July 3, 2008
The Presidential Election As Boxing Match
National Review Online: McCain Is Sonny Liston or George Foreman; Obama Is Mohammed Ali
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Play CBS Video Video Inside McCain's Colombia Trip In the midst of the hotly contested presidential race, Sen. John McCain took his campaign to South America. Why did he take time out of his schedule to visit Colombia? John Bentley has the story.
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Video Campaign Notebook Sen. Barack Obama would expand on federal faith-based initiatives. Sen. John McCain blasted Obama over a recent Supreme Court decision banning execution of child rapists. Katie Couric reports.
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Video Team McCain Shake-Up Sen. John McCain has shaken up the top leadership of his presidential campaign. At the helm now is one of the chief architects of the Bush campaign. Chip Reid reports.
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Timeline McCain's Quest Mileposts in the Arizona senator's race for the GOP nomination and the presidency.
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Photo Essay Barack Backers Millions raised at celebrity-packed fundraiser in L.A.
One way to envision the John McCain - Barack Obama presidential race is as a boxing match - particularly like the famous Mohammed Ali championship fights.
The deliberate McCain is like a Sonny Liston or George Foreman trying to cut the ring in half and force his lighter-footed opponent onto the ropes. For McCain, this comes in the form of numerous proposed town-hall debates, where he hopes that face-to-face questions and answers will fall on his less-seasoned opponent like sudden haymakers.
In turn, Obama is like Ali; his style is to keep moving - and stay out of reach of his opponent. Obama does this through rhetorically masterful addresses to large, adoring crowds. He knows that the more McCain is forced to spar at a distance via set speeches in front of a teleprompter, the more he wears down the elder senator, who appears outclassed on the evening news.
Or maybe the better analogy is Aesop’s fable of the tortoise and the hare. At 71, a slower McCain keeps plodding along at a steady pace, hoping that an overconfident, dashing Obama will rest on his wide lead in many polls, coast, make some more gaffes, and then let him crawl on by. Something like that happened in the Republican primary when the once dead-last, written-off McCain eventually walked past all his front-running rivals.
Pundits talk a lot about Obama’s current 12-15 point lead in the recent L.A. Times/Bloomberg and Newsweek polls. Less noticed is that the two are dead even in the venerable Gallup survey - not to mention that we have more than four months to go until election.
At some point, the steady McCain hopes crowds will tire of the glitzy “hope and change” rallies and demand that the soaring Obama comes down to earth to focus on more mundane, detailed positions that will alienate part of the electorate and so cut down his lead.
McCain must also feel like the mythical Menelaus, who tried to wrestle with the malleable Proteus, the sea god who turned into all sorts of different creatures to evade capture. Each time McCain thinks he can catch hold of Obama, the agile senator changes shape and slips away.
The embarrassing Rev. Jeremiah Wright? Obama has evolved from “I can no more disown him” to going well beyond that by quitting Trinity United Church of Christ altogether.
How about McCain’s effort to tackle Obama as a blinkered protectionist who wants to overturn the NAFTA accords? No longer. Now Obama dismisses his recent protectionist talk as “overheated and amplified” rhetoric while campaigning in Midwestern primaries.
Can McCain the combat veteran still take down Obama as the liberal proponent of gun control? Nope. Obama says he supports the recent Supreme Court decision striking down Washington, D.C., gun laws - attributing his earlier approval of similar gun-control legislation to the indiscretions of an aide who filled out a questionnaire wrongly.
McCain couldn’t even hold the changeable Obama to his primary pledge to use public campaign funds, and thereby cut down his opponent’s significant edge in private cash contributions. The cash-rich Obama has now sworn off public financing.
Horse imagery works for the two candidates as well. Obama seems more a youthful (“She rocks!” he shouts about Hillary Clinton to a crowd), frisky and sometimes impatient stallion. McCain is, of course, the old warhorse, his mobility curtailed from old wounds but still ready for combat.
McCain’s sometimes-pained expressions show that he’s been through all this before in the 2000 primary campaign against George W. Bush (not to mention weathering two terms in the House and four in the Senate). But for Obama, midway through his first Senate term, a presidential run must seem entirely new and fascinating.
This campaign is not just about liberal/conservative or Democrat/Republican. With two such antithetical choices this time around, we as voters have to ask ourselves other, more fundamental, questions: How do we define competency and leadership when a war veteran is set against an anti-war idealist, when one who has seen it all is challenged by one who still wants to see it all, when experience and deliberation are set against hope and change?
McCain and Obama are archetypes who transcend the usual politics. And that’s why we can evoke everything from boxing to the Ancient Greeks to figure out who should win.
But as the two candidates in the months ahead debate the war, energy woes, and a troubled economy, the election will ultimately come down to whether more Americans think a workmanlike old pro can see us through one more time, or more think the times demand we gamble on a charismatic newcomer who promises us deliverance.
By Victor Davis Hanson
Reprinted with permission from National Review Online.
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See all 23 CommentsPosted by JTait2 at 07:57 PM : Jul 05, 2008
You have to giggle at this one.. this is not a Hillary supporter or a dem..just an internet troll looking for votes for Mccain..Hillary is toast and just wants Obama to bail out her campaign debt,, good race but long over.The only question is whether voters will vote for 4 more years of Bush or not with Mccain
Haha... this person isn''t a democrat. Just another rethugnican about to soil their shorts over Obama becoming president and doing whatever they can to stop it.
