Sunday, October 05, 2008
Attack strategy is not working for McCain
Senator John McCain is losing the presidential election because he has
adopted a strategy of attack rather than letting people know what he
will do as president.
McCain built his reputation as a maverick, distancing himself from
less popular decisions of an unpopular President Bush and other
Republicans. Now his policy of attack has distanced him from the
public and the press.
According to the New York Times, McCain's effort to regain the upper
hand by portraying Obama as liberal and unprepared has backfired.
"He has run advertisements labeling Mr. Obama as a celebrity and other
spots saying that Mr. Obama would raise taxes and that he had
supported the teaching of sex education to kindergartners, which is
false. And the Republican convention was dominated by speeches, some
of them laced with sarcasm, that questioned Mr. Obama's readiness." An
overwhelming majority of the advertisements that McCain ran this past
week attacked Obama.
However, "some Republican strategists who once worked for Mr. McCain
say that the attacks and false statements have weakened the brand he
built over the years as a straight talker who lamented the bitterness
of modern politics."
More than half of the respondents in a New York Times/CBS News poll
taken in late September said that "Mr. McCain spent more time
attacking Mr. Obama than explaining what he would do as president."
While Mr. McCain's running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska, may have
done much to establish herself as a strong candidate in the debate
Thursday night, much more of the debate was on Palin than on Obama.
She has been trying to overcome her rocky performance in recent
interviews, where she has had to defend her own record rather than
convincing viewers of her leadership potential.
On Friday after the debate, Palin returned to the campaign trail and
tried to redirect the flurry of news media attention away from her and
onto Mr. Obama's record.
According to the NYTimes, Palin said in an interview on the Fox News
Channel that one of her regrets about her recent interviews on CBS
News, in which she seemed ill-informed to many people, was that she
had been unable to effectively press her case against Mr. Obama.
"I wanted to talk about Barack Obama increasing taxes, which would
lead to killing jobs," Palin said on Fox. "I wanted to talk about his
proposal to increase government spending by another trillion dollars.
Some of his comments that he has made about the war that I think may,
in my world, disqualifies someone from consideration as the next
commander in chief."
See the complete story at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/04/us/politics/04campaign.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
adopted a strategy of attack rather than letting people know what he
will do as president.
McCain built his reputation as a maverick, distancing himself from
less popular decisions of an unpopular President Bush and other
Republicans. Now his policy of attack has distanced him from the
public and the press.
According to the New York Times, McCain's effort to regain the upper
hand by portraying Obama as liberal and unprepared has backfired.
"He has run advertisements labeling Mr. Obama as a celebrity and other
spots saying that Mr. Obama would raise taxes and that he had
supported the teaching of sex education to kindergartners, which is
false. And the Republican convention was dominated by speeches, some
of them laced with sarcasm, that questioned Mr. Obama's readiness." An
overwhelming majority of the advertisements that McCain ran this past
week attacked Obama.
However, "some Republican strategists who once worked for Mr. McCain
say that the attacks and false statements have weakened the brand he
built over the years as a straight talker who lamented the bitterness
of modern politics."
More than half of the respondents in a New York Times/CBS News poll
taken in late September said that "Mr. McCain spent more time
attacking Mr. Obama than explaining what he would do as president."
While Mr. McCain's running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska, may have
done much to establish herself as a strong candidate in the debate
Thursday night, much more of the debate was on Palin than on Obama.
She has been trying to overcome her rocky performance in recent
interviews, where she has had to defend her own record rather than
convincing viewers of her leadership potential.
On Friday after the debate, Palin returned to the campaign trail and
tried to redirect the flurry of news media attention away from her and
onto Mr. Obama's record.
According to the NYTimes, Palin said in an interview on the Fox News
Channel that one of her regrets about her recent interviews on CBS
News, in which she seemed ill-informed to many people, was that she
had been unable to effectively press her case against Mr. Obama.
"I wanted to talk about Barack Obama increasing taxes, which would
lead to killing jobs," Palin said on Fox. "I wanted to talk about his
proposal to increase government spending by another trillion dollars.
Some of his comments that he has made about the war that I think may,
in my world, disqualifies someone from consideration as the next
commander in chief."
See the complete story at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/04/us/politics/04campaign.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
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