How Obama plans to take on McCain
Barack Obama’s recent remarks suggest that he thinks that John McCain has two big political vulnerabilities: his acceptance of the idea that US troops might be in Iraq for 100 years and his current support for extending the Bush tax cuts despite his earlier opposition to them and his age.
Probably the biggest risk to the McCain campaign is the 100 years quote. When seen in context what McCain is saying is actually perfectly sensible, he is not talking about US troops fighting in Iraq for 100 years but having a presence there in the way that they do in Japan, South Korea and Germany. But the line can be used by Obama to suggest that McCain is never going to end the war.
On the tax cuts, McCain’s defence is that to rescind them would be equivalent to raising taxes which he opposes. McCain’s Brezhnev doctrine of tax cuts probably gets him round this charge especially as he can dismiss worries about the impact of these tax cuts on the deficit by stressing his support for spending restraint.
If I was on the McCain campaign, I’d be far more worried about the Iraq line than the tax cuts issue. McCain needs to urgently find a way to simply and appealingly communicate the substance of his point.