Despite the vacuous hours of TV chattering and thousands of column inches of newsprint devoted to the subject, the reasons John McCain is getting pasted in the polls are the woebegone state of the economy and George W. Bush.
Democrats look at polling numbers and say that it must be Sarah Palin’s wardrobe allotment from the RNC or the fact that Joe the plumber doesn’t have a union card. Republicans look at the same numbers and say that it must be McCain’s lack of a swing state ground game or a refusal to talk about Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
If 8 percent fewer women like Sarah Palin or 7 percent more men think Barack Obama trustworthy on economic issues, the poll watchers follow the scent, yapping like a pack of dachshunds burrowing into a badger’s sett.
But to paraphrase Al Smith, no matter how thin you slice the cross-tabs, they’re still baloney.
After more than a month of shatteringly bad economic news, McCain first went into freefall and now faces a dismally static race in which he likely trails Obama by 7 or more points.
Lehman Bros. failed on Sept. 15 and got word of a bailout on Sept. 16. McCain lost his 10-day lead in the Real Clear Politics Average on Sept. 17. By the time the Dow had shed 778 points on Sept. 29, Obama was ahead by 4 points and starting to put the pedal down.
And at a moment when the electorate wanted an unflappable leader, McCain was doing plenty of flapping. He careened from message to message and only found a winning issue with the ways in which Obama’s tax plan would punish the success of ordinary Joes after the damage was done.
At the same time, Palin, showed the same weaknesses that had originally been seen in Obama – that she would need on the job training – at a moment of uncertainty. However bad a running mate Joe Biden has been, he is at least of almost no interest to the American people or the press.
Meanwhile, Obama was able to play it cool, avoid mistakes and finally enjoy the full advantages of being a Democrat this year.
That’s because for weeks, the news has been about two things the American people are tired of seeing on their televisions – George W. Bush and the immolation of their retirement savings.
Bush has been everywhere. Like a theater manager telling a restless audience that the projector would be fixed and the film would start again, Bush did what he has always done in his eight years: dive right in.
History may judge that Bush did what was needed to fend off a depression and preserve a modified form of American capitalism. That may be a big part of the rebuilding his legacy in the years to come. But McCain will probably be contemplating that issue from Sedona, Ariz. and not 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
Oliver Stone, proving that if a man talks long enough, he will eventually say something smart, observed of Bush: “I really think in my heart that this guy’s policies are going to be around for a long time, and my grandchildren are going to be talking about his guy Bush like the way they talk about Teddy Roosevelt, the way they talk about Lincoln.”
The joke with Stone, of course, is that he probably isn’t too great a fan of TR or Honest Abe. Capitalist running dogs and agents of imperial oppression, and all that. But he does recognize the impact Bush has had on how this government works.
Presidents past have been cautious on foreign policy. Bush, like Teddy Roosevelt, has been incautious. Presidents past have been flexible on core policy points for political expediency. Bush, like Lincoln, has been immovable on his central cause.
And boy is America ever sick of it. Aside from all of the money, Bush spent the energy, ideas and unity of the Republican Party on Iraq. He also spent the patience of the American people – those who liked and loathed him.
And with his reaction to the economic crisis, Bush reminded them of all that.
Based on his presidency, even if Bush knew that the result of all his choices was that America would make the most radical leftward lurch in history, Bush would probably shrug and say that he did what he had to do.
And there stands John McCain, who always wants to be the man in the arena, upstaged, and maybe done in by Bush, who has never left it.
Chris Stirewalt is the political editor of The Washington Examiner. He can be reached at [email protected].
