McCain Frays His Lifeline

My initial read of the John McCain campaign is that McCain has a lot better chance of flopping his way to a landslide defeat than he has of giving Obama or Hillary a serious fight. Sure, McCain looks like a serious contender and he has a serious contender's poll numbers (6 behind Obama in today's RCP average). But John McCain also looks a lot like Rudy Giuliani late last year. Giuliani was still on top of the polls but he was also on the verge of looking ridiculous as the media started documenting his two divorces, estrangement from his children, fights with NYC firemen, and his bachelor pad in the terrorist command post. Giuliani sank like a stone after yet more revelations.

McCain's in an analogous situation. Certainly, his candidacy has strengths. The Republican Party will support McCain, the media worships him, and he's generally well-liked by moderate and independent voters. But McCain's in several kinds of binds. Worst of all, McCain has no natural base outside the media that he's been cultivating for decades. McCain used to have a base among moderate and independent voters but that was seriously weakened by his full-throated support for President Bush's surge. In fact, McCain's situation with moderates and independents is now extremel fluid. Centrist voters are still willing to give McCain a chance, but they're also open to criticism of McCain for his support of Bush's surge, his flip-flopping on immigration and torture, his position on social security, his temper, and his history of adultery back in the 70's. McCain's standing among moderates and independents also depends on the continued enthusiasm of the mainstream media for the McCain campaign. In fact, the media serves as a kind of lifeline for McCain these days. If the establishment media either gave up on him or started to treat him like he was ridiculous, McCain would lose his line to the moderate and independent voters he would need to have any chance in the general election.

This is why McCain's angry exchange with Elizabeth Bumiller of the New York Times was such a risky gambit. I'm sure McCain precipitated the exchange partly as a way to show right-wing talk show hosts and conservative bloggers he was eager to stick it to the Times. But it backfired because it made McCain look like a stupid bully. Bumiller asked a challenging but innocent question about McCain's switching from the Republican Party to independent status in 2001 and flirting with accepting a vice-presidential nomination from John Kerry in 2004. McCain could have just denied the stories, but he decided to badger Bumiller about asking the questions in the first place. McCain's attack on Bumiller in front of a group of reporters was stupid because the stories about the incident are going to remind conservatives of how little loyalty McCain has to the Republican Party and the conservative movement. Even more dangerous for McCain is the fact that the mainstream media now sees that McCain can blow up at them as well as Republican senators, military officials, and homestate Arizona politicians. In other words, McCain was putting his media lifeline to moderate and independent voters at risk and increasing the danger of looking ridiculous and implausible to voters at large.

Of course, it's going to take more than one incident to undo the good will McCain's built up with the media over the last fifteen years. But it is safe to say that McCain frayed his lifeline today.