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Gamecock is proud to present these brilliant young conservative republicans that assure us that the movement is in good hands for the future. We have made comments below, but we think that our hero McCain would do well to heed the advice given here and so present this excellent column in toto first:
McCain’s Five-Step Path to Victory
September 22, 2008
By Ryan Mauro and Nicholas Guariglia
With the post-convention bounces fading, the race has tightened and Obama appears to have settled with a slight lead in national polls and in the electoral college. Obama has the potential to substantially increase his projected margin of victory through massive turnout of African-Americans and younger voters. McCain’s pick of Sarah Palin as his running mate has provided his supporters with optimism, and his argument that he’s the “real agent of change” is resonating. However, McCain must further refine his message in order to win the election. There are five steps McCain must immediately take:
1) McCain must craft a coherent message to voters, explaining to them why the economic downturn occurred, how he foresaw this crisis years ago, and what he will do to fix it. His campaign made one of its most serious mistakes in not highlighting McCain’s foresight on the Freddie-Mae and Freddie-Mac crisis, allowing every news article about the economy to become an ad for Obama.
There is little time left to correct this issue. If McCain can prove that he has credibility on the economy, his attacks on Obama’s tax-raising agenda will allow him to become the more trusted candidate on this issue.
2) He must make his comprehensive energy plan, which he calls the Lexington Project, become the historical equivalent of the Manhattan Project. McCain and all his surrogates must say “Lexington Project” at least three times in every campaign stop, in every interview, in every speech. The failure to do this at the convention is another important opportunity missed by the campaign, but there is still time to drive home this message.
The two top issues are listed as the economy and gas prices. However, they are really one issue. When Americans complain about the economy, they are mostly thinking about their struggle at the pump and how it causes everything else to become more expensive. Therefore, whoever wins the energy debate, is far more likely to win the economy debate.
3) McCain must stop Obama’s attempts to appear as a credible challenger to America ’s enemies during Friday’s debate by challenging him on a whole host of foreign policy-related issues. To hone his message, McCain should focus on Iran . He should stop focusing so much on the fact that Obama would meet with Ahmadinejad without preconditions, and focus on Obama’s proven naivete by voting against labeling the Iranian Revolutionary Guards as a terrorist group.
Any student of the Middle East know that’s the IRGC is one of the largest, if not the largest, outfits sponsoring terrorists today, including Hezbollah and Hamas (groups which have “legitimate claims” according to Obama) and the insurgents in Iraq. The IRGC’s role in terrorism is so blatant, even Senator Clinton voted in favor of the resolution, which is another fact that McCain must raise. How could a President Obama contain a nuclear Iran if he isn’t even willing to take basic measures to call a spade a spade?
4) McCain must emphasize that he has a plan, not just an ambition, to reform every part of the federal government. He must pledge to begin a thorough review of every department of the government, and give a timeframe for this review to be completed. He has sworn to fight pork-barrel spending and partisanship that harms the country, but McCain must make the case that his administration will dramatically change the government, making it slimmer, less costly, and more effective.
5) Colorado is the new Ohio . If the race does not take a decisive turn, this race will come down to Colorado . Sure, McCain can theoretically pick off a blue state, but if you look at the polls during each candidate’s peaks, the final map becomes fairly obvious. Most so-called swing states like Michigan and Pennsylvania have shown Obama leading even during McCain’s peak. McCain would be wise to focus on Colorado .
McCain must win two out of Nevada , Colorado and New Mexico . Obama has held a steady lead in New Mexico , and McCain usually has a small lead in polls for Nevada . Colorado has consistently shown a small lead for Obama, although some polls have shown McCain briefly pulling ahead. This shows that McCain has the capability to win here. While it is tempting to invest resources in places like Wisconsin , McCain must invest whatever it takes to solidify a lead in Colorado before being distracted elsewhere.
When the polls showed McCain behind or tied with Obama at best, he made a decisive move by picking Palin as his running mate, leading to a successful convention. We are again at a point in time where the polls appear to have stabilized (as much as polls can anyway) with Obama holding a slight lead. The McCain campaign must again change the dynamics of the race as described, or it must begin preparing its face-saving argument that a close second was honorable in such a tough political environment.
Ryan Mauro and Nicholas Guariglia are writers at WorldThreats.com.
