McCain Campaign in its Death Throes

I thought the McCain campaign was in deep trouble when I made my last post on Thursday. As I watched the news updates yesterday and today, I continued to be amazed at how bad the news was for McCain and how dreadful the campaign's reactions to recent events have been. Let's do a quick rundown, in increasing order of ineptitude:

McCain is spending today in Iowa, and Palin is preparing for a bus tour through West Virginia

Just ridiculously bad strategy by the campaign. Not once, out of any of the 27 polls released in '08 from Iowa, has McCain led Obama (there was one tie). fivethirtyeight.com gives Obama a 97% chance of winning the state. And yet, McCain chose to spend one of his precious last days in a state he has virtually no chance of winning instead of in Ohio, Florida, New Hampshire, or any of the other states that are far more likely to influence the outcome of the election.

And, let me tell you, sending Palin to West Virginia can be nothing more than an effort to keep from getting absolutely CRUSHED in the Electoral College. There is no chance that West Virginia will change the outcome. If West Virginia is close enough that Palin needs to visit, that means that he certainly has also lost Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia, whose rural regions are demographically similar to WV but also have larger urban and/or black populations. So a close win in West Virginia thanks to a Palin visit would turn a 210 Electoral vote defeat into a 200 vote defeat. That's the best use of Palin's time?

The Branchflower Report on "Troopergate"

Alaska's Legislative Council, which has more Republicans than Democrats, voted 12-0 to release a report which said that Palin abused her power and broke a state ethics law. The McCain/Palin campaign, incredibly, argued that the report was a partisan vendetta, despite the fact that, as previously discussed, it was Republican-dominated.

While this report is bad for Palin, I don't think it actually will move any votes. People who already love Palin will continue to do so, people horrified by her will be even more so, and I really don't think there are that many people who hadn't already formed an opinion of her one way or the other. It does strengthen what I think is an already-strong, objective case that she would be a terrible VP.

McCain's campaign manager admitted McCain "blew up" the original bailout deal.

Ben Smith has the story.

[I]n the middle of the greatest disaster in our financial system that we’d had in our lifetime, that the Democrats in the United States Senate would actually link payments to ACORN in the bailout package that they promoted -- prior to Sen. McCain coming to town and actually blowing that package up. So we can actually say that in addition to saving taxpayers millions of dollars, and we’re very happy that no more taxpayer dollars were added to the pile of money going to ACORN.

This statement, not by some flunky or a left-winger but by McCain's own campaign manager, Rick Davis, directly and completely contradicts McCain's own statements about his role in the bailout, which, to remind everyone, is the government's most significant action in response to the economic crisis, clearly the biggest issue of the campaign. Senator McCain, during an event (in Iowa, for some reason) the day after the House voted down the original bailout package, said:

"Our leaders are expected to leave partisanship at the door and come to the table to solve our problems. Senator Obama and his allies in Congress infused unnecessary partisanship into the process."

So McCain publicly blamed Obama for blowing up the bailout bill when in fact, as his campaign manager admitted yesterday, McCain was the one who did the blowing.

This is a big, big deal. McCain should thank his lucky stars that the Palin probe report came out yesterday and drowned out news of this shocking bit of truth from the dying McCain campaign.

Desperate McCain Campaign Responds

The McCain campaign put out their response to the New York Times and Newsweek stories (and one from Roll Call, as well. Sorry I missed that on the first post) by lashing out at the messengers. Actually, they only lash out at the Times, making it seem like the whole story is made up by the Times to hurt McCain and help Obama:

The New York Times is trying to fill an ideological niche. It is a business decision, and one made under economic duress, as the New York Times is a failing business. But the paper’s reporting on Senator McCain, his campaign, and his staff should be clearly understood by the American people for what it is: a partisan assault aimed at promoting that paper’s preferred candidate, Barack Obama.

So, in their desperation, they're attacking the messengers who dared take up McCain's challenge on 60 Minutes (video in previous post) to check up on Davis' ties to Fannie/Freddie. But they did make a token effort to respond to the facts of the report:

The New York Times charges that McCain-Palin 2008 campaign manager Rick Davis was paid by Freddie Mac until last month, contrary to previous reporting, as well as statements by this campaign and by Mr. Davis himself.

Actually, no, they didn't charge that Davis was paid, but that the firm Davis owns, Davis Manafort, was paid. And where did the Times hide this important distinction? In the headline:

McCain Aide’s FIRM Was Paid by Freddie Mac

This fact is not in dispute. From the Times article:

Jill Hazelbaker, a spokeswoman for the McCain campaign, did not dispute the payments to Mr. Davis’s firm. But she said that Mr. Davis had stopped taking a salary from his firm by the end of 2006 and that his work did not affect Mr. McCain.

The campaign's non-denial denial goes on:

Further, and missing from the Times’ reporting, Mr. Davis has never — never — been a lobbyist for either Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. Mr. Davis has not served as a registered lobbyist since 2005.

The Times article was, in fact, quite clear on this:

Mr. Davis was hired as a consultant, not a lobbyist, the officials said. Davis & Manafort in recent years has filed federal lobbying reports for a number of companies but not Freddie Mac or Fannie Mae.

By responding to allegations not made (Davis was paid by Fannie/Freddie; the Times never said he didn't lobby for Fannie/Freddie, etc.) instead of the facts (The firm in which Davis is still a partner and equity holder was paid, though he has not taken payments from the firm since 2006; the payments were for consulting, not lobbying), the McCain campaign is hoping that they can chalk the whole problem up to biased reporting. Unfortunately, the Times story is on the money, not to mention that other sources are reporting the same thing. Hopefully the media will continue to keep pressure on this story and not let Senator McCain wriggle off the hook.

McCain, Busted Again!

Senator McCain was interviewed on 60 Minutes this past Sunday, and the topic of his campaign manager, Rick Davis, being a lobbyist on behalf of Freddie Mac came up. Actually, the interviewer said it was for Fannie Mae, but whatever. Here's what McCain said on the subject of Davis' lobbying firm, Davis Manafort, and any continuing ties with Freddie:



Everyone knew, at the time of the interview, that Freddie had paid Davis $30,000 a month until the end of 2005 to lobby on their behalf. Turns out, however, that according to the NY Times and Newsweek Freddie continued to pay Davis Manafort $15,000 a month right up until the government took over the company last month. So when McCain said in the above video "he had nothing to do with it since", he either didn't know about Davis' arrangement to be paid about half a million dollars ($15,000 x 36 or so months) for apparently doing nothing save for, presumably, possibly providing access to a McCain White House, or he was lying.

How does McCain not fire Rick Davis because of this?