Two Criticisms for Camp McCain

Lest anyone think I’ve gone all soft on John McCain: Two criticisms:
1) Ed Morrissey suggests that McCain’s latest ad, “Disrespectful”is too much “victimhood” regarding Democratic statements about Governor Palin. I’m tend to agree.

I think it was okay for the McCain campaign to bring up “Lipstick on a Pig” and then the Wolves Ad talking about the airdropping of Democratic operatives into Alaska (I wonder whether they counted people working for ABC news,) but attacking them for being disrespectful, including for saying that Palin is good looking–I’m sorry, but what the heck?

A lot of conservative say Governor Palin is “good looking.” True, in certain contexts, such as exactly how it was said, it can come off as dismissive, but in the context of the ad, its just not clear how that was disrespectful.

Fundamentally, I think attacks on Palin will hurt the Democrats, particularly among male voters, as well as middle class Americans who voted for Hillary Clinton in the primaries. It offends a chivalrous nature in people to have some campaign flack or liberal news media go after a mother of five.

What patronizing defenses like the “Disrespectful” ad do is call into question Governor Palin’s mental toughness. The Vice-Presidency is not for wimps (look at the absolute garage that Vice-President Cheney has had to put up with) and the McCain camp is undermining Governor Palin.

I have to wonder how much consultation is going on between Governor Palin and the McCain people on ads “defending her.” She declined to say whether the attacks were sexist on ABC. Clearly, she’s not a whiner, but the campaign protesting too much is a risk.

2) If you want to prove you’re a maverick, here’s an idea. Try emphasizing being a maverick on issues that: a) people care about, b) that you don’t offend your base on.

McCain ran a radio ad called “Stem Cells” in which he highlighted himself as a maverick with his support for Stem Cells:

As someone who thought John Edwards’ Benny Hinn Act (”If John Kerry is President, that man will get out of his wheelchair.”) was irresponsible and provided unrealistic expectations for disabled people, I think this ad is pretty close to that level.

Secondly, who on the pro-stem cell side cares? Stem cells are not a driving issue in this election.

Third, it calls to mind that John McCain disagrees with most pro-lifers on federal funding Embryonic Stem Cell Research, which is an issue that’s very hard for pro-lifers to swallow. Bringing up issues which you have a huge disagreement with the base? Dumb.

However, the ad doesn’t refer to what specific type of stem cells the “Maverick” administration would fund and McCain has shown some openness to the idea that the issue of ESCR could be rendered “academic” by other research. Still, it’s a stupid ad and it doesn’t help the campaign one bit.

I also note that the RNC has an Amnesty Ad out, but they at least have the common sense to run that in Spanish on Spanish language stations, where  Amnesty opponents are unlikely to be watching. McCain has a much softer ad on immigration in English. At least, McCain isn’t openly antagonizing people on that issue. But I have to say, McCain hasn’t learned that Hispanics who strongly agree with him on immigration are unlikely to vote for him.

Finally, I’d note that Tony Perkins of the Values Voter summit is upset that neither John McCain nor Sarah Palin will show up. Palin is off in Nevada, while John McCain has no public events. Will no one from the McCain/Palin ticket showing up hurt the ticket? No. The ticket has the support of religious conservative leaders pretty much unconditionally.

What this suggests though is that, taken with McCain’s cancellation of Palin’s speech to RNC for Life, that McCain will enjoy a very uneasy relationship with religious conservatives if he’s elected.