McCain Won't Win...Will He?

Take the Democratic insurgency under Barack Obama, which has rallied millions under a banner of hope and change, add eight years of divisive and disastrous rule under George II, sprinkle a touch of Republican disillusionment with their maverick and slightly-less-right-wing-than-your-average-conservative candidate and you'd conclude that John McCain really shouldn't have bothered freezing his proverbials off in the bleak New Hampshire winter to win his party's presidential nomination.

And yet the 'Nam veteran-turned-Arizona senator has, remarkably, drawn more or less level with Obama in the polls and for the first time we are seeing cracks appear in the inevitability of the Democratic Messiah's inauguration.

Just a blip, surely? Isn't it?

Well, we hope so. A McCain presidency would – despite his weak claim to being an agent of change in Washington – be disastrous for American foreign and domestic policy. With McCain moving further to the right in a bid to shore up the conservative base he’d only further consolidate the socially repressive policies of President Bush. Sure, he’s less repugnant than most of his colleagues, and he’s taken a few principled and modernising stands against the grain of the Republican party, but an economic and social Republican he still is. And his imperialistic and arrogant foreign policy stance, particularly towards Iran, is hopelessly out of step with the collective thinking of other world nations at a time when – amidst the threat of international terrorism – the global community should be working together.

But wishing doesn’t make it so. The fact is, firstly, that McCain’s canny selection of 45-year-old Alaska Governor Sarah Palin has enlivened Republicans, with her God-fearingly, gay-bashingly, gun-totingly conservative credentials appealing greatly to the Dubya faithful. To be sure it was a cynical move – looking at pre-convention polling it was clear that McCain’s No.2 choice needed to be a game-changer if he was to counter the history-making nature of an African American presidential candidacy – but that doesn’t seem to have backfired. At least for now. And whilst in the early days following her unveiling it seemed that McCain’s desire to put a woman on the ticket had been achieved at the expense of a thorough vetting process – I’m thinking here of her stance on the infamous pork-barrel ‘Road to Nowhere’, her teenage daughter’s pregnancy and the impending criminal investigation into her conduct over the dismissal of her estranged brother-in-law as a state employee – the campaign has moved impressively to play down these issues and, indeed, project the image of an ordinary ‘hockey mom’ in tune with the lives and needs of ordinary Americans. They’ve also been able to subvert – at least to moderates and independents – her total opposition to abortion rights, her unequivocal support for the NRA and her lack of both executive and foreign policy experience, even successfully portraying Palin as at the very least matching Obama in terms of qualifications for the presidency.

This all links, secondly, to an impressive shift in the McCain campaign outfit over the past few months. Some wise personnel shifts have given a new lease of life to his flagging candidature; McCain seems more energetic, more visible and more focused, and he’s beginning to push a cohesive message and display a winning campaign structure. Of course, McCain’s message has changed – he's bowed to the Republican sceptics by coming out against Roe v. Wade and doing his best to espouse his religious bona fides – but the strength of his campaign team is not to be underestimated. The most impressive campaign achievement, and thirdly, has been the seizing of Obama’s mantle of change and the strengthening of Hillary Clinton’s argument that the ability to deliver change – through extensive experience and a deep understanding of the Washington-based political oligarchy – is more important than rhetoric. He’s made great hay from his aversion to earmarks and pork-barrel appropriations and has used his maverick status to create the image of being a changemaker. He’s had the courage to continue and reinforce Clinton’s strategy of questioning the qualities necessary to bring about change. This was an especially bold tactic given its failure to work for Hillary; but he accurately observed that, towards the end of the primary campaign, in Ohio, Texas, and Pennsylvania, it was beginning to win the public's sympathy. Just too late for the former First Lady to re-take the initiative. Just as change has thus far formed the basis of the election so too will it be the basis on which, if they do pull it off, the McCain-Palin ticket will attract defectors from the Obama camp. I don’t buy the argument that it is purely Palin’s gender which changes the game. The implication that female voters would vote for a candidate simply on the basis of gender, regardless of policy, is both patronising and insulting, not just to women but to all thinking voters. The battleground will be waged on change. Not sex. This is, fourthly, no longer resoundingly good news for Obamaniacs. The simple truth is that the whole ‘change’ and ‘newness’ act becomes old after a while and he’s been hammering it home for almost two years (yes, it really has been that long since he announced his candidacy). It’s getting increasingly difficult to stay fresh. That’s the problem with running a campaign which is devoid of substance. And that’s why, incidentally, I was a staunch Hillaryite. In acknowledging all her faults, which I do freely, she was a strong, seasoned and substantive candidate. She didn’t pretend to be anything other than a tough-minded Democrat. She didn’t try to be all things to all people. Obama, on the other hand, has united a vast swathe of folks around a vacuous notion of change. The fact is that change means different things to different people. When you bring Democrats, Republicans and independents together in this way you’ll soon find, once in office, that their policy expectations are very different. That will inevitably lead to alienation. It’s particularly galling in 2008, too, because popular disillusionment with the Republicans has made the American electorate more receptive than ever to a solidly and unapologetically Democratic partisan message. Moreover attempting to be on everybody’s side is damaging to democracy. This is particularly true in 2008 when many of the energised and engaged are young people. More specifically, young people for whom the political process has hitherto had no relevance. It’s great, of course, that they’re going to vote. My day job’s all about engaging young people with democracy, after all. But the worst thing you can do is engage young people with a single event or a single personality, especially one which is vacuous. Participation is a process not an event. If Obama wins the presidency without engaging young people in issues, in substance, then they’ll fall away.

Of course, Obama remains the only choice for any thinking progressive at this election. But McCain’s fightback means he has a race on his hands. What appeared to be a cakewalk has become a close contest. And whilst the Illinois senator’s fundraising machine coupled with the general unpopularity of the Republican brand puts him at a distinct advantage, it’s no longer a dead-cert that he’ll win.

Game on.