McCain, Hillary: Double Campaign Suicide?

In today's Times Op Ed, "McCain Channels His Inner Hillary," Frank Rich writes:

... The good news for the Democrats so far is that whatever Mr. McCain’s sporadic overlap with liberals, he is emulating almost identically the suicidal Clinton campaign against Mr. Obama. He has mimicked Mrs. Clinton’s message and rhetorical style, her tone-deaf contempt for Mr. Obama’s cultural appeal, and her complete misreading of just how politically radioactive the war in Iraq remains despite its migration from the front page.

Like his prototype, Mr. McCain trumpets his long years of experience to an electorate that currently associates experience with Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld. He further channels Mrs. Clinton by belittling Mr. Obama’s oratory as an “eloquent but empty call for change” — a tactic that calls attention to how flat and uninspiring his own speeches can be. (Again like Mrs. Clinton, Mr. McCain is at his best in small groups and town-hall meetings.)

He also likes to counter hope with gloom — as if he wants to put Armageddon, rather than a chicken, in every pot. But after seven years of doom, Americans are as hungry for optimism as they were for Reagan’s “Morning in America” after Carter’s malaise. As Rudy Giuliani learned the hard way, the political potency of 9/11 has gone the way of John Ashcroft and color-coded terror alerts....

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Technorati tags: Frank Rich, New York Times, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John McCain, Politics, Primaries, Ohio, Texas, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Vermont, 2008 Presidential Election