Following up on my question to Joe Klein below, there are plenty of John McCains. And Obama’s got to figure out how to respond to this ‘my opponent is the terrorist candidate’ stuff. But that’s his problem. And it’ll be a test of him to see how he responds because there will always be McCain types in the political arena and being able to stand up to them and put them in their place is a test of political canniness and stamina. But the key here is McCain himself.
The truth is that the guy doesn’t actually have any real convictions — or to put it more precisely, no real consistent convictions. That’s evidenced in part by the kind of campaign the guy’s running now. And at least a few of his press admirers are starting to sense that. But where you really see it most clearly is in the policy agenda he embraces.
Genuine political and ideological transformations are pretty rare in contemporary American politics. Two in a row in less than a decade is close to unprecedented. McCain went from conservative Republican, to embracing many core Democratic policy positions and actively discussing a possible party switch, to cycling back and re-embracing the same policies.
What’s gotten the most attention is McCain’s position on taxes — the same Bush tax cuts that he said earlier in the decade “offend[ed] his conscience”, he now says must be made permanent and added on to by another round of tax cuts on the Bush model. This can be reduced down to cheap charges of ‘flip-flopping’ or expediency. But it actually goes a lot deeper than that. McCain is absolutely gung-ho and certain that he’s right about whatever his position and ‘principles’ are at the given moment. But they change repeatedly.
The Journal today has a dark and curdled portrait of Bill Clinton’s growing role in Sen. Clinton’s campaign …
Dubbed the “Billification” of Sen. Clinton’s campaign by some insiders, Mr. Clinton has become something of a strategist-in-chief in recent weeks. He has been pushing for harder and sharper attacks on Sen. Obama. While she has jabbed her opponent over his “elitist” tone and controversial statements by his former pastor, Mr. Clinton delivers his own slams on the stump, calling Obama ads misleading.
…
Mr. Clinton has placed several of his own aides at headquarters, including his former lawyer and a bevy of strategists. Known as a bad loser, Mr. Clinton privately buttresses his wife’s drive to push on, telling her, according to aides: “We’re not quitters.”
On his own daily message calls, advisers say, he implores: “We’ve got to take him on every time.” At the Clintons’ Washington, D.C., home recently, these people say, he reviewed possible TV spots and told ad makers to be more hard-hitting, faster and harsher.
…
Mr. Clinton’s influence is evident in pollster Mark Penn’s continuing role in the campaign. Sen. Clinton recently demoted Mr. Penn as her chief strategist after he took part in talks with Colombia’s U.S. ambassador over promoting a free-trade pact with the U.S. that she opposes.
However, Mr. Penn has helped in recent debate preparation, and proposed Sen. Clinton’s last-minute negative ad in Pennsylvania questioning whether Sen. Obama has “what it takes.”
In our reader blogs, TPM Reader GC has a post up entitled “Where is Barack Obama” which he kicks off by writing “These last few weeks, he seems to be missing. Not literally, but his presence in the national dialogue has receded.” As I wrote in the comments section, that’s been my sense too. His voice seems silent and has for a few weeks. Of course, he’s out in the field campaigning, not focusing on national media and catering to political junkies around the country. But what I really think this is is that he’s not controlling the agenda. Hillary’s controlling the agenda, defining the race at the moment. And that’s made him recede into the background, even as he’s a constant topic of conversation.
The Times finds another instance of McCain gaming the campaign finance laws, enabled again by the fact that there’s no quorum of members of commissioners at the FEC, the same situation that’s allowing him withdraw from the public financing system over the FEC commissioners objections. In this case, when his campaign was on the skids last year, McCain began using a corporate jet owned by Hensley & Company, the beer distributorship owned by his wife.
It’s a complicated story. And at least in the Times telling, there don’t seem to be any laws broken, more breaking the spirit of the law.
Reading the piece, one question that suggests itself is why go through all the roundabout? McCain’s wife can give him as much free air travel as she wants. That’s just self-financing, which lots of candidates do completely legally. John Kerry, remember, took a loan out on his home to pour money into his campaign during its nadir just before Iowa. But remember, this was also around the time that McCain was kinda sorta opting in to the public financing system. So I’d be curious to hear how these two things would have interacted, what the legal repercussions would have been.
We suffered so you don’t have to. Highlights of Obama’s interview on Fox …
Greg Sargent has our run-down.
McCain: I said I wouldn’t attack Obama on the Wright issue but Obama’s making me do it.
Howard Dean signals that he and the “party elders” won’t let the nomination battle go all the way to the convention.
Reed Hundt, on John McCain’s “well-established record of intemperate opinions, inadequately thought-through positions, and ill-considered views.”
Another disturbing glimpse at the legal foundation for U.S. torture policies.