remains to be seen how Obama, a seemngly very clever politician, takes the high hand here.
Again Ras shows that the public believes that the media is in the tank for Obama. Having all that adoring media in tow may begin to wear thin with the public during the trip. Worse, this perception may force them to do something to show their independence during a press op, moments that have proven notoriously tricky for Obama in the past.
I will repeat in a post below my assessment of how the trip overall is going for Obama. It is the same post I wrote in regards Nates' thread discussing recent polls. I do this just in case any of you missed it and were curiousl about the pro-McCain take on the trip.
The problem with polling in these times of fast moving news cycles is that they are by definition out of date by the time they are reported.
Looking at these results I conclude that Obama's lurch to the right culminating with his dueling press conferences on Iraq on July 3 clearly hurt him. Not only with his base, but with independent/moderate voters.
The NH and MI results should be very cheering for McCain, as they seem to buck trends in those states that we have seen in other, but still recent polls and demonstrate that Obama is not firmly in control of the electoral narrative.
But as Nate points out the impact of his political shifts is clearly waning and the impact of that has already been incorporated into his standings.
Now the race must be seen through the prism of his foreign trip where he has been seemingly handed a great gift by the Maliki government, allowing him to claim that his Iraq policy is now more in line with the Iraqi government's than either Bush's or McCain's.
It cannot but help burnish his standing on foreign policy at least in the short run.
Obama's prime weakness is his vanity and his inexperience, perhaps even ruthlessness. It has been reported to my ears on CNN both during AC 360 and during their morning show that Obama broke protocol by releasing his statement on what had been achieved with Maliki.
It is fundamentally dangerous for a political candidate to appear to be treading on the diplomatic priorities of the President of the United States and indeed Obama's campaign has already been forced to issue a statement acknowledging this and the primacy of the sitting President when it comes to international affairs. This blunder, born of hubris, may have left McCain an opening, as to which I will return in a moment.
Having Maliki in your corner could also be a mixed blessing. The reason that negotiations regarding the status of forces in Iraq are just that -- negotiations -- is b/c the US and Iraq have complimentary but not necessarily overlapping interests. Obama must be careful not to appear too willing to appease Maliki if there are genuine US strategic interests at stake that would be vindicated by extending and preserving our troop presence there.
Remember that Maliki too is a politician and must play to his domestic audience. He has to walk a delicate line. More than that he no doubt reads the polls, (though perhaps he needs to spend more time at this site to really understand them!)and may see an Obama victory in the offing. Thus he would want to curry favor with the new US President as he has done with the present one in order to maintain his hold on power. There is a risk that Obama can be seen as his tool.
McCain can continue to argue correctly that the Surge strategy that Obama opposed and as to whose success he was in denial until just a week or so ago has worked and that without it, neither Maliki nor Obama would be where they are today. That Obama's position has come into current alignment with the Maliki government's view on reduction of US presence does not trump the fact that Obama was guilty of poor judgment in opposing the Surge. While Obama is abroad McCain must continue to hit that point hard, while stressing that he too has always believed that troop reductions would result when conditions warranted and that a residual force as both he and Obama have endorsed would be a good thing. In truth their positions are very similar, with the salient difference being McCain's judgment was the one that brought about the conditions that now provide the opportunity to bring these plans to fruition.
My thinking is that both Bush and McCain will hold their fire on Obama's presumption to negotiate with Maliki and other world leaders during the course of the trip. It will be very difficult to be heard over the din of the roaring crowds and crowing press. Better to wait until he is back on US soil and then allow the revisionism to sink in once the glow has faded.
In the meantime McCain can rightly stress the twin themes that have been serving him well: he alone showed good judgment on the conduct of the war and he alone offers an understandable solution to our dependence on foreign oil (more domestic exploration and greater reliance on nuclear power).
It is to be expected that Obama will get a nice bounce from the polls, but like his unity bounce at the end of the nominating season it may prove ephemeral.
Once Obama returns, the ground game is going to be fascinating to follow. I do think we're seeing early signs that his recent "losses" are about to be stanched.
