McCain Inner Circle Maps New Plan

Washington Post: Looking to November, Campaign of Presumed GOP Nominee Shifts Focus and Message

(WASHINGTONPOST.COM) 
That continued a dramatic change in tone and content that began the day he won the Potomac Primary last Tuesday. In his victory speech, McCain mocked Obama's repeated use of the word "hope," calling it a platitude. And he assailed the Democratic promises of "change."

"They will promise a new approach to governing but offer only the policies of a political orthodoxy that insists the solution to government's failures is to simply make it bigger," McCain told his supporters that night.

Black said McCain is "going to shift to talking about issues and contrasts with the Democrats on big issues." Chief among those contrasts, he said, will be an attempt to portray Obama as too inexperienced to take the reins of the country, a line of attack that Clinton has used against her chief Democratic rival with only mixed success.

Black said McCain will have a better chance of making that case about Obama because Clinton "doesn't have experience, either." He added: "People didn't see a big difference, especially on national security."

McCain's changing rhetoric is an attempt to take the offensive while Obama and Clinton continue fighting it out. He is also being forced to alter his message to respond to attacks from Democratic proxies.

Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean took aim at McCain on Thursday: "Just like President Bush, McCain's strategy is a war without end. The choice in this election couldn't be more clear: Elect John McCain and get 100 years in Iraq, or elect a Democrat to bring our troops home."

Since the Super Tuesday voting on Feb. 5, the DNC has issued more than a dozen attacks on McCain, most focused on his support for the Iraq war. This week, it began e-mailing daily "McCain Myth Busters" to reporters.

McCain has dropped all references to Huckabee from his speeches. But Huckabee's refusal to concede is postponing some of the steps McCain would normally take, including a merging of his campaign apparatus with the Republican National Committee. Officials at the RNC said they are required to remain neutral as long as there is an active primary campaign. Research they collect on Democrats, for example, is being delivered to both Huckabee and McCain, they said.

"The kind of synchronizing and meshing of organizations doesn't take place until the candidate meets the threshold," an RNC official said. "We are partners, brothers in an endeavor . . . to make sure the public understands the differences between our candidate and the Democratic candidate."

McCain aides said they expect that the RNC will eventually take over much of the voter-registration, voter-identification and get-out-the-vote operations for the campaign. It will also bolster McCain's opposition research.

But McCain's people will be in charge, aides and others said.

"Make no mistake about it, this will not be a blending of universes," said one Republican strategist not affiliated with McCain's campaign. "It's a wholesale takeover by McCain. That is the prerogative of every nominee."

Black, the McCain adviser, said: "At some point, it will become appropriate for us to begin talking to them. We won't do that as long as we have a serious competitor."

McCain aides are beginning to draft a new general election document that will attempt to balance the need for a bigger national operation with McCain's desire to maintain the small, nimble campaign organization that helped him succeed.

"We have decided to continue to be the ragtag group of volunteers running on fumes," Black said jokingly. For the moment, he and McCain's other aides are playing coy. Davis wasn't "inclined to talk about the general election strategy" until McCain has secured the nomination, a spokeswoman said.

There are no such restrictions on McCain's efforts to expand his fundraising team. Last week, he named former Bush national finance chairman Mercer Reynolds to lead his money-raising team. Scooter Clippard, the former fundraising chairman for Fred D. Thompson, will serve as a co-chairman for McCain.

Aides said the McCain team is successfully reaching out to other top donors and bundlers for his former rivals, but they declined to provide names.

Revamping fundraising operations could be critical for McCain, who struggled financially through most of last year while Obama and Clinton broke records. McCain has said he would accept public financing if he becomes the nominee, a decision that would provide him with $85 million from the Treasury.

At the campaign event in Oshkosh on Friday, McCain assailed Obama for saying he might withdraw what McCain called a pledge to accept public financing if he becomes the nominee. On Thursday, Obama spokesman Bill Burton said that Obama had never made such a pledge and that accepting public financing "was an option that we wanted on the table."

"I expect Senator Obama to keep his word to the American people," McCain said. "If Senator Obama goes back on his commitment to the American people, then obviously we have to rethink our position."

[watcher269-2009]

Actually, most of these Bushed! segments are about lying liars, aren%u2019t they? Continuing to track the scandals du jour that make up life in BushWorld, the first story up is Bush%u2019s touting of his increases to his global fund to fight AIDS, TB and malaria. The only problem is that the %u201Cincrease%u201D that Bush wants Congress to approve is actually a 40% decrease from last year%u2019s Congressional-instigated funding.

