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If John McCain loses tomorrow there will be plenty of vlame to go around. One question will surely center on whether or not he should have featured the Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s controversial comments more prominently in his campaign ads.
From the Politico.
It was the dog that didn’t bark — or at least did little more than whimper.
Even as the Pennsylvania GOP went on TV this weekend with a last-ditch
ad reminding Keystone state voters of Barack Obama’s former pastor and
a third-party Republican group aired a similar pastiche of his fiery
sermons, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright wound up playing a far less central
role in this campaign than originally anticipated.
But what would have happened had John McCain and the Republican Party
been willing to aggressively use Wright’s incendiary comments against
Obama, holding up his relationship with his former pastor to question
the Democratic nominee’s judgment?
It’s all hindsight now, a day before voters go to the polls and months
after McCain effectively decided the recently retired pastor of
Chicago’s Trinity United Church of Christ would be off-limits.
But it is sure to be one of the most hotly debated questions among
Republicans and political observers in the weeks ahead should McCain
not come from behind to win on Tuesday.
Conversations with a number of veteran GOP consultants indicate that
using Wright may have helped McCain with one set of voters — but would
have hurt with others and not ultimately proved decisive in a contest
subsumed by larger external forces such as the economic crisis and the
unpopularity of President Bush and the Republican Party.
“This was a race that was about the economy and about change,” said
Stuart Stevens, a longtime GOP adman who worked for Bush’s campaigns.
“It really wasn’t about anything else, and all the king’s men couldn’t
make it about anything else.”
Because the contest was so shaped by pocketbook concerns, to have
focused on anything else would have appeared politically tone deaf, he
said.
“In an issue-less election, with the ‘right track’ to the good, maybe
you could have,” Stevens observed. “It would have been like showing up
with a cricket bat to the Super Bowl — that’s not the game we’re
playing.”
What most all Republican strategists agree on is that in order to use
Wright against Obama effectively, the assault would have needed to have
been begun earlier in the campaign and as part of a broader
message — unlike the McCain camp’s halfhearted attempt to link the
Democrat to 1960s-era domestic terrorist William Ayers in early
October, a line of attack McCain himself never fully embraced and that
the campaign ultimately removed from Sarah Palin’s stump speech.
The McCain campaign has generally lacked focus and appears to be rudderless at times and yet he still has a chance Wright or no Wright.
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About the author
Don Irvine is Chairman of Accuracy in Media. He is active on Facebook and Twitter. You can follow him @donirvine to read his latest thoughts.
4 Comments for Did McCain Blunder by Not Using the Wright Strategy?
My Opinions Only
Wright was only one of MANY blunders McCain’s
Campaign team and he made!
He ‘alluded’ to $800 million more if Obama was
elected, but DID NOT mention S-2433 which BO
sponsored: $845 BILLION, 7% GNP ALL GOING TO THE
UN! We may become compliant to things in the UN
that the US never ratified.
He mentioned ACORN, in the debate, and let BO
get away with saying he had ONLY represented them
on a case. WE ALL KNOW BO’S LONG TERM CLOSENESS
TO ACORN. McC never rebutted BO.
He said to a crowd that we didn’t have to fear
BO, he was a good man.
He didn’t mention BO’s trip to Kenya, meddling
in THEIR Presidential election after which 800
churches were burned, 50 with Christians in it..
burned to death. So much bloodshed followed, the
Pres. gave Odinga (BO’s cousin?) a power share &
is now Prime Minister.
He didn’t bring up the MSM being blatantly PRO
OBAMA or BO warning stations not to air an ad
(Vet’s group?) or BO’s posse of Prosectors/Sheriffs intimidating stations not to
air negative ads of BO.
He didn’t mention the rampant voter-registration
fraud throughout the country… ACORN!
Those things are NOT “negative;” they are TRUE!
He & Palin COULD HAVE waved their valid US Birth
Certificates and ask Obama to do to the same! Ask
why BO’s was vaulted in Hawaii…not to be seen.
He could have asked about Barry Soetoro aka
Barack Hussein Obama.
Wright…only one of many. What of Rezko? What
of Farrakhan (Nation of Islam), what of the Iran
born lady advising him?
He could have SO OFTEN asked BO a question adding “if it isn’t above your pay grade.”
McCain and Palin (a definite religious zealot) would have been branded as racists and Palin would also have been dumped-on for her apparent religious prejudice (“My extreme religious beliefs are better than your extreme religious beliefs!”) had they attacked Obama via Wright.
And, had they attacked Obama via Ayers, McCain would have been nailed by the Obama campaign for his association with convicted felon G. Gordon Liddy and the Keating Five and Palin would have gotten it over her and her husband’s involvement in the anti-American and extremist Alaska Independence Party, plus the “abuse of power” issue.
Whatever “slimeballing” the McCain campaign might have “overlooked”, the Obama campaign clearly “overlooked” an equal and as significant an amount of “slime”.
With the exception of some of Palin’s stump stupidities, both campaigns probably deserve credit for generally avoiding the “politics of personal destruction”.
Yes, Yes, Yes and Yes
They would have been branded as racists, rather than the ranting Wright. McCain was smart.