CAMPAIGN CLIFFS NOTES

April 28, 2008 

Perhaps you haven’t had time lately to watch the cable television talk shows or read the hundreds of columns that analyze John McCain’s, Hillary Clinton’s, and Barack Obama’s campaigns.  Here’s a “straight-talk” summary "you can believe in” that will prepare you to "be ready on day one” of the general election campaign.

John McCain is delighted that the contest between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama goes on and has become increasingly negative.  He said he wants a respectful campaign, but that only applies to the general election, not the Democratic primaries.

He’s using this time to raise money, strengthen his campaign, reunite and reinvigorate the Republican Party.  And he’s seeking the optimal vice presidential candidate.  The media speculates that Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, and Charlie Crist, Republican governor of Florida, are the leading candidates.  All three recently have been with McCain on the campaign trail.

Mitt Romney would attract a broad spectrum of Republicans and some Independents to the ticket.  But there’s the outside chance that recent DNA tests could reveal that some distant relative was the father of one of the children recently rescued from the polygamist compound in Texas.  The mainstream media would devote 24/7 coverage to the story, detracting from McCain’s message.

Mike Huckabee is a favorite of conservatives.  But if he were on the ticket he likely would upstage McCain with the media.  Sources in the publishing industry say he has already proffered an outline of a book about the general election campaign with him on the ticket as a sequel to his soon-to-be-released book about his failed presidential bid.

Charlie Crist is a great governor, and he would help McCain win Florida in November.  But he has too dark a tan.  Standing next to McCain he makes the fair-skinned senator appear slightly anemic.  Having him run with McCain also would violate the unwritten rule of never having two grey-haired men on the same ticket.

Many Republicans believe Condoleezza Rice, already fourth in the line of presidential succession, would be the perfect candidate.  A successful black woman, she would attract independent voters who otherwise would vote for the first black or first female president.  But she says she’d rather be the commissioner of the National Football League than Vice President of the United States.  Can you blame her?

The McCain campaign also is looking for people to write jokes they can send to late-night TV talk show hosts that have nothing to do with McCain's age.  Apparently, writers for Jay Leno and David Letterman either can’t find anything funny about McCain other than his age, or they're getting their material from Howard Dean.

Hillary Clinton’s chances of winning the Democratic nomination are increasingly remote.  Despite her recent near 10-point win in Pennsylvania, she is about 160 delegates more or less behind Obama, depending on who’s counting.  The political experts who do the math say that she can’t realistically close the gap,  but she stays in the race for a couple of reasons. 

First, Obama could self destruct.  His associations with Jeremiah Wright, William Ayres, and Tony Rezko have damaged his image in the eyes of many voters.  But they're no knock-out punch.  She can only hope that new revelations would convince super delegates that nominating Obama would be suicide for the Democratic Party’s chances in November.  Rumors have it that someone in her campaign, posing as an Obama supporter, suggested to Bill Moyers he could make the Wright issue disappear if he interviewed Wright on his TV program.

Second, if Obama doesn't self destruct and wins the nomination, Hillary wants him to lose the November election.  The more damage she does to him now, the greater the chances that he will lose to McCain in the fall.  She could then come back in 2012 as her party’s nominee.  This strategy only works if Hillary can prevent Bill from telling everyone about it.  Bill, however, keeps telling anyone who will listen what's on his mind.  Apparently he doesn’t understand that since South Carolina, Hillary's supporters and African Americans are nearly as mad at him as Democrats are at Joe Lieberman.

Barack Obama, the likely Democratic nominee, has had a bad month.  Hillary Clinton asked voters in Pennsylvania why Obama had been unable to “close the deal.”  His associations and his explanations have raised serious doubts about him in the minds of white blue-collar voters, Catholics, and Jews. 

Reverend Wright won’t keep quiet or take a long vacation somewhere where the news media can’t find him.  Obama, therefore, can’t stop having to explain his association with Wright.  But his explanations keep evolving.  On one occasion he said he could no more disavow Wright than he could his white grandmother.  On another occasion he said he had disavowed him.  Obama’s next explanation will be that Wright really is his brother.  This would put Wright in the same category as Billy Carter--someone no one need bother listen to.

Obama’s association with William Ayres has its roots in Chicago politics.  Apparently it’s impossible to be a Democrat in Chicago and not associate with Ayres.  As the Chicago political machine no longer can get away with voting the dead, it needs people like Ayres.  He’s a prominent professor at the University of Illinois.  Young anti-war protesters, a significant Democratic voting block there, look up to him.

Tony Rezko’s association with Obama is on the back burner while Rezko has been in jail and on trial for money laundering, wire fraud, bribery and extortion.  Rezko, whose trial began on March 6, 2008, was released from jail on bond on April 18.  Look for the Rezko issue to resurface when the verdict in his trial comes in.  Rezko is Obama’s Bebe Rebozo, for those of you old enough to remember Richard Nixon.

That, in a nutshell, is where things stand at the moment.  The situation won’t change much until Democrats choose either Clinton or Obama as their nominee.  Until then, you can skip the talk shows and the columns.  You're better off spending your time figuring out how to conserve gas, stockpile food, and spend your stimulus package refund check.