And Obama can owe this to some degree to McCain! In effect, McCain said "I dare ya to talk to the commanders in the field. They'll straighten you out. I win." Well hardeharhar, Obama did an "in your face" here's how I see it speech and Op Ed, then went over and both the commanders and more importantly the Iraqis used the opportunity to say priorities need to shift. And it was the Bush admin that blinked first on the timetable issue, leaving McCain with little to stand on.
Of course the campaign ebb and flow is driven by stochastic effects of real news, gaffes, and "eruptions" of one kind or another. The campaign is far from over, and the 527's are barely warmed up.
But so far, this trip is has been beautifully orchestrated. Heading first to Afghanistan was just the right move to focus attention there, and not make it an afterthought.
BTW/ here's another mistake by the McCain and Bush group: telling Obama he shouldn't speak at the Brandenburg Gate. Well you can bet he will if he's elected president. But for now the location of the speech is almost perfect and will afford all kinds of space for a crowd, camera reaches to the Reichstag and the Brandenburg Gate. The location of his speech is a very important historic symbol in its own right.
Further on Zugzwang:
I think the McCain campaign's weakness on economic issues, plus Obama's jump after the end of the primaries, forced them to McCain to make one of his strongest moves: bury Obama as an innocent and a risky person to lead the country's foreign policy.
By making that "I dare ya" shout to Obama, he may have underestimated the potential payoff to Obama from a successful early extended trip abroad.
As E. J. Dionne says in today's WaPo, Obama doesn't have to "win" on foreign policy; breaking even, or nearly so, will do. The campaign then returns to the economy, stupid.
So McCain may have played a Zugzwang gambit without realizing it. He only saw one outcome of Obama's trip to Iraq: the commanders and the Iraqis would tell him how important the surge and continuing American presence was there; Iraq would remain the "central propaganda front" for the GOP's "war on terror." But he lost that gambit, as reality on the ground (including political reality in Iraq) turned McCain's move into a very costly one.
At the same time, we should also recognize that escalating our efforts in Afghanistan (though hopefully with increased NATO engagement as well), any "peace dividend" from reducing our presence in Iraq will be minimal for some time; not to mention there is a huge "deferred maintenance" cost to be borne in future years for our having used up equipment so intensively in Iraq.
Thus, from a future federal budget perspective, keeping our warriors in Afghanistan and committing continuing (and increasing) resources to rebuilding Afghanistan, as well as the deferred maintenance on equipment used in Iraq, won't likely provide any surplus to spend on economic programs at home.
I think people are really underestimating Indiana's chances. Firstly, Lake County (The Gary Area) is essentially a Chicago suburb, and has an enormous AA population. Indiana is also full of very large colleges, Purdue and Indiana being the two largest, and their presence make Bloomington and West Lafayette as liberal as any county in Oregon. Next look to Obama's great results in Hamilton County, a surprise in the primary. Southern Indiana is also being hit pretty hard right now by the economy, and I think that will be a factor. Now of course you need to confront the fact that Martinsville Indiana is the home of the Klan, but much of that sentiment has died out now. (It was once estimate dthat up to 40% of the citizens of Indiana were in some manner affiliated with the Klan)
Nate has commented on Indiana as in play, for the reasons you state and because much of N and NW Indiana is also in the Chicagoland media market (and Obama had name recognition there before 2008).
Nate defers to the "model" in interpreting trends. When the time comes, however, Obama will definitely make a play for Indiana, which could even be reflected in an increasngly prominent role for Bayh.
But also Hagle's advisory role, and his likely becoming a de facto Obama surrogate on foreign policy after this trip (and not being a candidate for reelection) may further help draw independents and even some in GOP toward Obama, including those in Indiana.
Anonymous said...
But Jindal is a Muslim, isn't he?
If Jindal is picked, liberals should ask everyone "But is America ready for a Muslim Vice President?" If it works for Republicans...
Governor Jindal is a Catholic convert from the Hindu faith.
Colin Powell is "untainted" only in the sense that his gigantic balls -- demonstrated in his peddling of outrageously incorrect intelligence info -- do not allow the anatomical possibility of him possessing a taint.
D
Jindal is a Muslim who moonlights as an exorcist, except when he teaches creationism and flat-earth physics in public schools.
If Jindal is the VP then Obama has a fight on for the presidency.
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