. . . maybe the doomsayers are right. It's hard to exaggerate
the sheer awfulness of John McCain as a candidate.
Stephen Hayes captures a little vignette of McCain in a
Michigan townhall, where a voter had asked him, essentially,
whether conservatives could trust him:
[McCain] defended his vote against the Bush tax cuts
and, at some length, reiterated his concerns about global
warming. Later, he went out of his way to emphasize his
respect for Hillary Clinton and boast about his work with Democrats
Joe Lieberman, Russ Feingold, and Ted Kennedy.
"At some length!" In general, environmentalism is an elite
concern, to which the ordinary American is either indifferent or
fundamentally hostile (i.e.: "bunch of crunchy-granola tree-hugging
fruit loops!"). At any rate, it is not an issue where any
Republican can out-pander the Democrats, so the best GOP response
is always a short one. The idea of McCain wading into the tall
grass to talk "at some length" about global warming must elicit big
smiles at Hope HQ.
If the candidate is incapable of the basic campaign discipline
of avoiding lengthy discussions of issues where he has nothing to
gain, then my friend the "veteran communications operative" is
right: "We're
doomed."
topics:
John McCain, Hillary Clinton, Environment, Global Warming
