The post-mortems are already beginning on John McCain’s campaign. There is plenty for folk to get stuck into—the lack of a domestic policy message, the Palin pick, the failure to distance from Bush until so late in the campaign—but McCain is trailing principally because he is a national security candidate in what has turned into an almost exclusively economic election.
As Steve Hayes notes, back in 2007 the most important issue in picking a president for both Republicans and Democrats were national security related—terrorism for Republicans, Iraq for Democrats. Now only nine percent cite terrorism and seven percent Iraq as their top issue while 57 percent name the economy. This isn’t surprising given recent events but it does make it extremely hard for McCain to breakthrough. His greatest strength as a candidate is national security, something that his war hero biography reinforces. It is the subject on which he is most passionate and knowledgeable. By contrast, McCain used to admit rather too candidly that he didn’t know as much as he should about economics.
Obama might have bested Hillary in the primaries in large part because of Iraq. But Iraq was always part of a broader Obama message about how Washington was broken so the issue’s decline in importance has not hurt Obama in the same way. (Although, watching this video of Hillary campaigning on the economy a few weeks ago—watch from about 3.55—did make me wonder if she would be further ahead than he currently is). Indeed, given how wrong Obama was about the surge it suits him now to avoid a protracted debate on Iraq.
Running after Bush’s two terms was always going to be hard for McCain. He needed everything to go right for him. Instead events have broken decisively against him. There is not much a campaign can actually do about that.
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