I hadn’t fully appreciated how large of an electoral blunder John McCain had made in not only advocating but being the primary proponent behind escalating the Iraq war. I’d imagine, along with others, that McCain would be able to consolidate conservative activists around around an escalation position. My view of the composition of the activist base was a tad bit too close to the Republican warbloggers. In late 2005 I wrote a post on MYDD about how the Republican primary in ‘04 would be for the anti-Bush based on how Bush was polling among Republican voters. Bush’s position has only gotten weaker among Republican primary voters and the escalation still lacks a clear majority among self-identified Republicans. To consolidate his position among Republicans McCain has fully embraced the Bush agenda and lost his strongest narrative as an “honest” anti-Bush Republican (a narrative that liberal bloggers had spent the last several years arguing against).
Practically, the McCain position is waiting for a sad repudiation in real life. You can’t drop tens of thousands of American Troops in the middle of a civil war and expect them to stabilize sectarian violence, which has only continued to boil over in recent months. Today, McCain did the only thing he could do after his plan was institutionalized by the Bush Administration. He moved the goal post. I’m positive that McCain already owns the current escalation in Iraq and it’s political consequences, both among general election voters and Republican primary voters. McCain is betting that Iraq is like Vietnam in that right-wing forces can create a narrative that says that only if we’d sent more troops, dropped more bombs, killed more Iraqi’s, been more indiscriminate the rules of engagement Iraq would have been a cakewalk. The difference is that they can’t point to an anti-war movement that’s brought a solid majority of Americans into an anti-war bloc. Despite the best right-wing machine that money can buy American’s realize just how disastrous our adventure in Iraq has been.
The irony of course is that McCain’s best chance at an position in the executive branch may have come about if he hadn’t repudiated Kerry’s outreach in ‘04, assuming those rumors were actually accurate.
4 Responses to “Bring On The Anti-Bush”
I hadn’t fully appreciated how large of an electoral blunder John McCain had made in not only advocating but being the primary proponent behind escalating the Iraq war.
Oh, I saw the blunder from a mile away.
When this express train to ‘victory’ derails, it will be hung around McCain’s neck — which was the whole beauty of Edwards’ “McCain Doctrine” label.
I thought McCain would try to distance himself from Bush’s plan by pointing to the troop numbers or length. But he surprised the hell out of me by giving it his stamp of approval.
WASHINGTON (CNN) — Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, who had advocated sending as many as 35,000 troops in order to Iraq to make a so-called “surge” successful, said Wednesday he is satisfied with President Bush’s decision to send in just over 21,000.
“I think so,” McCain said when asked if it was enough. “Because of the number of brigades.”
[…]
The president’s plan reportedly calls for five Army brigades to be sent to Baghdad and 4000 Marines to Al Anbar.
“I think it meets our criteria,” McCain said. [emphasis added]
Those words will, in my opinion, surely bite him on the ass come 2008.
Something to say?
Wow – great post Kombiz. The breakdown of McCain’s timing and ownership of the escalation is critical. Moving the goal posts is all he has left and my guess is that things will only continue to get worse in Iraq over the next thirteen months. If that’s the case, McCain’s late goal post movement will be entirely irrelevant – his position was clear when it mattered. Changing it after the fact doesn’t mitigate the laundry list of quotes of him calling for 20-30,000 more US troops in Iraq.
Sorry John: You push it, you buy it.
Left by Matt Browner Hamlin
January 15, 2007 at 10:40pm