Gamecock’s comments on the above column and additional advice for John McCain in the debate and beyond:
1) McCain holds in his hand the Smoking Gun with Dem fingerprints as regards the present economic crisis. In 2005 he sponsored a bill that Alan Greenspan endorsed that would have prevented Fannie Mae from continuing to encourage/coerce bad loans and from guaranteeing them and/or buying them up. All of the Dems on the Banking Committee voted against the bill and 40+ Dems kept the bill from coming to the floor. McCain should tout his foresight and blast the Dems for causing the crisis, rather than making vague charges of greed against CEO’s of private corporations and slanderous charges of betraying the public trust against SEC’s Cox. McCain has shown that he can re-focus his ire at his former media sycophants when they turned on his, so we pray he will soon wake up and notice that it is liberal democrat policies that are hurting the nation on the war, oil and the economy proper and that they regularly insult him daily right along with their Dem party allies.
2) McCain should oppose the Paulson Plan if it will not ensure that the clogged credit arteries will be cleared, and he must not trade away any future rights to drilling for oil offshore, as has been rumored that Pelosi is seeking to so blackmail the President.
3) I admit I am not familiar with Colorado’s political demographics and so defer to the authors above, but I do think McCain should campaign hard in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Michigan and other states occupied by Obama’s bitter whites that cling to bigotry.
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Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer columns
Legal Editor for www.theminorityreportblog.com
“One man with courage makes a majority.” – Andrew Jackson
September 24th, 2008 at 10:18 am
Colorado is the new Ohio . If the race does not take a decisive turn, this race will come down to Colorado . Sure, McCain can theoretically pick off a blue state, but if you look at the polls during each candidate’s peaks, the final map becomes fairly obvious. Most so-called swing states like Michigan and Pennsylvania have shown Obama leading even during McCain’s peak. McCain would be wise to focus on Colorado.
This is exactly right. Pennsylvania is a tease. There’s probably some future iteration of the Republican Party that will be able to win PA again, but it’s not this one, this year. At McCain’s peak, he couldn’t lead in any blue states save Michigan and New Hampshire, and New Hampshire isn’t enough if McCain loses IA/NM/CO, and Michigan is moving towards Obama right now in a decisive way.
It’s all about the southwest.
September 24th, 2008 at 10:24 am
Hey, Gamecock – you’ve been confidently predicting a McCain electoral blowout… you don’t sound so confident anymore.
September 24th, 2008 at 10:32 am
I’d add that McCain should be in Washington until the debate, on the hill, taking a clear and public leadership role in brokering this bailout bill. This will do a few things: 1) McCain will be viewed as a bipartisan problem-solver, which is what the country is looking for right now, 2) it will strengthen how people view his economic know-how and 3) it will reinforce the crisis-management angle that he has been pushing. While Obama is at home doing days of debate prep, McCain is on the job, getting things done, working for the people, etc.
And fwiw, many republicans are saying the bill falls through without McCain’s support, and Ras has only 25% of the country opposing a bailout.
September 24th, 2008 at 10:33 am
I am concerned about a rumar that Obama will drop Biden and replace him with Hilliary and I’m really concerned about that would that win the election for the Democrats and do you think that will happen I am really concerned about that, Noway I don’t want the Clintons back in the whitehouse or near it!!!!
September 24th, 2008 at 10:43 am
“McCain holds in his hand the Smoking Gun with Dem fingerprints as regards the present economic crisis.”
The question is whether he’ll produce the Smoking Gun. If he does, he’ll win. If he doesn’t, he deserves to lose.
#4. — With Obama regaining the lead in the polls, the pressure to replace Biden with Hillary has been eliminated.
September 24th, 2008 at 10:45 am
The reason most Americans favor the bailout is because they are almost constantly being told that there absolutely must be a bailout or we face financial catastrophe.
I’d love it if McCain, or any national leader, would take the lead for the opposing viewpoint.
We need to absorb the impact of our past mistakes now–even if it’s difficult and hard–rather than continuing to pass these problems on to future generations. The “government fix” will become a terrible addiction that will undermine our economic performance for decades to come. The law of the harvest needs to be realized in our generation: you reap what you sow.
September 24th, 2008 at 10:46 am
J. Withrow, don’t worry about it. Enough people like Rush have been predicting this in public that if it does occur, it will look like a sham (even with Biden claiming it is “due to health problems” as is being projected). If this occurs, given the heart attacks of Cheney, etc. who is in office dispite his history, everyone will talk about how much of a poor decision maker Obama is.
