John McCain could take a lesson or two from the French

I have listened to a lot of John McCain's speeches on POTUS 08, while driving. I noticed a certain set of themes in his speeches this Summer and early Fall. He still drops some of the old, tired lines in speeches, and interviews (anyone recognize his common line about "I'll veto pork barrell bills, and I'll make 'em famous, you'll know their names..."?).

One line he used to use all the time was this idea that the French get 80% of their power from Nuclear energy(by the way, that's "NU-CLE-URRRRR", not "NU-CU-LAR", Gov. Palin. I thought we had had enough of THAT with 8 years of W). And he would always thrown in a line that said, "and by the way, the French now have a PRO-American President, which just goes to show that if you live long enough, anything is possible". I think the line was very cutesy, and struck a good tone with his audiences at the time, despite personally thinking that the line was vile, and pretty anti-French. Not exactly the tone we wanted to set with the world off the bat.

While I agree with McCain on the use of Nuclear power in the US, I wonder if he is going to regret NOT learning a different lesson from the French-a people he has shown disdain for in the past. If he loses, his candidacy will have fallen into the French National Defense trap of the 19th and 20th Centuries--preparing for the previous battle.

The French, after the Franco-Prussian war of the 1860's, lost key strategic, and disputed territories of Alsace/Lorraine in the eastern most part of France, to Germany. World War I was in many respects, going to be payback for lost territory. Sadly, in 1914, the French were fully prepared to fight along the lines of the 1860's, war, and the Germans had moved on to tanks and machine guns. The initial fight was lopsided, and an aggressive push by the Brittish, French and Americans finally repelled the German forces, after several million had lost their lives.

Determined not to let themselves be beaten yet again by their neighbors, the French built "The Maginot Line" to protect themselves against the German attacks from the West. It was a series of cannons, trenches, guns, etc, to repel the massive fight that was surely coming.

Once again, during the early days of WWII, Hitler's forces managed to invade France through the Benelux countries, and come at Paris from the NORTH. Airplanes had become weaponized, and were devistating to French forces, who were entrenched in a defense position so immobile that even the cannons couldn't be turned around to fire in other directions. The French were soundly and roundly defeated. Needless to say, once again, the French had prepared for the previous battle, and been beaten by a new round of weapons and strategy.

I am not trying to be overly critical of the French, but I am trying to make the following point: John McCain was defeated in 2000 by a campaign of low-ball tactics, robocalls, fear-mongering, by a better political machine.

So the question was, "would McCain, the standard bearer for Brand R, run the kind of campaign that would work today, or prepare for and fight the one that worked on him in 2000, and 2004?"

If the polls are correct, and Barack Obama wins the presidency, the case for fighting the last war here will be evident.

• Attacking your opponent on experience, while you pick an inexperienced Governor from Alaska undermines your message.
• Saying you are a steady hand in uncertain times only works if you actually SHOW that you are one, and not someone who has acted so erratically from one day to the next during the Wall Street Meltdown of late September/early October.
• Calling your opponent a socialist, when you yourself voted for a $700B bailout and Government nationalization of the banking system.
• Calling your opponent out on higher taxes, when you yourself voted against them initially.
• Calling out your opponent on the fact that "the surge worked", when most Americans are upset that we are even there in the first place, and your comments just remind people that we are spending Billions each month on something in Iraq, while our people here are struggling.

Fighting a George Bush-style attack machine on the issues of the election only work if you have credibility in your own positions as being different, or better to the majority of the electorate. The reason the Swift Boat ads worked was that there were people who served with Kerry who were in the ads. If the Bill Ayres issue was so real, why isn't there ANYONE who is corroborating a close relationship? You don't think Matt Drudge, or anyone on the Right has looked into this? Seriously, if it's a real relationship, it would have surfaced by now, right? I think people in the press are willing to lend credence to just about any attack, as long as there is a somewhat viable link. Honestly, Rezko, or Jeremiah Wright would have been better selections, if you wanted to go this route.

Meanwhile, Obama has run a much more effective ground game, registering record number of people, getting his vote out, appealing to the middle of the electorate, and showing that an even temperment, and not engaging his opponent on gutterball issues like Ayres, lapel pins, etc. Obama raised money outside of the federal system (something McCain could have done as well, but was out-maneuvered on by Obama), and trounced McCain on the airwaves, and the internet. In essence, he fought the war of TODAY, not of YESTERDAY

It is true that Obama has had other clear advantages, including a more popular party, a favorable position on the overall Iraq war, and a younger, more energetic appeal. But McCain had opportunities to solidify HIS base--the Independents, with a Lieberman, or Ridge VP pick. He could have selected Romney as his economic advisor during the Wall Street meltdown, he could have come out with a more aggressive tax cut plan, which I am still stunned he hasn't.

Instead, he tacked Right, since this has been the winning formula in the 2000 and 2004 elections. Strangely, though, he didn't go all the way, not going for deep tax cuts, or making the real sale about his economic philosophy. In the end, he upset everyone--Fiscal Conservatives, Independents, and Democrats, so that he could win the Social Conservatives. But he didn't look at the fact that the Social base isn't 50% of the electorate.

Such a strange push started to make people uncomfortable, especially the Colin Powells of the world. The interesting thing to me was the reaction to Powell's comments. What I kept hearing was "well he wasn't ever a true conservative anyway". That may be true, but what does that say about the Republican party? "If you aren't one of us, you aren't trusted, or welcome?" How does a base of 35-40% of the electorate intend to lead, if they end up alienating the rest of the population?

In the end, fighting a Steve Schmitt/Karl Rove/Lee Atwater campaign here has exposed McCain to the sentiments expressed by the French after WWI and WWII--"we prepared for the last war, not the current war".