Super McCain

Below is an article I just read on the Republican candidate. It both takes a brilliant insight into his heroic persona and the sad search to find his own bullhorn moment. A long, but worthwhile read.

"I don't seek the presidency on the presumption I'm blessed with such personal greatness that history has anointed me to save my country in its hour of need. My country saved me, and I cannot forget it. And I will fight for her for as long as I draw breath, so help me God." -- Senator John McCain, campaigning in New Orleans, June 2008

"I didn't decide to run for president to start a national crusade for the political reforms I believed in or to run a campaign as if it were some grand act of patriotism. In truth, I wanted to be president because it had become my ambition to be president. . . . In truth, I'd had the ambition for a long time." John McCain, "Worth Fighting For," 2002

When George W. Bush stood upon a pile of destruction at Ground Zero in the aftermath of the September 11th attacks, he raised a bullhorn to his lips and pledged to the soot-faced workers below that "the world hears you and the people who knocked down these buildings will hear all of us soon." That "Bullhorn Moment," as it came to be called, represented to the American people a moment of true leadership in a time of crisis. Whether it was just a photo-op or a true flash of understanding, the president's words resonated with a terrified public. In the aftermath of September 11th, President Bush enjoyed the highest approval ratings of his presidency.

One need not be a pundit or political analyst to see that John McCain's campaign is floundering. The race is still tight, especially at the battleground-state level, but in poll after poll, McCain is losing ground to Obama on the key issue of the day (the economy), Palin is proving to be near-toxic to moderate and independent voters, and this all despite spending millions on negative, untrue ads aimed at giving McCain a boost in the polls.

For the veteran Senator, the man who spent 22 years in the Navy, who served as chairman of the powerful Senate Commerce Committee, who stepped back on American soil in 1973, his picture graced the front pages from coast to coast and his star skyrocketed. He was a hero, and embraced as such by the world.

Americans love their heroes. In a class of their own, they represent what humans can be in their moments of greatness. So it must be quite perplexing for the John McCain campaign when they see that America isn't embracing the Great American Hero with open arms into the White House.

That was, after all, the core strategy. John McCain's campaign is built around the "hero" premise. His early ads, which focused on his POW experience and included footage of a war-torn John McCain, didn't strive to hide the fact that this candidate was a war hero, supposedly filled with all the corresponding integrity and courage affiliated with such a designation (see more McCain's hero ads here, here, here, here and here).

But grainy footage of a young McCain on a hospital bed wasn't enough to give McCain the upper edge in this race. For all his talk of service, integrity, and "country first," McCain still hasn't pulled away from Obama in this race. Potential voters aren't laying apple pies and American flags at the altar of this heroism, and for a campaign that is built upon a foundation of such heroism, that has proven to be a very troubling and frustrating thing for the McCain campaign.

So we have seen McCain struggle to recapture the glory of years past in an effort to once again be embraced by this nation (this time, in the voting booth, not on the tarmac). The actions of this campaign--especially in the last several weeks--have been those of a candidate in search of a "Commander Codpiece" moment, a moment where the candidate can exude leadership and radiate toughness. The campaign, in other words, has been in search of an event that will match the campaign's narrative of heroism to reality. A daunting task, indeed.

And so, during the Russia-Georgia crisis, he clumsily called the situation "the first serious crisis" since the Cold War. At a "flag-bedecked news conference," he announced that he would send his most vocal campaign surrogates to the region, claiming that this was "not a time for "partisanship and sniping".

The problem was that no one asked for Senator McCain's assistance.

As Hurricane Gustav lapped at the Golf Coast, John McCain and Sarah Palin flew down to Mississippi, as part of their "swift, highly visible response to the hurricane" . "We are facing a great national challenge and the possibility of a great natural disaster" McCain warned in an ominous voice. Once in Mississippi, McCain and Palin received a tour of the local emergency operations headquarters and sat in on a pre-scheduled briefing for various local, state and federal agencies.

The problem was that no one asked for John McCain's help.

And this week, in perhaps his most daring attempt at faux-heroism yet, McCain sort-of-not-really "suspended" his campaign, sort-of-not-really rushed to D.C. and proclaimed that he would hold political vigil in the Senate until the crisis was over.

Not only did no one ask for John McCain's help, but, as Harry Reid stated, the insertion of presidential politics into the negotiations was not helpful.

This week, Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson rightly labeled John McCain a "drama king". But McCain acts in such a manner because drama is the only way he knows how to relate to the American people. His "maverick" moments are exactly such moments of drama, as is the currently flood of political stunts.

For the McCain camp, though, these stunts are marketed as a type of self-sacrifice on the part of an American who has self-sacrifice etched in his veins. This "putting politics behind his country," as campaign manager Rick Davis said, is "business as usual in McCainworld."

But that "McCainworld" has passed on. The prisoner of war has become a prisoner of politics as usual, so terrified of losing a campaign that he has handcuffed himself to a Rovian world where lies are effortlessly passed off as truth and where transparent stunts of risk-filled pandering become a staple of the campaign. Whatever integrity and courage that was exhibited in 1973 and that captivated the nation has evaporated, leaving behind the blandness of a politician who has wholeheartedly embraced the distasteful world of Republican politics as usual.

In this world, McCain is the Don Quixote candidate, staggering through the campaign, searching in vain for a moment which will make America see the McCain of old, the one who was revered and cheered as a hero. Seizing upon crisis after crisis--real or manufactured, big or small--he is a single-man cavalry riding a unicorn of bipartisanship, galloping towards the outrage of the day, rescuing his country in the hour of its need and causing the world to gasp and dip its head in awe of his saving leadership.

But America doesn't need saving. It needs stewardship.

It needs not a dramatic "rescue" at a given moment, but a steady management of its affairs by competent and visionary individuals. It needs not a cavalry, but common sense.

Over the next few weeks, McCain will likely persist in his search for his "Bullhorn Moment." There will be more hollow stunts, and more acts of desperation cloaked in the mantle of "political courage" as McCain tries to sell himself as a "hero" once again to the American people. But such "heroism" and drama wear thin on an electorate which has tired of theatrics and which instead thirsts for pragmatism. Even if John McCain eventually stumbles upon his magical "Bullhorn Moment," Americans are so engrossed in the realities which plague this nation and their everyday lives that I doubt America's Knight in Shining Armor will catch their eye at all.