How can McCain beat Obama?

Batman Jones · Jun 10, 2008

Refman said:

I predict a close election because you have two men running who seem to be good guys.
Click to expand...

I agree that they both seem like good guys. And that is precisely why I think we have the first chance in a long while to have a race on the issues instead of one on likability or some other superficial BS. Imagine. A race not based on who you'd rather have a beer with, not based on dirt, not based on who's more "patriotic" when we all know that every public servant is, at least, patriotic, but based instead on who you agree with on Iraq, energy, education, health care, the economy, trade, foreign policy. Wouldn't that be rad? As a Democrat, I say hell yes. That would be rad as hell.

Drexlerfan22 · Jun 10, 2008

Batman Jones said:

I agree that they both seem like good guys. And that is precisely why I think we have the first chance in a long while to have a race on the issues instead of one on likability or some other superficial BS. Imagine. A race not based on who you'd rather have a beer with, not based on dirt, not based on who's more "patriotic" when we all know that every public servant is, at least, patriotic, but based instead on who you agree with on Iraq, energy, education, health care, the economy, trade, foreign policy. Wouldn't that be rad? As a Democrat, I say hell yes. That would be rad as hell.
Click to expand...

100% agree.

And this is why I'm so glad Hillary is finally out of the picture. She was mudslinger-extraordinaire.

Batman Jones · Jun 10, 2008

Drexlerfan22 said:

100% agree.

And this is why I'm so glad Hillary is finally out of the picture. She was mudslinger-extraordinaire.
Click to expand...

I'm glad you agree with my post, but as harsh as I was toward Hillary during the primaries there ain't no need to kick somebody when she's down. I obviously strongly prefer Obama's approach to politics to Clinton's but she's a good Democrat, she's on the right side of the issues and I'm proud to have her on our side.

Invisible Fan · Jun 10, 2008

It'll be interesting to see if or how much McCain will use the patriotic angle whether directly or through whisper proxies.

I don't think he'll be Bush 3, but I'm unsure how much he'll snap back into maverick mode once he's elected.

A_3PO · Jun 10, 2008

Batman Jones said:

I'm glad you agree with my post, but as harsh as I was toward Hillary during the primaries there ain't no need to kick somebody when she's down. I obviously strongly prefer Obama's approach to politics to Clinton's but she's a good Democrat, she's on the right side of the issues and I'm proud to have her on our side.
Click to expand...

How about if I kick Romney too? With he & Hillary out and McCain & Obama in, instead of a sorry election centered on "turning out the base" (we need a gag, or vomit, emoticon), we have an election based on appealing to independents, centrists and others who's vote could go either way.

GladiatoRowdy · Jun 10, 2008

A_3PO said:

(we need a gag, or vomit, emoticon)
Click to expand...

Ask and ye shall receive!

rimrocker · Jun 10, 2008

Another data point: 8%.

Former Bush Donors: Still Hesitant About Backing McCain
By Emily Cadei and Alex Knott, CQ Staff

http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?docid=news-000002892934

John McCain may be the presumed Republican presidential nominee, but he’s still not connecting with a critical group of donors the way President Bush did during his 2004 re-election campaign.

The extensive network of partisan supporters that helped President Bush break fundraising records on his way to two terms in office has, for an array of reasons, yet to rally around the Arizona senator.

According to a Congressional Quarterly analysis, only about 5,000 of the 62,800 donors who gave the maximum contribution of $2,000 to Bush — roughly 8 percent — had given to McCain as of April 30.

Although the general election is still months away, the hesitancy on the part of former Bush donors may point to larger fundraising challenges for McCain. So far, he has been out-raised by his Democratic counterparts, tallying only $101 million in receipts through the end of April compared to $272 million for Illinois Sen. Barack Obama , the presumed Democratic nominee. The huge fundraising gap represents a monumental switch from the past two presidential elections, when Bush enjoyed a significant fundraising edge over his Democratic opponents. At this stage of the campaign in 2004, the president had raised nearly $204 million.

“It’s early, but there are troubling signs that he’s not getting financial support from significant numbers of Republicans,” said Jan Baran, a campaign finance attorney with Wiley Rein and a former counsel to the Republican National Committee.

One of the problems, Baran noted, is that McCain was written off by the Republican establishment and the pundits last fall when his campaign was struggling and broke. Since resurrecting himself in the New Hampshire and Florida primaries in January, he has had to scramble to build up his money operations and consolidate party support, a process that is still ongoing.

McCain’s fundraising has shown steady improvement over the past several months, however.

During February, March and April, when his grasp on the nomination tightened, McCain took in almost $4.5 million from former Bush donors.That represents quite a jump from previous months; the senator raised only $947,000 in January and $252,000 in December.

That upward trajectory should continue, thanks to a series of fundraisers Bush held for McCain in May, which will be reflected in the campaign’s report to the Federal Election Commission later this month. The campaign also has ramped up its “Trailblazer” and “Innovator” program, its version of the Bush campaign’s highly successful “Pioneer” and “Rangers” system that encouraged donors to raise or “bundle” money on the candidate’s behalf.

The McCain campaign also announced last week that it had raised approximately $22 million in May, its best fundraising tally so far this election.

When asked about the dearth of Bush donor support, McCain spokesman Brian Rogers’ quipped, “So much for the third Bush term,” a reference to Democrats’ attempts to paint the 2008 Republican candidate as a mirror image of the current president.

