Spring Break
Obama, McCain define 'change' differently
June 9, 2008
Wayne Slater - The Dallas Morning NewsIssue date: 6/5/08 Section: Real News
AUSTIN _ They are distinctly different change-agents, the history-making phenom and the history-tested maverick.
Embarked now fully in a five-month race for the presidency, Barack Obama and John McCain are each promising to turn the page on the Bush years.
The test is who will frame the debate: youth vs. experience, judgment vs. leadership, the right change vs. change we can believe in.
"The Obama folks are going to settle on an argument fairly quickly, which is: We don't want another Bush term," said former Bush strategist Matthew Dowd. "Iraq, tax cuts and all that sort of thing. They'll keep saying if you want more of the same, then John McCain."
McCain's primary line of attack is that the junior senator from Illinois is too inexperienced to steer the ship of state in such dangerous times.
"Basically, he adapts part of Hillary Clinton's message: not ready on day one," Dowd said.
There are plenty of policy differences that divide them, and they'll argue vigorously over the war, the economy, social issues, and foreign policy.
But it is the vivid personal contrast _ McCain a 71-year-old white male, former prisoner of war, veteran legislator and conservative Republican and Obama a 46-year black, freshman senator and liberal Democrat _ that so clearly defines the contours of the race.
Neither was the establishment candidate of their party and in that, both play to a larger public discontent, a weariness over 16 years of partisan warfare and polarization that will serve as the defining backdrop for the contest.
Polls indicate that more than 80 percent of Americans believe the country is going in the wrong direction _ a key political signal of a problem for the party in power.
"The atmospherics for the Republicans haven't been this bad since 1974," said former McCain adviser John Weaver.
"We have a president who is at Richard Nixon numbers, we're entering into a recession, we are approaching $5 a gallon gasoline and we're in the sixth year of an unpopular war," Weaver said. "So McCain is sailing into hurricane-force winds."
Embarked now fully in a five-month race for the presidency, Barack Obama and John McCain are each promising to turn the page on the Bush years.
The test is who will frame the debate: youth vs. experience, judgment vs. leadership, the right change vs. change we can believe in.
"The Obama folks are going to settle on an argument fairly quickly, which is: We don't want another Bush term," said former Bush strategist Matthew Dowd. "Iraq, tax cuts and all that sort of thing. They'll keep saying if you want more of the same, then John McCain."
McCain's primary line of attack is that the junior senator from Illinois is too inexperienced to steer the ship of state in such dangerous times.
"Basically, he adapts part of Hillary Clinton's message: not ready on day one," Dowd said.
There are plenty of policy differences that divide them, and they'll argue vigorously over the war, the economy, social issues, and foreign policy.
But it is the vivid personal contrast _ McCain a 71-year-old white male, former prisoner of war, veteran legislator and conservative Republican and Obama a 46-year black, freshman senator and liberal Democrat _ that so clearly defines the contours of the race.
Neither was the establishment candidate of their party and in that, both play to a larger public discontent, a weariness over 16 years of partisan warfare and polarization that will serve as the defining backdrop for the contest.
Polls indicate that more than 80 percent of Americans believe the country is going in the wrong direction _ a key political signal of a problem for the party in power.
"The atmospherics for the Republicans haven't been this bad since 1974," said former McCain adviser John Weaver.
"We have a president who is at Richard Nixon numbers, we're entering into a recession, we are approaching $5 a gallon gasoline and we're in the sixth year of an unpopular war," Weaver said. "So McCain is sailing into hurricane-force winds."
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