Hillary would definitely make some Dems happy and make some independents take a second look, but if the focus is at the top of the ticket, then I can see more of a hurt than a help. And believe me, even if in bad taste by going after someone who “had a heart attack,” Fox and other news organizations would go after the story like mad trying to show how much of a sham it really was. Someone would leak the story somewhere…
I think the only way that this would occur is if Obama is down big…
September 24th, 2008 at 10:50 am
Why the hell is McCain not advertising and talking regularly about the Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act that he co-sponsored and the Dems blocked?
Kudos to Gamecock for succintly summarizing the theme McCain OUGHT to be selling: “we pray he will soon wake up and notice that it is liberal democrat policies that are hurting the nation on the war, oil and the economy proper”
September 24th, 2008 at 10:56 am
No mention of actually letting Palin grow wings. Hmmm… It seems to me that Palin will be hold McCain back from victory if he doesn’t do something drastically different with her than he has up to this point.
September 24th, 2008 at 11:03 am
Amen 3, 5 and 8
and #6, I am now leaning your way after writing this last week.
http://race42008.com/2008/09/19/paulsons-post-panic-prevention-permanent-solution-forces-congress-to-act-sans-msm-witch-hunts/
after studying this matter all weekend and so far this week, I just can’t buy into the $700 billion
I have two major econ columns coming today and Thursday.
September 24th, 2008 at 11:03 am
New Michigan poll got McCain up 3!!
Market Research Group of Lansing
9/15-20/08; 600 RV, 4%
Mode: Live Telephone Interviews
Michigan
McCain 46, Obama 43
MCCAIN MUST POUND MI-PA!
September 24th, 2008 at 11:05 am
#11 Amen
Obama wrote them off when he called bitter whites clinging bigots. The media has stressed the God and guns. Well, its ok to cling to them. But the third thing Obama said bitter whites in PA cling to is “antipathy to people no like them”, i.e. they are bigots.
We need to and am sure we will run ads reminding the bitters in all those states.
September 24th, 2008 at 11:10 am
Do you guys really not get it.? It is the economy, stupid. Always has been. McCain wasted his VP pick and now relies on himself to counter the Dem negative attack on economics. To vote against a Paulson bail out or what ever compromises come out of Congress is to assume the historic Republican mantle last worn by Herbert Hoover. When the market collapses 7 or 8 thousand points, McCain and the GOP will be toast for a decade.
Wise up, true believers. You have what you wanted and this is the result.
September 24th, 2008 at 11:12 am
Many Democrats are against the bailout, as are Republicans. We cannot dig ourselves a hole we can’t pay ourselves out of.
WE ARE A FREE MARKET SYSTEM!
LET THE DAMN SYSTEM WORK!
IF IT FAILS, LET IT FAIL.
IF IT SUCCEEDS, LET IT SUCCEED!
September 24th, 2008 at 11:17 am
http://www.mrgmi.com/PR%20Pres%20Fall%2008.pdf
September 24th, 2008 at 11:27 am
#15… could be right, but there is no party ID breakdown, so i’ll still bet that Obama has a lead in MI. I think he’s losing ground in PA though.
September 24th, 2008 at 11:34 am
[...] reader Terry asks: “Why the hell is McCain not advertising and talking regularly about the Federal Housing [...]
September 24th, 2008 at 11:38 am
#14, the problem with most Democrats opposition to the plan is that they want to send the money to people at risk of losing their homes instead of buying the paper on the sub-prime loans.
Personal responsibility is meaningless for these folks.
September 24th, 2008 at 11:50 am
[...] Race42008 reader Terry asks: “Why the hell is McCain not advertising and talking regularly about the Federal Housing [...]
September 24th, 2008 at 11:51 am
#14, YES!!! I am amazed that we seem to lack strong voices making the case for markets.
The problem with most Democrats opposition to the plan is that they want to send the money to people at risk of losing their homes instead of buying the paper on the sub-prime loans.
Personal responsibility, it seems, has become a meaningless concept for our political class.
I am extremely annoyed–I want to do something to help stop this from moving forward but there are no obvious channels and little time. I actually e-mailed Limbaugh for the first time and suggested that he help fill the void on this issue–and give the Obama/Biden jabs a rest for a couple of days (not that I expect any changes in his program).
I also went to McCain’s website–and I didn’t see a “contact us” option. LAME! (but maybe I just didn’t look hard enough).
There are news reports saying that the bailout is facing “an uphill battle,” but I hear very few taking the position that the government should let the market work out its problems–there just negotiating the specifics of what should be done. Any suggestions?
September 24th, 2008 at 5:28 pm
Obama will win Nevada – take that to the bank. Colarado is already his.