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There are few better barometers for what DC’s Conventional Wisdom in politics is than the New York Times’ Adam Nagourney. For those wondering how John McCain’s campaign for president is doing, Nagourney provides an update on what CW holds today while discussing McCain’s jump starting of the Straight Talk Express, the campaign bus from 2000.
Whatever problems he might have faced on the public front, behind the scenes, his experienced team of advisers and operatives has been busy raising money, and a strong fund-raising report next month could go a long way toward alleviating concern in Republican circles about the strength of his candidacy.
Still, Mr. McCain’s decision to reprise such a well-known symbol of his 2000 candidacy was evidence of the concern in Mr. McCain’s campaign about the problems he faces in trying to adjust to an election that is not unfolding the way it had hoped.
All is not well in McCain World and the Beltway Insiders know it. The only hope is to get the old band back together reuse a bus that was the defining symbol of a campaign that McCain can no longer run.
The outsider of 2000 is now an insider: the familiar face of Washington and the Republican Party, tied to an unpopular war and an unpopular president. It has, as his own advisers said, not been an easy adjustment.
Greg Sargent notes that “in his quest to become the GOP establishment candidate, has lost a great deal of whatever maverick and straight-talking streak he once allegedly had.” Sargent preemptively described what Nagourney gets at in today’s article. McCain’s campaign is faltering and is making a flailing attempt to rebrand itself in 2007 with the old brand. The old brand was successful in creating an aura around McCain as a maverick and a straight talker — but McCain’s actions the last six years of the Bush presidency have belied that media image.
If the relaunch of the Straight Talk Express gives McCain’s candidacy any traction, expect President Bush to unveil a series of speaking events on his beliefs as a “compassionate conservative” to follow.
Update
If you want another look at what McCain’s faltering campaign looks like on the ground, check out Todd Beeton’s write-up of McCain’s recent California fundraising trip. Apparently “straight talk” means telling California donors that their state is in play for the GOP in 2008. Projecting yourself as a candidate capable of winning a forty-eight state landslide campaign, which is probably what it would take for the GOP to seriously put California in play, isn’t very straight talk John.
California is prime Democratic real estate: Clinton beat George HW Bush 46-32% (Perot: 20%) in 1992. Clinton beat Dole 51-38% in 1996. Gore beat Bush 53-41% in 2000. Kerry beat Bush 54-44% in 2004.
Technorati Tags: Adam Nagourney, Greg Sargent, John McCain, Straight Talk Express
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Left by John Mccain » John Mccain March 16, 2007 10:18 am
March 16, 2007 at 9:18am