Thursday, October 09, 2008

Election Desperation, McTitanic

When you go nothing you go with what you've got.

Now I'm in the Construction Industry and I'd rather shoot myself than take a job running the McCain campaign. My industry has hit a wall and burst into flame and I'd much rather take a chance on it. Sure I'm an Obama supporter, but I don't build things for myself very much either, I do it for money. (there's an ethical and emotional aspect - I'll admit it) The DOW tanked again today. I don't have any money out there, but it sure isn't helping my prospects any. McCain's polling seems to track the DOW, it there's any reality in that, he just took another big hit today.

It isn't so much that I wouldn't know what to do, it is that there is so little to work with. The Other campaign against Obama is not going to work. He's been on the national stage a bit too long now and other than the base people just aren't paying any attention to it. The media has to pay attention to it, but other than Fox they aren't taking it seriously. There are a whole bunch of things on the voters' minds and that is pretty far down. What they do care about leaves McCain in the lurch.

The candidate has a record that makes economic reform really difficult to sell. Then beyond his record are the candidate's statements leading into this mess. Finally there are the idjits that "run" this campaign. I'm not going to give free advice to McCain, other than this - fire your managers. Somebody rolled the dice on Sarah Palin, somebody has run a campaign of daily tactics with no strategy, and somebody has not one idea of image.

Now I could point out what losers that bunch represented before working for McCain. Their clients have killed the economy. If my crew built like that, I'd be in jail. What are you supposed to do with such ineptitude? Get the other guy to hire them? For god's sake, McCain's foreign policy guy represented Georgia - a nation stupid enough to shoot at Russian troops who weren't shooting. Damn, I hunt big game and I've got firearms capable of dealing with anything in the Americas and I know that the Russian bear isn't impressed by spitballs. Are we talking about idiots?

The worst part of it isn't the staff, it is the employer. The boss, John McCain, has the final word on whatever goes on. This means that the entire lack of strategy and momentary tactics is something he approves of. This is the mentality of a jet fighter-bomber pilot, everything is momentary, immediate. That pilot is given a target and a route, strategy is taken care of elsewhere, his entire job is getting that plane airborne, getting there, bombing, and getting the thing landed - and worrying at instants time about fighters and ground missiles. John came up a bit short on that last.

George W Bush was going to be a boat anchor as a high performance engine in this election. At 28% approval over the last several years the Bush performance has been a given. Why is this some amazing occurrence to these people? How could McCain come out as BushIII? He says he's not, and then repeats the Bush line, how is that supposed to work? I understand the constraints he's under with the Republican Party, but tax breaks for the rich was going to explode in his face, especially considering he'd opposed them at one point. No taxpayer wants to hand money over to irresponsible fat cats, so they're already really irritated, and where does he go from there? Stupid land. Buy bad mortgages from the banks at face value and down grade them?

The irresponsible stupidity keeps getting piled on itself, higher and higher goes the mound until McCain is using it as a stage to cry foreign terrist at his opponent. It won't work that way.

Nobody is going to ask me to be a part of an administration so my refusal to have anything to do with putting my fortunes in McCain's hands is silly, but I still won't.

1 comment:

Zakariah Johnson said...

The worst part of it isn't the staff, it is the employer. The boss, John McCain, has the final word on whatever goes on. This means that the entire lack of strategy and momentary tactics is something he approves of.

Couldn't agree with you more, Chuck. Running a campaign these days gives us all a first-hand look at the executive skills and temperament of the candidates. Obama has clearly cleaned the floor with McCain in that respect and has shown beyond any doubt he's a first-rate manager who'll be ready from day one.

McCain, by contrast, has displayed what a friend of mine used to call "Sea-gull style management": fly in, make a bunch of noise, shit on everything and fly off leaving somebody else to clean up the mess.

President Obama sounds damn good.