Then there is the story of the infamous border fence being built along the US / Mexico border, ostensibly to prevent illegal immigration. Many residents near the border have been grumbling about the fence going through their land, but there%u2019s one Texas resident that isn%u2019t worried at all, because the border fence will stop at his property: R. L. Hunt. I%u2019m sure the fact that he%u2019s a oil billionaire, who not only donated money to the Bush campaigns but also helped fund the upcoming presidential library and sits on the board for Halliburton had nothing to do with it.

[watcher269-2009]

WOW - can you believe the Hypocrisy from the Republicans?

Bay Buchanan said this after calling the NY Times/McCain love fest story a smear/hit job on CNN to Anderson Cooper:

Bay: This is not the Democratic Party, this is a party of values. We assume our candidates have been loyal to their family.

&^&*%#@!___Sorry, I%u2014just fell off my chair from laughter. Let%u2019s ask her about David Vitter and Larry Craig and Newt Gingrich and Rudy Giuliani and. Bay, who was supporting the Mitt Romney campaign%u2014 feels it would have had an impact on the primary%u2026.David Gergen says it%u2019s a red herring that the Times held onto the story for political reasons and then he hit her on the family value meme by reminding her of the Mark Foley story. She just shrugged it off%u2026.haha

The Washington Post has a name and it%u2019s John Weaver%u2014a very close friend to McCain:

Aides to Sen. John McCain confronted a female telecommunications lobbyist in late 1999 and asked her to distance herself from the senator during the presidential campaign he was about to launch, according to one of McCain%u2019s longest-serving political strategists.

John Weaver, who served as McCain%u2019s closest confidant until leaving his current campaign last year, said he met with Vicki Iseman at the Center Cafe in Union Station and urged her to stay away from McCain. Association with a lobbyist would undermine his image as an opponent of special interests, aides had concluded%u2026

[bareed1226]

This guy is calling out Obama about finance issues... PLEASE..

1989, the Lincoln Savings and Loan Association of Irvine, Calif., collapsed. Lincoln''s chairman, Charles H. Keating Jr., was faulted for the thrift''s failure. Keating, however, told the House Banking Committee that the FHLBB and its former chief Edwin J. Gray were pursuing a vendetta against him. Gray testified that several U.S. senators had approached him and requested that he ease off on the Lincoln investigation. It came out that these senators had been beneficiaries of $1.3 million (collective total) in campaign contributions from Keating.

This allegation set off a series of investigations by the California government, the United States Department of Justice, and the Senate Ethics Committee. The ethics committee''s investigation focused on five senators: Alan Cranston (D-CA); Dennis DeConcini (D-AZ); John Glenn (D-OH); John McCain (R-AZ); and Donald W. Riegle, Jr. (D-MI), who became known as the Keating Five.
After months of testimony revealed that all five senators acted improperly to differing degrees, the senators continually said they were following the status quo of campaign funding practices. The only member of the Keating Five still in the U.S. Senate is John McCain.... The man with all the experience...

[alburbooks]

This is a beautiful history about old politicians...
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/21/us/politics/21mccain.html?pagewanted=4&hp

[pensacola88]

If Rush Limbaugh doesn''t like you, then you must be doing something right!

If John McCain wants to grab some "Independant Votes", then he needs to clobber Rush Limbaugh in the media polls and call him what he is - a Loud Mouth extremist with the heart of a terrorist.

If John McCain remains silent on the Rush Limbaugh attacks, then his hopes will be gone for sucessful presidential bid. McCain has everything to gain by attacking Rush Limbaugh, just as George H. Bush attacked Dan Rather in the ''92 election after being called a whimp.

[josephjsalas]

GREAT! hundred year man with a hundred year plan!
Washington is an overcapacitated diaper!
Re-Experience it for 100 years or (parish the notion)
"CHANGE IT"!

[bdrlnt4rl]

Let US pray for an insane McCain and Neocon Huckabee ticket from the GOP Coalition of Republicons, RINOs, Neocons, Mormons, and Used Car Salesmen. Americans will never put another war monger and an Evangelical Freak in the White House again for the rest of all of our lifetimes. ONe thing that we can always count on from Republicons is they always repeat their past, leaving themselves with absolutely no future.

