It has been an odd election for those who thought they knew John McCain. The conservatives who believed him a heretic have seen him profess true and undying allegiance to their faith. The liberals who thought him an ally have watched him denounce his past performance. The media that thought him a friend has been surprised to learn that he considers them biased elites. Even McCain has seemed confused. He has termed himself an unpredictable maverick and sworn himself a reliable conservative. It has been a frankly baffling performance. But all that pales in comparison to the damage done by his weird strategic decision to run as Hillary Clinton.
A surprising amount of McCain's general election campaign has seemed an effort to revive Clinton's strategy from the final months of the Democratic primary. It was, in some ways, an understandable calculation: Clinton demonstrated superior strength in almost every swing state that McCain would require for victory. She won Pennsylvania and Ohio. She won Florida and -- sort of -- Michigan. And the demographics of her victories pointed an interesting path for McCain: Older voters, Hispanics, and downscale whites may not have been a majority of the Democratic primary electorate, but they would easily assure a general election win if stacked atop the GOP's traditional coalition.
Moreover, there was the exposed nerve of the Democratic primary: disaffected Hillary supporters, popularly known as PUMAs, who believed Clinton's loss an expression of institutionalized misogyny within the Democratic primary. These angry Clinton backers, led by Geraldine Ferraro, managed to dominate early coverage of the Democratic National Convention with a media-savvy series of marches and loudly aired grievances. Party disunity suddenly seemed a real fear. Five days later, amid this odd environment, John McCain made a vice-presidential choice meant to appeal directly to these frustrated voters. The decision to nominate Sarah Palin was not a subtle play. In her announcement speech in Dayton, Ohio, Palin concluded:
I think as well today of two other women who came before me in national elections. I can't begin this great effort without honoring the achievements of Geraldine Ferraro in 1984, and, of course, Sen. Hillary Clinton, who showed such determination and grace in her presidential campaign. It was rightly noted in Denver this week that Hillary left 18 million cracks in the highest, hardest glass ceiling in America. But it turns out the women of America aren't finished yet, and we can shatter that glass ceiling once and for all.
Palin, of course, had certain weaknesses that would soon become clear. But in those heady days, her potential to crack the Democratic coalition seemed a potent advantage.
Meanwhile, Obama spent the summer converting the war machine that emerged from his primary campaign into a national infrastructure capable of aggressively expanding the general election map. The Interior West got resources, as did the Border South. McCain was forced to spend money and time in Indiana and North Carolina and even Georgia. He was on the defensive in Colorado and New Hampshire and Iowa and Nevada and Virginia. And so the question became: What state could he take from Obama?
His campaign thought back to the late stages of the primaries. Contrary to popular belief, Obama didn't have a problem with white voters, broadly defined. He had a problem with Appalachian whites. Indeed, analyzing the results as of May 12, the blogger DHinMI constructed a map highlighting counties where Clinton won at least 65 percent of the vote (the states in gray states hadn't yet held their primaries). The results were striking: As DHinMI concluded, "[Clinton's] biggest wins -- the places where she beat Obama by margins of 2 to 1 or better -- have come almost exclusively in Appalachia or in areas originally settled by Appalachian migrants that remain relatively homogeneous compared to the rest of the country." The only plausibly competitive state with a heavy population of Appalachian whites and an electoral vote haul able to make it worth the trouble was Pennsylvania. And the McCain campaign embraced Pennsylvania's centrality wholeheartedly. As The New York Times reported on Oct. 22, "McCain has lavished time and money on this now deep-blue state -- he made three stops here on Tuesday -- as if his political life depended on it. And, from his campaign's point of view, it does." But the attention and resources his campaign has devoted to Pennsylvania came at a heavy cost. McCain polls better in states like Virginia and Colorado and Nevada than he does in Pennsylvania, but they have been starved for money and attention, and most observers now think them likely to swing to Obama.
But a curious condescension is embedded in McCain's strategy. After all, Hillary Clinton and John McCain have one key difference: Their beliefs on, well, everything. McCain appears to have understood the success of Clinton's campaign as a simple function of demography. She won women by virtue of being a woman, won Appalachian whites by virtue of being white. And so his campaign responded logically: They gave women a woman to vote for, and Appalachian whites a white guy to vote for.
The ultimate success of the strategy will be known soon enough, but the early verdict is grim. Obama retains a comfortable lead in Pennsylvania (Pollster.com currently estimates it to be 8 percent), and for predictable reasons. Appalachian whites are white, yes, but the reason they vote in Democratic primaries is that they're also very poor. When McCain mocks Obama's promise to "spread the wealth," he's assailing a policy that would spread the wealth to, well, Appalachian whites. It's a peculiar messaging decision.
As for female voters, a Gallup poll conducted in the days after Palin's nomination found McCain trailing Obama by a mere five points among women. The most recent Gallup poll shows a 16-point spread (in contrast, Obama led by only one point among men). Meanwhile, a CBS/New York Times poll released on Oct. 30 found that Palin was, in fact, weighing down the McCain ticket. Fifty-nine percent of voters believe her unready to serve as president, and a full third said that vice-presidential selection would be a major factor in their vote.
McCain's problem is that he's simply not made a very convincing Hillary. Clinton may have been a white woman, but she was also an experienced and fluent candidate running atop a clearly articulated political platform. That platform was economically progressive (it spread the wealth, in other words), was opposed to the Iraq War, and was insistent on a women's right to fair pay and reproductive autonomy. It asked voters to remember what her husband's administration had done for downscale voters and to compare that to what the Bush administration had done to them. Her supporters, by and large, agreed with that platform and believed Clinton a more compelling candidate and credible executive than Obama. But Obama, whatever his faults, at least holds those same beliefs. McCain does not. At the end of the day, he may be a maverick or he may be a conservative. But he's no Hillary Clinton.
