Wright, Bosnia, McCain, Gravel, Gore, an electoral tie and the 12th Amendment (with Lieberman on the side)
All in all, a surprisingly interesting week in Presidential politics with developments that will shape the future course of the campaign.
While the pastor Wright scandal continues to dominate the conversation, Obama has tried to steer attention elsewhere with attacks on Clinton and on McCain. Clinton's flap this week is really an old story made new again where she said she was under sniper fire in a trip to Bosnia, defended the comment when contradicted, and ultimately admitted she misspoke when YouTube video was released showing her depiction was way off. Obama's surrogates are painting her as an untrustworthy liar and a foolish one at that. Obama critics meanwhile have continued to hammer the point that his affiliation, close mentor-mentee relationship with the man whose sermons preached hate of America and white people and inspired the title to Obama's book make him divisive. They have also jumped on the recently released tax returns of the Obamas, showing that he is a millionaire, who up until 2006, was not giving more than a couple thousand in charity per year, undercutting he and his wife's themes of being able to identify with the poor. Obama has attacked McCain by characterizing McCain as taking a do-nothing passive approach to the economy. Both Democrats' numbers plummetted a few points this week according to Rasmussen Reports, where Obama now trails McCain by 9% nationally. Despite Clinton's Bosnia flap, she seems to have come off slightly better to Democratic primary voters of late, expanding her Pennsylvania lead, and narrowing the gap in North Carolina.
Mike Gravel, the other Democrat running for President, notable only in that he is never noted though in the race, has dropped his Democratic Presidential bid. He is, however, still going to run on a libertatrian ticket. As he never got even 1% in any state, I don't think anyone is too concerned.
Lastly on the Democrat side, a Florida congressman has floated the idea that if the convention is split and neither Clinton nor Obama reaches the requisite 2025 delegates, that Al Gore be selected as the nominee. Gore is immensely popular within the party and has not been torn down by the rigors of the vicious campaign that has decreased the favorable ratings for Clinton and Obama, but he has not won nor campaigned for a single vote in 2008. Still, under their party's rules, if after the 1st vote at the convention there is no winner with 2025 or more votes, all delegates are released and can vote for anyone.
McCain meanwhile has worked on fundraising, preparing his message, unifying the party, etc. It seems that he is anticipating what the Democratic nominee, whomever it will be, will do. Because whichever candidate, Clinton or Obama, emerges at the end of the primary on top will do so after a divisive campaign, the Democratic nominee will have some real trouble mending their own party. Some polls are showing 20% of both Obama and Clinton's supporters as stating they would sooner vote for McCain or stay home than vote for the other Democrat. Consequently, the DNC's only message that they can formulate between now and perhaps the late August convention is to figure out how to attack McCain. They will do so by painting him as the same as President Bush, already utlizing rhetoric and labels such as McSame or "Bush III". McCain, however, may be able to dodge this label, and his current efforts seem to, by design or coincidence, distance and distinguish himself from Bush.
McCain spent the week travelling abroad, meeting with leaders in foreign nations, which both helped him look Presidential and sent the message that he is focused on rebuilding America's relationships with our allies, our international image, etc... By doing so he preempts a Democratic talking point that almost certainly would have been used against him. McCain signals that he will trumpet his foreign policy experience and capacity over the inexperience and empty claims of his rivals. McCain has called on the Democrats to support the troops by acknowledging that the surge he has supported from the beginning is working, but neither Democrat is likely to make any such acknowledgement. While casualties are down and the military reports look a lot better, both Democrats maintain we should not be there in Iraq and that they will withdraw our troops. Obama has said he'll send them back if al Qaeda establishes a base in the country, however. Clinton has said she would rely on elite special force teams to run covert operations in the region to protect our interests.