Rogers suggested the comparison to Bush’s 2004 re-election campaign was “a bad analogy,” and that it was unfair “to compare a re-election campaign for a sitting president in 2004 to a very competitive Republican primary.”

“I just think they are fundamentally two different elections,” he said.

But while nobody expected McCain to match an incumbent president’s fundraising efforts, the size of the fundraising gap does raise some questions about McCain’s ability to connect with Bush’s old donors.

Rogers acknowledged some difficulties connecting with the Republican base, noting that McCain’s differences with conservatives in the party on “a collection of issues” may explain why many former Bush supporters have yet to contribute.

“Obviously, John McCain has taken some positions in the past that have honestly rankled some in the party,” he said. “We are working hard and we have every confidence that we will have the funds to run a winning campaign.”

David Keene, chairman of the American Conservative Union, a grass-roots conservative lobbying organization, says McCain’s fundraising struggles are less about his problems appealing to conservatives, whom he has made some strides with recently, and more about his lack of infrastructure.

“It’s really a symptom of the fact he doesn’t have the mechanism in place working the way it should to reach all those people,” who supported Bush in 2004, Keene said.

Indeed, there are signs the campaign’s outreach to former Bush donors has been less than aggressive. A number of individuals who raised bundled contributions for Bush in 2004 said they don’t feel a sense of urgency to give now, even though they intend to at some point.

“You know you’re going to get hit, so you kind of duck while you can,” said one former Bush supporter, who has yet to be contacted by the campaign.

Another Bush donor who raised money for Rudolph Giuliani in the Republican primary said he’s been contacted by the McCain campaign but hasn’t given yet. “I haven’t been bombarded, but I’ve had a couple of requests,” said this former donor, who asked not to be named.

Keene chalks up McCain’s patchy fundraising outreach to nothing more than a late start.

“I suspect it will get fixed,” he said. “In all likelihood, he won’t get [all the Bush donors], but he’ll get most of them.”

The political climate also is working against McCain. A number of large Bush donors from 2004, driven both by pragmatism and frustration with the country’s direction, have given to Obama and his former chief rival for the Democratic nomination, New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton .

The CQ analysis found that 827 of Bush’s major supporters have contributed almost $1.7 million to Obama so far and 603 have donated more than $1.5 million to Clinton. At least 46 of Bush’s 2004 donors also have given big to both Democrats — but were not listed as donors to McCain’s campaign.

One of them, a lifetime Republican who gave $2,000 to Bush in 2004, said he would not be contributing to McCain or the party’s presidential effort this year — largely because of the Iraq War.

“I always considered myself a Republican, primarily because of a belief in smaller government. And if you want a smaller government, you don’t want wars — especially wars that can be avoided,” said this long-time GOP donor, who asked not to be named because of his history with the party.

New York attorney Ken Henderson, another one of the 46 who gave to both Democratic candidates, is a self-described Democrat who wrote a $2,000 check for Bush in 2004 for “business” reasons after being approached by a Bush bundler. But he said he has no plans to repeat that contribution for McCain, regardless of business incentives.

“I gave initially to Hillary, and I went to a fundraiser and met President Clinton,” says Henderson. “But as the primary season went on, I became very enthusiastic about Obama, and me and my wife have given him the maximum.”

For this study, CQ analyzed donors who contributed at least $2,000 to Bush’s 2004 re-election— the most an individual was allowed to donate per election that cycle. These donors’ names and addresses were cross-referenced with contributors to the three major 2008 presidential candidates.
Click to expand...

rimrocker · Jun 10, 2008

Yet another data point: 50.

Plouffe: Obama will staff every state
http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0608/Plouffe_Obama_will_staff_every_state.html

David Plouffe emails supporters:

I am proud to announce that our presidential campaign will be the first in a generation to deploy and maintain staff in every single state....

Of course, some states will be more competitive than others, and we will scale our resources accordingly.

But your work building our party means that the list of competitive states will be longer than ever before -- and it will include states like Virginia and Montana where your work has helped a Democratic resurgence at the state level.

And in every single state, no matter what the likelihood that we carry it in the fall, our staff will build volunteer capacity that will provide help where we need it and impact races up and down the ballot this November.

It's a symbolic move the campaign can afford, and also another mark of how fully and swiftly Obama is remaking the Democratic Party in his own image.

It's also worth noting that Obama's volunteer cadre means there will probably be visible campaigns, with lots of volunteers, literally everywhere, even if there's only a staffer or two on the ground in, say, Idaho.
Click to expand...

rimrocker · Jun 11, 2008

Well, if he goes around saying disparaging things about beer, put me in the Batman camp... a blowout is looming. Via kos...

...a misreading of the teleprompter led McCain to sound a little bit more like a teetotaler fraternity president than a presidential candidate. Speaking about his use of the veto pen to eliminate wasteful spending, he declared, "I will veto every single beer, um, bill with earmarks."
http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/06/10/1127943.aspx
Click to expand...

rimrocker · Jun 11, 2008

More polling showing a bump for Obama...

http://www.gallup.com/poll/107806/Obama-Gains-Among-Women-After-Clinton-Exit.aspx?version=print

Forums

How can McCain beat Obama?

Batman Jones Member

Drexlerfan22 Member

Batman Jones Member

Invisible Fan Member

A_3PO Member

GladiatoRowdy Member

rimrocker Member

rimrocker Member

rimrocker Member

rimrocker Member

Share This Page

About ClutchFans

Rockets Content

Support ClutchFans!