{"id":11021,"date":"2008-02-08T14:18:49","date_gmt":"2008-02-08T20:18:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/proteinwisdom.com\/?p=11021"},"modified":"2008-02-08T14:18:49","modified_gmt":"2008-02-08T20:18:49","slug":"election-2008","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/proteinwisdom.com\/?p=11021","title":{"rendered":"Election 2008: Dems understand – and will attack – McCain’s strengths [Karl]"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sen. John McCain’s rivals never understood how to tackle him, and DNC Chair Howard Dean’s talking points<\/a> were generally lame (and inaccurate<\/a>), but the Politico’s Jeanne Cummings<\/a> reports on what the pros on the Dem side\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0are mulling\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0for Maverick:<\/p>\n

The appeal of a flip-flop assault is that it could undermine McCain’s reputation for taking tough stands and sticking with them no matter how the political wind blows.<\/p>\n

Carter Eskew, a former adviser to Vice President Al Gore, puts it this way: “Go right after his strengths. Take the Straight Talk Express and push it off the rails.”<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

McCain will have to square his previous comments with his call today to make Bush’s tax cuts permanent and add new cuts for the middle class.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

…his opponent could note that McCain’s campaign is being led by Tom Loeffler, whose lobbying firm has made millions inserting earmarks into spending bills.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

Obama this week on CNN seemed to be testing a line for a McCain match-up.<\/p>\n

McCain should be honored for his “half a century of service to this country,” the 46-year-old Illinois senator said, but he’s “not the person who is going to lead this country in a new direction.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And so on, including painting McCain as extension of\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0the Dubya era on economics and Iraq.<\/p>\n

They get that\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0McCain’s support<\/a> came from people disenchanted with Dubya and looking for the same\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0halo of bipartisan change Obama wears.\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 They get that establishing McCain as a flip-flopper<\/a> is potentially more\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0damaging to McCain than\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0focusing on the substance of any particular issue.\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 Inasmuch as none of the Dems are thinking about running for the GOP nomination in\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a02012, they will likely be a lot less genteel about making their points.<\/p>\n

(h\/t Memeorandum<\/a>.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sen. John McCain’s rivals never understood how to tackle him, and DNC Chair Howard Dean’s talking points were generally lame (and inaccurate), but the Politico’s Jeanne Cummings reports on what the pros on the Dem side\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0are mulling\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0for Maverick: The appeal of a flip-flop assault is that it could undermine McCain’s reputation for taking tough stands and sticking with them no matter how the political wind blows. Carter Eskew, a former<\/p>\n

Read More<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":636,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11021","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/proteinwisdom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11021","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/proteinwisdom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/proteinwisdom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/proteinwisdom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/636"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/proteinwisdom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11021"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/proteinwisdom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11021\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/proteinwisdom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11021"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/proteinwisdom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11021"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/proteinwisdom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11021"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}