Thursday, May 15, 2008 - Posts
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The biggest news in John McCain’s "2013" speech today is his suggestion that he’d have troops out of Iraq:
By January 2013, America has welcomed home most of the servicemen and women who have sacrificed terribly so that America might be secure in her freedom. The Iraq War has been won. Iraq is a functioning democracy, although still suffering from the lingering effects of decades of tyranny and centuries of sectarian tension. Violence still occurs, but it is spasmodic and much reduced.
It’s purely hypothetical—McCain says it’s "what I would hope to have achieved" after his first term—but it’s still a rhetorical shift for McCain. Back in January, he slammed Mitt Romney for what McCain (misleadingly) said was Romney’s commitment to timetables for withdrawal. Until now, he has even declined to say when he’d like to start pulling troops out, let alone when he’d like to have "most" of them out.
Even hinting at a withdrawal date brings McCain way over from his hawkish "100 years" stance to a more palatable middle (even though "100 years" got twisted to sound more hawkish than it was). In the past, McCain has called a withdrawal date tantamount to "chaos, genocide" that would cede Iraq to al-Qaida. But today’s comments will reassure voters that he’s not as excited about keeping troops in Mesopotamia as his opponents claim. No doubt McCain would say that nothing has changed—that he has always "hoped" to be out as soon as possible, but that we’ll only exit once we’ve "won." But in the ears of voters, a date—however vague—sounds a lot more moderate than no date.
Barack Obama, meanwhile, remains tethered to his pledge to have troops out within 16 months—a promise that seems extremely dubious to many experts. He’s had plenty of chances to mitigate that stance, most recently in the CBS debate, when Charlie Gibson asked him whether his pledge was "rock-hard." But Obama refused to wobble. "The president sets the mission," he told Gibson.
The difference now is that McCain has wiggle room where Obama does not. If Obama suggests he might stick around in Iraq for a few more years, he’ll be accused of breaking his pledge. If McCain suggests he’d pull out troops earlier than expected, no one will hold it against him. Obama still has his "I opposed the war" trump card, but McCain’s flexibility in the future could be a strong a weapon as Obama’s correctness in the past.
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Endorsements
from formerly coy John Edwards and the United Steelworkers for Obama
are two more nails in the Clinton coffin. Clinton's odds drop 1.1 to 1.8 percent.
Whatever momentum Clinton picked up from her 41-point West Virginia win
the Obama camp snuffed out with the Edwards coup de grâce. Edwards sat
on his endorsement until long after its game-changing power expired, so
the damage to Clinton's flicker of a campaign is more symbolic than
anything. The crux of his "everyone's doing it" speech last night in Michigan
was that he was mimicking the will of the voters. Because he waited,
Edwards' decision to finally choose a horse reinforces the "it's over"
story line. Watch this narrative get another boost next week when Obama
clinches the pledged delegate lead for good. (He'll hit a majority of
the 3,254 pledged delegates even if he narrowly loses Oregon.)
Read more at the Hillary Deathwatch.
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John McCain’s speech on his vision for America may have been comically sunny, but it’s got one nugget of genuine inspiration:
"My administration will set a new standard for transparency and accountability. I will hold weekly press conferences. I will regularly brief the American people on the progress our policies have made and the setbacks we have encountered. When we make errors, I will confess them readily, and explain what we intend to do to correct them. I will ask Congress to grant me the privilege of coming before both houses to take questions, and address criticism, much the same as the Prime Minister of Great Britain appears regularly before the House of Commons."
As anyone who watches C-SPAN knows, the British Parliament’s Question Time makes the most entertaining (and informative) political viewing imaginable. (See here, here, and here.) Members of parliament get to question, prod, and berate the prime minister into defending the government’s stances. Candor is expected, although PMs dodge questions all the time, and witty barbs are often rewarded with cheers and desk-pounding.
Q&A sessions in the House and Senate wouldn’t be the same. The American chambers are a bit more subdued than their British counterparts, and the rhetorical flourishes of American congressmen and congresswomen aren't as impressive. But certain members of Congress would be in their element. Imagine Joe Biden shredding the president over Iraq. Or Barney Frank taking him to task for his tax plan. The policy battles that normally take place through dry memos and the occasional floor speech would become spectator sports. It would also be catnip for journalists.
McCain’s proposal is especially bold given the chances of an overwhelmingly Democratic congress in 2009. But right now, it gives McCain the moral high ground when it comes to transparency. McCain and Obama are locked in something of a transparency arms race. Both senators have released tax returns. McCain promises to hold weekly press conferences. Obama pledges to post more information about federal spending online. By the end of this election, I expect the candidates to release their teenage diaries. But McCain’s Question Time proposal is hard to beat. Unless Obama pledges to install a live feed in Cabinet meetings, McCain may have won this round.
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If you're looking for entertainment, watch Republican candidates try to imitate Barack Obama’s hope/change shtick. In his now-famous Tuesday night memo to Republicans, NRCC Chair Tom Cole wrote that "Republicans must undertake bold efforts to define a forward looking agenda that offers the kind of positive change voters are looking for." In his speech this morning in Columbus, John McCain took Cole up on his offer, although today he took the utopian imaginings a little far.
He not only pledged to have "most" American troops home from Iraq by 2013 (more on that later), but also laid out a litany of other sunny scenarios: "The Iraq War has been won. … The United States and its allies have made great progress in advancing nuclear security. … The size of the Army and Marine Corps has been significantly increased. … The United States has experienced several years of robust economic growth. … Health care has become more accessible to more Americans than at any other time in history. … Obesity rates among the young and the disease they engender are stabilized and beginning to decline. … The United States is well on the way to independence from foreign sources of oil."” (McCain’s new ad, "2013," has a similar message.)
Skepticism was the first response, with one reporter calling McCain’s speech a "magic carpet ride." But McCain knows what he’s up against. It’s official that 2008 is a "change election," whatever that means, and Obama has patented his own brand of Optimism™. McCain can’t let himself get painted as the curmudgeon to Obama’s visionary. When Clinton mocked Obama’s highfalutin tone, it came off as crass and mean-spirited. In this general election, with GOP approval ratings at historic lows, the risk of getting pegged as the naysayer is even greater.
Hence the blindingly sunny forecast. "I cannot guarantee I will have achieved these things," McCain said in the speech. But that’s not the point. No one actually expects complete success. It’s about setting the rhetorical tone. McCain is pre-emptively fending off charges of being the "can’t-do" candidate. But he has to spin it as his own positive agenda, without giving the impression he’s just trying to out-Obama Obama.
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