ANALYSIS

Newly Energized GOP Ready To Take The Stage

Several Challenges Loom For McCain, But His Running Mate Choice Of Palin Has Rallied The Republican Base

by James A. Barnes

Sunday, Aug. 31, 2008


With his selection of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate, John McCain has revved up his party as it prepares to gather for the Republican National Convention in Minneapolis-St. Paul this week.

"Palin has thoroughly energized the base," said GOP strategist Phil Musser, a former executive director of the Republican Governors Association. "Social conservatives went from hand-wringing and hard swallows to hallelujahs with her selection. And economic conservatives joined the chorus," Musser added.

Indeed, when the Council for National Policy -- the influential network of conservative leaders that includes Focus on the Family founder James Dobson, Family Research Council President Tony Perkins, and Club for Growth President Pat Toomey -- met at the Hilton Minneapolis on the day that McCain announced his choice, the conservative chieftains "across the board were gushing," Musser said.

Nevertheless, Republican strategists think that McCain still has a number of things he must accomplish at the GOP convention if he is to remain competitive with the Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama, who came roaring out Denver after one of the most memorable closing nights in convention history.

"The best advice I could give is to maintain what they have been doing -- maintain the attack and maintain the offensive," said Republican political operative Chris LaCivita, who worked on the brutally effective Swift Boat assault on 2004 Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry.

Republican media consultant Heath Thompson agrees that the McCain team must keep up the pressure: "Because of what they've done in the past couple of months, the fundamental question in this election is whether Obama is ready to lead. And that's a winner" for Republicans.

Given President Bush's abysmal job-approval ratings and the unpopularity of the war in Iraq, Republicans are well aware that if the election turns into a referendum on the Bush administration, McCain has little chance of victory in the fall. That's why GOP strategists contend that McCain and his convention must draw a sharp contrast between the two nominees and try to make the election about Obama -- specifically about whether a first-term senator with little foreign-policy experience is sufficiently prepared to be commander in chief.

"The most important priority is to continue to make the case -- respectfully, but compellingly -- that John McCain is ready to be president of the United States at a dangerous time, and Barack Obama is not," said Republican pollster Whit Ayres.

"By focusing on his experience and record, I think Senator McCain will best meet the test that matters to American voters the most," said Jim Merrill, who chaired the 2008 New Hampshire primary campaign of former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. "Who do we trust the most with the tough issues facing our country over these next four years? The answer is John McCain."

In tapping Palin, the former small-town mayor who has been governor of a sparsely populated state for less than two years, McCain undercut his "experience" argument, many observers say. Yet, according to GOP strategist Tom Rath, "she brings a different kind of experience to our ticket that you don't measure just in years of public service." He noted that Democrats have pilloried McCain for supposedly not grasping kitchen-table concerns. "This person clearly does, and that's an important aspect that's needed on the ticket," Rath said.

Republican operatives hail Palin as the equivalent of Miracle-Gro for the GOP's grassroots. "The No. 1 priority [of the GOP convention] has to be to address the enthusiasm gap between Republicans and Democrats," said David Kensinger, a Kansas-based GOP operative who advised Sen. Sam Brownback during his White House bid. "The old turnout models do not apply to what Obama is doing. Only the kind of work-intensive volunteer effort executed by Bush in 2004 can defeat it. And that takes enthusiastic people."

Other GOP operatives said McCain must demonstrate that he personally understands the problems of average Americans. "The Democrats have really played the class card in an attempt to divide the country on economic fault lines," Rath said. "McCain must articulate a theme that cuts across these lines and identifies common hopes and dreams."

Cesar Conda, former domestic policy adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney, wants details: "McCain needs to lay out an optimistic vision for America and a specific three- or four-policy-point agenda of things he wants to accomplish to help families struggling with the cost of living."

GOP operatives also say McCain must distance himself from the Bush administration -- a task complicated by the fact that Bush and Cheney are slated to address the convention. "We have to emphasize that this election is about the next four years and not the last eight," Rath said.

Veteran GOP media consultant Don Sipple, who crafted television spots for Bush's 1994 gubernatorial campaign, says McCain's campaign should use the convention to "paint the picture in lucid terms of what one-party government in Washington would mean for Americans" -- that is, if the Democrats controlled the White House in addition to both chambers of Congress. "Against that backdrop," Sipple said, "then define the governing agenda for the next four years. And it better create daylight between McCain and Bush."

Republican media consultant Russ Schriefer, program director for the 2004 GOP convention, said a successful national political convention has a clear, consistent theme. "In other words, when the convention is over, can you describe what it was about and what was the story line," he said.

He added that, even though McCain's personal story is important, the Republican convention should stress policy differences. "The Democrats have just nominated possibly their most liberal candidate since George McGovern," Schriefer said. "Make it count."

CORRECTION: The Council for National Policy was misidentified in the original version of this report.

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