The McCain message

In a year when Democrats are making history – putting out two possible candidates for president who, if elected, would represent an important progressive milestone for America – the Republicans are presenting voters with more of the same. A white male. A war veteran. A Republican who talks of lowering taxes.

It doesn’t get much more typical than that.

Yet somehow, despite his typical surface, John McCain has an atypical reputation and image with voters, which might be the only thing that will keep him afloat come the general election.

This is a year of particular unrest and dissatisfaction with the current Republican administration. It’s a year when we are spending billions of dollars and have marked the loss of thousands of lives in an unpopular war. It’s a year people are blaming the president and his cabinet for an economy sinking toward recession.

It’s a year when a presidential candidate of the incumbent party facing one of two historic and vibrant candidacies of the other side should be dead in the water.

But McCain is not.

Real Clear Politics, which averages poll numbers taken by various organizations, currently has McCain tied with Barack Obama in a general-election match up (McCain with 44.6 percent and Obama with 44.8 percent). A McCain-Hillary Clinton match up yields a McCain win, 46.6 percent to 44 percent.

Of course we have to keep in mind that this is just a snapshot of feelings right now, when the Democrats are still fighting each other while McCain is free to travel the country on a simple biography tour. But, with these kinds of numbers, it could go either way in the general, depending really on which side brings out most effective attacks.

It might be easy for Democrats to attack someone who represents all the traditional Republican ideals. But McCain is a maverick, someone who doesn’t collect blanket hate from one large group (like Clinton does).

The 2008 Almanac of American Politics summed it up: “It appears to be [McCain’s] view that members of Congress, like members of the military, should serve the national interest honorably and without reference to political considerations.” That’s something voters like to see.

Because he is different and somewhat unpredictable, McCain can, theoretically, turn the conversation about him in any direction he wants. And of course the GOP machine has a reputation for its mastery of public relations; Karl Rove is already out there saying Obama is someone only rich, snotty, elitist liberals like.

I could already see the strategy forming when I spoke with Dan Schnur, the national communication director for McCain’s 2000 campaign.

McCain’s party is blamed for the bad economy. But, that doesn’t necessarily have to be a bad thing on the campaign trail.

“Voters are particularly wary of having their taxes increased,” Schnur told me.

A Pew poll found that the most popular word to describe McCain among respondents was “old.” He will be 72 years old on inauguration day, the oldest president ever to be sworn into his first term in office.

Not to worry.

“Particularly in a general election against Obama, age might not be as big of a disaster for McCain,” he said, “because he can turn a talk about age into a talk about experience.”

But, I countered, the experience argument didn’t work for Clinton against Obama.

“That might not translate to the general election,” Schnur said. “American voters are definitely looking for change, but they are also looking for reassurance.”

McCain is an enthusiastic and faithful supporter of the Iraq war. Even with his March 26 speech on foreign policy, are voters really going to believe that he’s not four more years of the same?

“There was no shortage of change in that message,” Schnur contended. “If you couple that with positions on torture, on global warming, I think you have a much more popular agenda on foreign policy.”

There you have it.

Is McCain as bad as Bush? No. But I have no doubt that he is four more years of this administration’s most failed policies – more war, a worsening economy, ineffective attitude toward the health-insurance crisis…the list of a typical Republican agenda goes on.

But because McCain has adopted an atypical persona despite his typical surface, he has empowered himself to be whatever he wants to be to voters – and, unlike the hated Mrs. Clinton, he’s moderate enough to attract those ever-important independents.

McCain’s strength will depend on how he can control the conversation. Can he put into context his 100-years-in-Iraq comment? Can he define victory there? Can he turn a discussion about age into an effective examination of experience?

Will he attract his party’s base and woo enough independents to put him in the White House?

I suppose it all depends on how successful McCain and his cohorts from the Grand Old Party are in manipulating this country into four more years.