Letters to the Editor
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John 'Bomba Iran' McCain vs. The Surrender Monkeys?
I see McCain's position as the low risk option. The Democrats have yet to prove they won't withdraw from Iraq. The public perception is that a Democratic President will either withdraw, or substantially reduce the troop levels. McCain gets a public boost from outshouting them, as they try to take the middle of the road, and lean into the hawkish camp. The Democrats meanwhile are trying to sound tough, while trying to assuage the dominant Left Wing position, which is against the war. McCain has a decided edge in this debate. The war is off the front page, the MSM dropped coverage months ago.
McCain gets a secondary push from talking about something which sounds like news, and he sounds like he knows what he is talking about. This elevates his persona to that of the omniscent leader (Bush likes to play this role, I know something you don't...) who sees what is really happening on the ground in Iraq.
If it comes down to Iraq, McCain can win this election, and if it comes down to the economy as the substantive issue, McCain can win this election too.
The Democrats are gearing up for an attack on Republican fiscal policy, and McCain is one step ahead of them on that subject, listing the amount of earmarks each Democratic candidate has taken. No surprise that McCain is polling well against either Democratic candidate. If the war gets worse that simply proves that we need a bigger and better surge, if the lid stays on Iraq, that proves the surge worked.
The administration will pull some strings to get the stock market going until the election, just like they did in the 2004 midterms, with the gasoline market. Look for new highs in the DOW, paid for with freshly printed Bernanke dollars, and siphoned into the system by the Presidents Working Group, all done under the auspice of crisis management.
With the economy off life support, and plenty of money to run the war, McCain can talk up Iraq. The big risk is that they can't micromanage the numbers. The self applied censorship by the MSM also applies to news on the economy, where confidence is considered more important than the bottom line, (see Paulsons heated exchange in yesterday's testimony). The MSM will graciously comply, and keep the bad economic news on Main Street from getting into the state run propaganda network.
Under those circumstances McCain is likely to win the election.