Here's how McCain can beat Obama to the White House

Spectator, The, Aug 30, 2008 by Salam, Reihan

Washington DC

In January, I met a friend of mine to discuss his impending departure from Washington DC. He was moving to Chicago to join Senator Barack Obama's budding presidential campaign. At the time, it was hard not to have an instinctive sympathy for Obama, not least because the Clinton campaign had by that point attracted many of the most loathsome careerists in Democratic politics. Among other things, we discussed the general election landscape. My friend, confident even then that Obama would win the Democratic nomination, was convinced that New York mayor Rudy Giuliani would be Obama's toughest opponent in a general election. Despite the many skeletons in Giuliani's closet, he was the kind of candidate who could scramble the map by winning the white vote in the Northeast and the Midwest. In contrast, my friend saw Senator John McCain as the perfect foil for Obama.

McCain's advanced age would highlight Obama's youthful vigour.

This week, as Democrats swoon over Barack Obama in Denver, one is tempted to think that my friend was right. Obama's young family has proved to be a truly formidable asset. Michelle Obama, once considered a liability along the lines of the hilariously pompous Teresa Heinz Kerry, came across as a charming and bright mother, a humble and grateful believer in the American Dream. His daughters are, as no sane observer is prepared to dispute, the cutest children in American political history.

As for Obama himself, well, the power of his charisma has salved all intra-party wounds.

The other striking thing about Obama is the manic loyalty he inspires. Among many of my friends and acquaintances, a mostly liberal and mostly earnest bunch, the prospect of an Obama defeat would be more than a mere disappointment -- it would represent a stunning indictment of America's national character. Conservatives in Washington and New York nervously joke that an Obama defeat will lead prosperous Obama-loving yuppies to turn to mob violence.

Well then, I for one will have to buy enough tinned food to last me through a minor civil disturbance, because despite the Obamania I believe that a McCain victory is looking more likely all the time. Though we can expect a handsome post-convention bounce for Obama, McCain has fought himself to a tie or a near tie in all major opinion polls. This is despite the fact that, yes, the Arizona Senator is ancient, irascible, and closely tied to perhaps the most persistently unpopular president in modern times. By all rights, Obama should be crushing McCain.

Instead, Obama has seemed defensive and cautious. The selection of Delaware Senator Joe Biden as running mate is best understood as an effort to play it safe -- to select a veteran legislator who is on record praising McCain, and who voted for the Iraq war.

Meanwhile, McCain is the candidate who is growing more confident and aggressive. In my view, what he needs to do now to secure a Republican victory is to begin a revolution in Republican thinking. His party must become the defenders of the economic underdogs.

This notion -- that Republicans ought to be the party of the aspirational classes, of those who want a low cost of living to better their long-term economic prospects -- is the central theme of my book, Grand New Party. In truth, I think my co-author and I had both assumed that the Republican party would take years to reinvent itself. After a term or two of President Obama, the party would free itself of the taint of Bush. Thanks to a series of missteps by Barack Obama, the same virtuoso who defeated Hillary and Bill Clinton at their venomous best, Republicans have a rare and frankly undeserved opportunity to skip that wrenching ordeal and to reinvent themselves on the fly.

But how? First, Republicans need to learn from their mistakes.

President Bush didn't just win re-election -- Bush defeated Democrat John Kerry by 33 points among non-college-educated middle-class whites, a dramatic 15-point increase over his margin of victory in 2000. Bush had a preternatural bond with this all-important constituency -- so much so that attacks against him often backfired. But shortly after his second inaugural address, he fumbled.

He proceeded to pursue a domestic policy agenda that, among other things, alienated those very same non-college-educated middle-class whites. It turns out that these voters were not exactly enthusiastic about proposed social security benefit cuts right when private pensions across the country were crumbling.

Nor were they thrilled with the prospect of a massive guest-worker programme, which sounded too much like a reward for wanton law-breaking. Coupled with the continued bloodletting in Iraq -- an essential part of Bush's political identity as a war president -- and popular revulsion at what looked like a massive government failure in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, not to mention the accumulated weight of various mini-scandals ranging from Jack Abramoff's influencepeddling to Rep. Mark Foley's obscene messages to underage congressional pages, the Republican brand became toxic at lightning speed. All the while, the Democratic Left began to adopt a more forthrightly populist economic message.