Analysis: McCain Hampered By Missteps

Controversy Dogs GOP Candidate As Campaign Pushes Towards General Election

(AP)  By Associated Press Special Correspondent David Espo.

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Call it campaign growing pains. Or bad luck. Or a combination of the two.

By any name, Sen. John McCain is hampered by missteps and self-generated controversy in the early days of the general election campaign for the White House.

Take his most recent trip through several states and the Canadian capital, a five-day span during which he courted conservatives and independents alike, raised more than $10 million and began detailing his considerable differences with Sen. Barack Obama on energy policy.

Still, on Tuesday, he criticized his rival for proposing a windfall profits tax on the oil industry. The attack was complicated by McCain's earlier statement that he would consider the same thing.

The following day, he met with a group of Hispanics in Chicago. Aides who had kept word of the event secret were placed on the defensive within hours after one participant criticized some of McCain's comments.

On Thursday, the Arizona senator flew to Iowa, a likely battleground state in the November election, where he expressed sympathy with victims of severe flooding and pledged support for federal recovery aid. The event was overshadowed by President George W. Bush's appearance elsewhere in the same state on the same day.

Friday's trip to Canada brought more controversy.

McCain arrived aboard his chartered campaign jet, yet told reporters at a news conference, "this is not a political campaign trip." The senator added he did not feel it was appropriate to have the government pay "while I am the nominee of my party."

The centerpiece of the six-hour visit was a speech to the Economic Club of Canada that amounted to a cross-border political attack. McCain criticized Obama, without mentioning him by name, for his opposition to the North American Free Trade Agreement.

"Demanding unilateral changes and threatening to abrogate an agreement that has increased trade and prosperity is nothing more than retreating behind protectionist walls," he said.

McCain's schedule also included mention of an unspecified "finance event." While that is customarily campaign jargon for a fundraiser, foreigners may not donate to U.S. candidates, and one aide was quoted in advance as saying that money from $100-per-person event would simply defray the cost of the earlier luncheon.

The non-fundraiser, which may or may not have cost $100 to attend, was held on the top floor of a building with a commanding view of the city skyline. McCain said he knew some of those in attendance had homes in Arizona in the cold weather, and at one point, referred to his campaign themes of "reform, peace and prosperity."

Even some Republicans have cringed in recent weeks at the campaign's efforts to ramp up for the fall campaign, although they will speak only privately.

McCain's aides minimize the difficulties.

One top aide, Mark Salter, said if McCain had not gone to Iowa, he would have looked indifferent to "a great natural calamity and the suffering it has caused." The senator has frequently criticized President Bush for his administration's response to Hurricane Katrina.

Salter also said McCain had told the Hispanic audience nothing about immigration that he hasn't told dozens of town hall audiences. He blamed the dustup on a member of the Minuteman organization that opposes giving illegal immigrants any path to legal status.

Salter noted that the speech in Canada contained no overt mention of Obama.

McCain himself told reporters late in the week he remains opposed to the windfall profits tax.

Not that Obama and the Democrats weren't trying to stir controversy at every step.

By the time the sun fell on the day of the Iowa trip, an aide to Gov. Chet Culver said the Democrat had privately relayed a request to McCain to cancel his plans to avoid diverting law enforcement personnel from recovery efforts. Salter said the visit had been cleared in advance by local officials.

And McCain was still on Canadian soil when the Democratic National Committee announced it was filing a Freedom of Information Act request for State Department records detailing the involvement of Ambassador David Wilkins during the trip.

That sort of guerrilla tactic is routine in any presidential campaign. Republicans spent much of the week, for example, drawing attention to Obama's announcement that he would reject public campaign funding for the general election, a major reversal.

And in truth, no candidate can expect to make it through a grueling presidential campaign without suffering one or two self-inflicted wounds - the most grievous of which are far worse than anything that has happened to McCain.

Republican President Gerald Ford's declaration in 1976, at the height of the Cold War, that there was "no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe" was a memorable one.

Or more recently Democratic Sen. John Kerry's decision to go windsurfing in 2004, an event that Republicans turned into a metaphor for a politician who shifts with the wind.

Obama himself spent days in the Democratic primary race trying to explain away remarks he made at a closed-door fundraiser that small-town Americans who were bitter over their economic plight turned to religion.

Republicans took notice of that one, and Obama can expect to hear more about that moment in the fall.

Arguably, McCain has yet to make that kind of gaffe despite enduring a candidacy of remarkable adversity in which he went from front-runner to the campaign cellar and back again.

