Matt Towery's Inside
The Numbers:
McCain Must Seize Economic Issue While Dems Fight On
By Matthew Towery
(3/6/08) Last week, our firm, InsiderAdvantage, became the first
independent pollster to indicate that Hillary Clinton was leading
the Texas Democratic primary. After she won both Texas and Ohio,
numerous GOP pundits were gleeful over the prospects of a likely
Democratic battle all the way to the Democrats' convention this
summer.
While conventional wisdom might suggest that such a protracted
intraparty battle would give Republican John McCain lots of time
to raise money and catch his breath, there is another side to the
situation.
We are in a political season unlike any that we have seen in most
of our lifetimes. People are watching political debates in numbers
usually reserved for pop singing contests or television ballroom-dancing
battles.
The Clinton-Obama war is providing both political junkies and everyday
Americans with plenty of entertainment. And with no GOP contest
to follow, the Democratic fight is truly the only show on the air.
Neither uncomfortable press conferences with President Bush nor
endless speculation about who might be the next Republican vice-presidential
running mate will keep John McCain in the limelight.
McCain has been unfairly characterized as a man who does not understand
economics, and who has been a lifelong traitor to conservative approaches
to national economic policy.
With all due respect to those who deride him, let me recall my
years as a partisan, and a very involved one. I recall that my friend
Jack Kemp, who once campaigned for me, was never one to be viewed
as anything but a bedrock conservative. He worked with a young John
McCain on a conservative Republican economic agenda long before
certain columnists and pundits darkened the doors of Washington,
D.C.
I'll freely admit that McCain's failure to originally support the
Bush tax cuts was a serious error, but I will also note that he
truly was consistent with his longtime mantra that spending must
be reigned in at the same time that taxes were cut.
McCain has good advisors and supporters -- as did Kemp -- who could
serve as the nucleus of a dynamic economic summit in which the brightest
minds of not only the GOP, but of a host of nonpartisan organizations,
could meet to determine a realistic and dynamic plan to turn our
nation's economy around; not just for a year, but for many years
to come.
Has anyone noticed that Hillary Clinton, who clearly seized on
the economy and her asserted experience in dealing with "hard
times" to appeal to voters in Ohio, is using the slogan "Solutions
for America." I bring this up because former U.S. House Speaker
Newt Gingrich left the presidential race behind in favor of his
think-tank effort called "American Solutions."
My advice to John McCain would be to get together "the old
gang" that basically pushed the Reagan economic policies of
the 1980s -- the Gingrichs, Kemps and others of that era -- and
add to that roster some people with fresh views on the future of
our economy. It should be a serious undertaking.
If these men and women sequestered themselves away, be it for a
week or a month, and produced an entirely new and innovative way
of dealing with both taxation and government spending, they would
do their candidate the biggest favor imaginable.
First, they would appear to acknowledge that we are in big economic
trouble, versus a president who last week seemed shocked that gas
prices could rise to $4 a gallon, and who dismissed any possibility
of recession. That only confirms the notion of a Republican Party
that is out of touch.
Second, such an effort, if more than simply window dressing, could
attract the attention of many independent voters who appreciate
Obama and Clinton's interest in the economic plight of Americans,
but who aren't necessarily convinced that they offer any concrete
answers.
Hanging his hat on the success of The Surge in Iraq is risky business
for McCain. And it seems silly to waste his undisputed record as
the enemy of federal budget earmarks -- unjustified pork for individual
lawmakers' states. That valuable political commodity is obscured
by endless talk of Iraq; it leads to a media drumbeat that economics
just isn't McCain's cup of tea.
"Seize the day," goes the Latin maxim. If McCain and
his party don't, they will find this special political holiday they
now enjoy to be have been wasted time; particularly when they are
left facing the inevitable Democratic ticket that, in one order
or another, will include both the names Clinton and Obama.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Matt Towery served as the chairman of former Speaker Newt Gingrich's
political organization from 1992 until Gingrich left Congress. He
is a former Georgia state representative, the author of several
books and currently heads the polling and political information
firm InsiderAdvantage. To find out more about Matthew Towery and
read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists,
visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.
COPYRIGHT 2007 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.
|