Posted by danstoned
******************************

it is sad to hear idiots voice their uneducated opinion. the mormons are very successful. and they love america. please people think about what is said before you say it.

[fibonacci_]

Dear former Ron Paul spammer (Prophet),

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!

fibonacci_

[nothappyatall]

Another OLD white *** candidate who looks like he should be in a nursing home... wonder what would happen if a week before election day he just up and croaks from a heart attack?

[darrren12000]

GO MCCAIN. The Dems are the party of repeat losses. Again and again and again. It''s so funny to see them bank it on Obama and blindly think he will roll through without any type of critical analysis. Sorry, but you cant raise the racism thing all the way to Novemeber. He''s a gonner. No experience..need not apply. Stupid Dems!

[gkc99]

"McCain Inner Circle Maps New Plan"


It''s called FIND SOME PEOPLE WHO AREN''T 60+ YEAR OLD WHITIES TO PUT ON TV!

There must be a few uncle Toms and Gen X yuppies out there!

[mcvet]

Now I know I''''m not by any means a computer expert so I have no solution for this, but maybe some "young and handsome computer geek from US of Americha" can tell us how to keep these kind of solicitations from appearing on our comment zone. These are as bad as the Pe*is enlargement ads I keep getting that I don''''t need. Come on, Oh Techno-Wizards! Help us!


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Posted by taylpatr at 12:27 AM : Feb 20, 2008
+ report abuse

It doesn''t matter who points out a fact, if it''s fact it should be heard. I''m not sure who you think is commenting that shouldn''t but to ignore the points raised because they MAY come from an interested party that can''t vote is really a put down of American''s. What you are really saying is, "We have the ignorant people of this country under control and you people do not have a right to interfer with that". Do you know how stupid, even for a nazi, that sounds? Sieg Heil Mein Fuhrer!!

[puritan9]

The American people are sick and tired of the Republican games to steal from the poor and the middle-class, and give more to the rich. The Republican mentality is that somehow the rich people know how to spend money better than the have-nots. This rich-poor segregation only results in creating misery for the hard-working majority while the hardly-working minority rich buys islands, mansions, yachts, politicians, etc. The Republicans believe in Reagan style trickle-down economics, where the rich get the lion%u2019s share of the cake and the rest get the crumbs.

[puritan9]

Obama will beat McCain hands down! When McCain attacks Obama%u2019s eloquence it%u2019s because he does not have any. Obama%u2019s eloquence is not empty, it is filled with hope that the American people understand and the Republican%u2019s just don%u2019t get it!

[puritan9]

What really drives the Republicans mad is that Obama is not for sale!

[andor3]

"Honorary-Democrat McCain forgot to tell us which of the two he is . . . hard to tell"

what McCain is and what he stands for depends on who he is talking to, what day of he week it is, and what city he is in.

And now that the Democrats (and nearly every sane person in the world) are offering plans for changing a set of horribly failed policies and practices, his campaign (not him--he does not get to decide important things like what he believes this week) has decided to oppose change. Brilliant. Plays right into the Democratic strategy. The only way that can work for Republicans is the tired old "scare em a lot" tactic we have had it with that one.

[samthetvcat]

"It will be whether we want higher taxes or lower taxes, it will be whether we want bigger government or less government, it will be whether you want government running the health-care system in America or we want families to make the choices," McCain told supporters at a rally in Oshkosh."

Honorary-Democrat McCain forgot to tell us which of the two he is . . . hard to tell

ha ha

PS Yeah those icky pick-up posts are gross!

[taylpatr]

I was going to comment on the story but the posts from the eastern Europeans trying to sound like "young and handsome man from U.S." stopped me.
Now I know I''m not by any means a computer expert so I have no solution for this, but maybe some "young and handsome computer geek from US of Americha" can tell us how to keep these kind of solicitations from appearing on our comment zone. These are as bad as the Pe*is enlargement ads I keep getting that I don''t need. Come on, Oh Techno-Wizards! Help us!

[bud28dy]

There are only three Repubs left and Paul still gets 5% of the vote. Is he staying in this thing so he can continue to fleece his few but wealthy supporters?

[pilgrimsway-2009]

Move over Martin Luther King! Obama is here to replace your dream! Maybe if you were alive you could look up to Him as your mentor! In any case you would carry Obamas luggage for His dreams not your dream!