(Mary Altaffer / AP Photo)
Here's my NEWSWEEK colleague Howard Fineman on whether McCain's "patriotic pitch"—and his insinuation that Obama is somehow "un-American"—can save his campaign. Especially worth noting: Howard's point that by talking tough toward Moscow, McCain is focusing a certain generation of voters on a familiar foe—a relief, perhaps, after years of confusing combat against a shadowy network of stateless terrorists.
WASHINGTON, D.C.--It’s a colonial era city in the midst of farm
country. Famous for its peppermint candy and barbell factory, York also
gained notoriety during the Revolutionary War when the Continental
Congress stopped here long enough to draft the Articles of
Confederation.
The city is a faded monument
to a certain kind of American life: 18th century English and German
settlements, Pennsylvania long rifles, a wariness of outsiders, social
change, and Big City. This made York the perfect place for John McCain and his team to lay out their core strategy in the race against Barack Obama.
Their messages: I’m an American and he’s not; I’m a patriot and he’s not; I’m a tough son-of-a-gun willing to confront our foes, he’s not.
This
cold-blooded, chest-beating theme will either give McCain a real chance
to overcome long odds and win the White House — or it will consign him
to the dust bin of history. For years, if not decades, McCain has positioned himself as the "thinking man’s" fighting man.He
sends out the idea that he’s tolerant and eager to cross party lines,
while at the same time willing to eschew ideology and fear in the name
of finding practical solutions. That McCain still exists, and it is that man who appeals to independent voters. Among them, the senator still enjoys an certain je ne sais quoi.But
for that very reason, he has never been all that popular with the
Reagan-Bush Base — the one Lee Atwater and Karl Rove built — of
Southern whites, evangelical Christians and combative necons.
The way to woo that group, McCain & Co. has decided, is to scare the bejesus out of them. And
they’re doing it by highlighting this allegedly un-American,
unpatriotic, weak, somehow foreign, and mysterious character named
Obama...
In
York, they sent forth Joe Lieberman, whose bland demeanor hides a hit
man’s heart, to explicitly utilize the accusatory theme that McCain has
used before... Introducing
McCain at a large fairgrounds rally, Lieberman said the choice was
“between one candidate, John McCain, who has always put the country
first, worked across party lines to get things done, and one candidate
who has not.” If the McCain campaign
thought Lieberman had gone a step too far, they didn’t say so. Just the
opposite: they posted his entire introduction online...
In York, McCain didn’t just wrap himself in the American flag — he wore it like a tight-fitting Olympic swimsuit. And the folks in the stands loved every minute of it.He also portrayed himself as the man who understands who our enemies are in the world — including a renascent Russian bear. Obama,
his aides said, was slow off the mark in his initial statements about
the situation in the former Soviet Republic of Georgia. The cheering crowd not only loved McCain’s combativeness, but seemed almost glad to be facing a familiar old foe: the Russians.
All in all, it was a good event for McCain. The crowd comprised a slice of America that McCain needs if he intends to win Pennsylvania and the election. And
that slice is: white (I did not spot a single African American in the
crowd), rural, “exurban,” and mostly Protestant, with local roots
stretching back centuries. They live in
“The T” of Pennsylvania – which encompasses pretty much everything
outside of the metropolitan areas of Philly and Pittsburgh. It’s indubitably American.
But so, Obama will have to argue, is he. He’s
the up-by-the-bootstraps son of a wayward but brilliant immigrant
father and an idealistic mom. He’s the kid who worked hard and took out
loans to get an education at Columbia and Harvard. And he’s the
candidate who loves his country for the chances it’s given him. Who knows, that might even sell in York.
READ THE FULL PIECE ON MSNBC.
