California Conservative

First, let me say that I greatly admire John McCain’s heroism and his integrity. Nonetheless, it’s time to critique his campaign and candidacy. Monica Langley nails it with this WSJ article:

But in a strategy session of five McCain advisers, campaign manager Rick Davis, pollster Bill McInturff, strategist Steve Schmidt, ad-maker Fred Davis and strategist Greg Strimple, the back and forth revealed a fundamental problem. Fred Davis posed a question designed to give the campaign a central focus: “Why should we elect John McCain?” Tellingly, after several hours of debate, the five couldn’t reach a consensus.

“Without an overriding rationale, our campaign necessarily turned tactical rather than strategic,” one adviser recalls. “We focused more on why Obama should not be president, but much less on why McCain should be.”

This is the biggest reason why senators shouldn’t be our presidential nominee. Executives make decisions. They monitor things that affect the big picture. Senators don’t think that way. PERIOD. Legislators think in terms of nuts and bolts of sausage-making rather than paying attention to the big picture.

The only time when Sen. McCain had a coherent perspective of the big picture was right after Russia’s invasion of Georgia. That’s when he didn’t just look presidential. That’s when he was presidential.

I wrote here that “without a vision, the people perish.” Here’s the most pertinent portion of that post:

If we follow the blueprint of low taxes, sensible spending priorities and protecting Americans from terrorist attacks from neighborhood to neighborhood,from city to city, one state to the next, election victories will be plentiful for the GOP in 2008. You can take that to the bank.

That’s still my belief. I’m confident that that’s still the path to victory. The biggest mistake Sen. McCain made was that he didn’t spell out his economic agenda. He didn’t create the image that he’d be the people’s advocate in a sea of corruption. Here’s what Sen. McCain should’ve done:

1) Sen. McCain should’ve enunciated daily his plans for re-invigorating the economy. He didn’t tell people every day that he’d drag the GOP back to its first principles of limited government.

2) Sen. McCain didn’t sufficiently drive home how he’d achieve energy independence. Sen. McCain should’ve ridiculed Sen. Obama’s shifts on drilling daily. We remember when Sen. Obama told one crowd in Missouri that the GOP’s plan for drilling was “a hoax” just like we remember Sen. Obama’s statement about how filling up “your car’s tires and getting regular tune-ups” would save as much oil as we’d get from drilling on the OCS. Finally, we remember that Sen. Obama told people in Florida that he’d consider drilling on the OCS if it was part of a comprehensive energy policy.

It isn’t enough to issue a white paper or to post your plan on the campaign website. It’s something that he needed to talk about passionately day after day.

Had he laid a detailed economic agenda, he could’ve pointed to it as proof that his agenda was dramatically different than President Bush’s. It would’ve provided legitimate separation from President Bush.

3) Sen. McCain pulled too many punches. Sen. McCain didn’t realize that campaigns are about highlighting differences. He seemed permanently stuck in ‘governing mode’, which, to some, means being cordial.

This needs to be explored in depth. The reality is that Senate Republicans didn’t pick enough ideological fights the last 6 years. Activists want to know that our lawmakers will fight for good policies and against destructive policies. If we had 2 healthy political parties, then agreeing with our opponents would make sense.

In conclusion, it’s time that we put the conservative movement back together. It’s time that we had reasons to be inspired about being conservatives. That means setting smart priorities, then adopting policies that provide solutions to our biggest problems.

If we don’t do that, we’ll deserve to be the minority party. I have no intention of staying in the minority party. In fact, I plan on changing that direction ASAP.

There’s always room for 1 more person in this movement. Feel free to climb aboard this bandwagon with a purpose.

Technorati Tags: Agenda, John McCain, Economics, Energy Policy, Campaigns, Governing, Election 2008

Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 6th, 2008 at 8:17 am and is filed under Author: Gary Gross, Conservatism, Economy, Election 2008, Energy, McCain, Taxes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.