And for all the talk his critics like to stir about his temper, he never betrayed a hint of displeasure as he made his campaign rounds during the week.

Not even when one man at a Minnesota fundraiser upbraided him for opposing oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

"Thank you for that question," McCain replied.


David Espo covers presidential politics for The Associated Press.

[rufisgufis]

Never occurred to you did it! We could be putting US oil into those refineries instead of FOREIGN OIL!!!

Get a freaking clue!

Posted by RowdyWicca at 09:05 AM : Jun 23, 2008
_________________________

What refineries are you referring to? Don''t you know that lack of refineries are a big part of the problem. Get a freaking clue!!

[rufisgufis]

Ya huh! What was old gas bag Michelle burping up...standing there in her $500 shoes going...mean, mean America! Methane?

Posted by RowdyWicca at 01:23 PM : Jun 23, 2008
_________________________

I see your racist character continues to display itself. The good thing is, your kind are a dying breed. The quicker, they better.

[rowdywicca]

Silly! That wasn''''t bucks she was coughing up, it was gas bubbles from drinking her beer too fast.... :-)


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Posted by raflin1 at 12:26 PM : Jun 23, 2008

Ya huh! What was old gas bag Michelle burping up...standing there in her $500 shoes going...mean, mean America! Methane?

[rowdywicca]

What Cyndi the Cyborg did for children was use them to get publicity to make herself look good for McSame''''s presidential campaign. If she REALLY wanted to "help children," she''''d cough up some of her bazillions of beer bucks.....


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Posted by raflin1 at 11:38 AM : Jun 23, 2008

She has! For years! LMAO!

[rowdywicca]

Dear me, one can almost (but not quite) feel sorry for Mr. McSame. Luckily for him, he can go home to be comforted by his cyborg wife. (Hmmm...wonder if she runs on rechargeable batteries or requires fresh ones each time?)


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Posted by raflin1 at 11:15 AM : Jun 23, 2008

Hmmmm...better a cyborg than a gas bag grumpass, I would think.

Did you ever go research what Cindy McCain has done for children? It''s kind of interesting.

Did you ever go research what Grumpass Michelle has ever done for anybody? It''s kind of interest too...nothing!

[rowdywicca]

Drilling more will do nothing for the price of gas in the short-term if we don''''''''t have more refineries to process the oil into gas.
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Posted by realpatriot1 at 05:57 AM : Jun 23, 2008

Never occurred to you did it! We could be putting US oil into those refineries instead of FOREIGN OIL!!!

Get a freaking clue!

[rowdywicca]

dmw1167,

Kansas1946 offered irrefutable facts. Too bad you don''''t respond in kind.

Changing one''''s mind is a good thing when it''''s supported by defensible reasons and new information. Doing so for votes is a different story.

Drilling more will do nothing for the price of gas in the short-term if we don''''t have more refineries to process the oil into gas.
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Posted by realpatriot1 at 05:57 AM : Jun 23, 2008

Wow, isn''t that the truth! Obama has changed his mind so many times, you can''t even tell what he''s for or opposed to anymore. You just have a to guess! More than likely it''s going to be a totally different stance from yesterday.

Just look at yesterday, now he''s all for the FISA bill! Seems he decided a president might need it to protect the country! Now how about THAT!? What happened to his big concerns about the CONSTITUTION?

Next he''ll be saying the president should be able to torture information out of captured terrorists! And holding them until they can be proved not to be a threat!

The call for offshore drilling is the ONE thing that we can do right now against our dependence on foreign oil! Of course dwebs like you don''t get that do ya? If it doesn''t get Obama votes...damned if it''s not absolutely the wrong thing for this country!

[realpatriot1]

dmw1167,

Kansas1946 offered irrefutable facts. Too bad you don''t respond in kind.

Changing one''s mind is a good thing when it''s supported by defensible reasons and new information. Doing so for votes is a different story.

Drilling more will do nothing for the price of gas in the short-term if we don''t have more refineries to process the oil into gas.

The call for offshore frilling, like the gas tax holiday ruse before it, is an attempt to divert attention from the abject failure of the republican''s oil and nuclear only energy policy.

[mr2258]

Hillary never had this problem.She was out in the streets ,with the crowd.The people liked her.

[mr2258]

What is Obama afraid of.You never know where he is going to be from day to day.I guess if I had pissed off so many people I would be afraid also.Hillary you may want to call in sick this week.Not sure how safe it is to be near Obama.