It won''t help but it sure is amusing!!
state. Don''''t let the Obama liars tell you they''''re not.
Posted by JTait2 at 08:52 PM : Jul 04, 2008
No, they are not. You haven''t done your homework on this subject and you are out of touch with reality. Besides, anyone intelligent enough to read CBS news would not believe you anyway.
A write-in candidate is a person whose name is not printed on the ballot AND who has filed the REQUIRED declaration of intent to be a write-in candidate for election to office.
The six or seven states I researched all require ALL write-in candidates for state and federal positions to register ahead of time. Most, if not all, states require write-in presidential candidates to register prior to mid-October in the year of the presidential election.
Look it up.
Clinton has stated that she will NOT declare her intent to be a write-in candidate.
So, if you foolishly write Clinton''s name in, consider it a vote for McSame, because it will not be counted. But then you would not vote for Hillary because you really are a rethuglican who is just trying to confuse people who are far more intelligent than you are.
Guess who was right there beside him?
thats right....Lieberman...who has to keep him from saying the wrong thing.
This is going to be EXACTLY like the Bush/Cheney arrangement.
four more years of this ****** and all that will be left of our country are the yacht makers and a habndful of their customers.
Posted by ainttaken at 01:31 AM : Jul 04, 2008
+ report abuse
LOL You noticed?? ROFLMAO I just wonder if Liberman can hold up for the entire run?? ROFLMAO
We started with 3 liberals, the first 2 spent more time apologizing to each other and wanting to have a group hug than have a debate.
Now were down to 2 liberals who are afraid of saying anything that might offend the other, and are resorting to using surrogates to do the dirty work for them.
This is''nt a fight it''s a lovefest.
As I recall, Mohammed Ali usually won!
Sonny Liston or George Foreman...LOL!!!
Liston had a powerful punch, just like Bush had Carl Rove. Who is McSame''s "powerful punch?"
Liston was sentenced to prison for robbing a gas station. Bush and McSame should be sentenced to prison for stealing our tax money to fund the Iraq war.
Liston was not a popular champion. McSame is not popular because of his war stance.
Ali whipped Liston twice; Obama will whip McSame, twice if necessary.
Liston died prior to what might have been his "last fight." At 70+ McSame can''t have many "fights" left in that old body of his.
Foreman''s claim to fame is he was the oldest man to ever win a major heavyweight title, BUT he NEVER beat Ali.
It IS up to US. All we have to do is let it be known that Hillary backers are NOT going to vote for Obama under any condition. Thats all it takes.
Posted by JTait2 at 03:06 PM : Jul 03, 2008
LOL!!! Are you a fool? Or a neocon? Ooops...I almost forgot; they are the same! And you sound like RowdyTexan aka RowdyWiccan.
Well, you can''t have Hillary for reasons stated by IT_Oldtimer.
In addition, Hillary is obviously a more loyal Democrat than you and she knows the danger of running as a write-in and wouldn''t split the Dem party. And even if she did run as a write-in it would only split the Dem votes and McSame would walk away with the election.
An author of the failed, corrupt Neoconscum regime, Viktor Handjob is doubtless hoping for a new career in journalism.
It flies like a damp cowpie, Viktor!
More $hit from the Repugniscum a$$hole--Nasty Repug Orif*ce.
We need Experience. We need Hillary and Bill.
We can''''t afford to take a chance on someone who still needs training wheels on his bike.
We can still have Hillary.
It IS up to US. All we have to do is let it be known that Hillary backers are NOT going to vote for Obama under any condition. Thats all it takes. If we don''''t play thier game with them, there is no game and the candidate that most Democrats cast their votes for in the Primary will be the next President of the United States!
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Posted by JTait2 at 03:06 PM : Jul 03, 2008
Another con pretending to be a disaffected Democrat. We aren''t buyin it fool. Obama is the Democratic nominee. He is not my first choice, but he is also not a Republican. No true Clinton supporter would support the cons.
Hmmm, I wonder who this fool Hanson is trying to convince us to vote for? Let''s see, choose the warhorse and more of the same or gamble on hope and change? Since Hanson is a neocon who did his best to get our country in the mess it is currently in and wants nothing but more of the same, I think I would choose anyone other than his favored candidate. It does say something that this neocon rag full of neocon fools would choose McCain. It says what we all know... McCain IS Bush.
Unfortunately there are still a large number of people out there who will cast their vote for McCain because of misguided beliefs.
They are either convinced that Obama is a Muslim, or that he is unpatriotic, (both lies effectively spread by the RNC) or they are true neocon party liners, or they are just simply racists.
In any case, they are a force not to be ignored, and the Karl Rove machine will court them relentlessly. A McCain election victory would be an unmitigated disaster for this country.
Every state has election rules that fall into one of the three categories below:
2008 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION WRITE-IN RULES:
Rule 1 - Write-in votes will not be counted if the candidate does not file as a write-in candidate.
Rule 2 - Write-in candidates are not allowed in presidential elections.
Rule 3 - A candidate losing the primary cannot file as a write-in candidate in the general election.
Hillary can only run under Rule 1 -- and she has stated repeatedly that she has absolutely NO intention to "file as a write-in candidate" in ANY state. She is officially supporting Senator Obama.
That means if her name is written-in on any ballot, that ballot will simply not be counted. End of story.
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