A Bad Week For John McCain.

April 1

While on a trip to Baghdad to monitor the progress of the ‘surge’, McCain took a walk through a marketplace. It was the same marketplace that was torn apart by bombings last February that killed at least sixty one people. He claimed that his stroll gave him confidence in the new Baghdad security plan saying,

“There were thousands of people just walking the streets. It was very encouraging to me.” He continued, “’Never have I been able to go out into the city as I was today,”

link

April 6

He failed to mention that he was accompanied by over a hundred U.S. Soldiers, a handful of attack helicopters, sniper teams and a bullet proof vest.

One might wonder how McCain could say things are improving given the massive amount of security he needed. Baghdad residents do not have access to the military security that U.S. Senators do, and that might just have been the message we would have heard if McCain was as dedicated to “Straight-Talk” as much as his bus claims he is.

McCain was forced to apologize for the statements after a week of being hounded by the media. In a 60 minutes interview he said,

“Of course I am going to misspeak and I’ve done it on numerous occasions and I probably will do it in the future, I regret that when I divert attention to something I said from my message, but you know, that’s just life.”

link

April 2

While the bloggers fought it out over McCain’s deceptive endorsement of the Surge, his first quarter presidential campaign fundraising numbers came in. He raised only $12.5 million. Compared to $15 million raised by Rudy Giuliani, $23 million for Mitt Romney, $26 million for Hillary Clinton, and $25 million raised by Barack Obama. Placing him dead last among the front runners. This report effectively kills his status as the “one to beat” among the GOP candidates. His campaign said they had “hoped to do better”.

Link

Link

April 7

Just when you might expect McCain to retreat from his position on the Iraq War, (given the reaction to his comments regarding the success of the surge and his dwindling financial support for his Pro-Bush candidacy) he did the exact opposite. He plans to spend the next week selling his campaign on the need to win the Iraq war. While hitching his wagon to this star seems like a blissfully ignorant move, McCain believes the issue will “define his candidacy”. I believe this is the last time we’ll think of McCain as a serious presidential contender. While the Iraq war is important, the status quo, which he has been advocating, is neither publicly supported nor effective. The support for the Iraq war is hovering within five points of the worst it has ever been, and according to a CBS news poll, a majority of the public believes the United States should set a timetable for withdrawal.

Link

Link

The bottom line is, in order to make a winner out of any Iraq policy, he needs to split with the current administration and their 'been-there, done-that' Iraq policy. For the last couple of months he has been the strongest supporter of the surge outside the Whitehouse, this coupled with his politically motivated assessment of security in Baghdad shows people he is not the straight-talking maverick he was in the 2000 campaign. The Straight-Talk express has stalled and it is being towed by the eleventh amendment of GOP loyalty. While that may guarantee him no “black-baby” ads during the primary, it will not win him votes from the general public. Therefore, barring any massive policy splits with the Whitehouse, the McCain candidacy is dead.