McCain's Enthusiasm Gap

Presidential campaigns are won and lost on emotion. The candidate who taps into a sense of camaraderie with voters invariably ends up living at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, while the loser laments that the country never really got to know him (or her). Consider our most recent also-rans: John Kerry, Al Gore, Bob Dole, Michael Dukakis. Each of these men failed to forge an emotional connection with voters. Indeed, to varying degrees, each was perceived as stiff or phony in comparison to the person he was running against. In short, they lacked the ability to stir up unalloyed enthusiasm in the contest to decide "the lesser of two evils." In other words, the strategy of "Hey, I'm better than the other guy," is not always sufficient to put you in the White House.

Enter John McCain, whose strategy in the race of '08 has consisted of an assurance that he'd be better than both Bush and Obama. But the lack of enthusiasm for what McCain is selling is evident everywhere you look. Conservatives are wary of his ever-morphing platform positions. Hispanics, the fastest growing segment of the voting population, have had enough elephants for one lifetime. Evangelicals like James Dobson would rather sit the election out than vote for him.

Today's LA Times chronicles McCain antipathy in Ohio:

As the architect of Ohio's ballot measure against gay marriage, Phil Burress helped draw thousands of conservative voters to the polls in 2004, most of whom also cast ballots to reelect President Bush. So Burress was not surprised when high-level staffers from John McCain's campaign dropped by his office, asking for his help this fall.

What surprised Burress was how badly the meeting went. He says he tried but failed to make the McCain team understand how much work remained to overcome the skepticism of social conservatives. Burress ended up cutting off the campaign officials as they spoke. "He doesn't want to associate with us," Burress now says of McCain, "and we don't want to associate with him."

With the party base ever suspicious, McCain is faced with a pressing need to court independent voters. The problem for him is that Obama also runs strong with that demographic. And for every independent voter McCain woos with anti-Bush posturing, another Republican foot-soldier (half of whom think the president is doing a dandy job, thank you very much) is put off.

So how does a 72-year-old, 22-year veteran of the Senate sell the idea that he will usher in the change that 80 percent of the country currently craves? Well, as Thomas Edsall details today, you don't. Instead, you change the subject. You attack your opponent:

For McCain to stand a chance of winning, the operative contended, the campaign, the Republican National Committee, or an independent group will have to finance sustained negative ads developing a broad assault on Obama's credibility as a national leader at a time of terrorist threats. McCain, however, has gone out of his way to aggressively discourage such activity, the operative pointed out, which, he argued, may kill McCain's chances.

Going negative is indeed effective strategy, but unless it is coupled with genuine enthusiasm for a positive message that a candidate proposes, it will always fail. And unless McCain can re-connect with his maverick brand, as Ken Layne pointed out earlier today, he'll fail, too.