Politico's Avi Zenilman has an excellent article examining the dearth of policy details coming out of the McCain campaign. Despite Republican attempts to paint him as all style and no substance, Zenilman reports that Barack Obama has been releasing many more, and much more specific, policy white papers than McCain.
One of the more striking detail gaps is on the topic of Social Security, where Obama has proposed lifting the income cap whereas McCain has offered no specifics. McCain spokesman Taylor Griffin defends this by saying, "Sen. McCain believes this is so important that we do not politicize this debate during an election season." Leaving aside the fact that McCain has, as Zenilman notes, called Social Security "an absolute disgrace" (during an election season!), isn't Social Security, um, a political issue? Call me crazy, but when a debate focuses on a program accounting for a fifth of the federal budget under the direct control of the presidency and Congress, it's pretty hard for that discussion to be more politicized than it already is.
What's truly strange is that Obama's camp is refusing to pounce on this. His policy director, Heather Higginbottom, explains away McCain's lack of policy substance, saying, "We were in a contentious primary that lasted a very, very long time and was hard-fought and very substantive. That did not happen in a Republican primary." She says this like McCain doesn't have any responsibility for the awfulness of the dialog in the Republican primary, like he wasn't a major candidate with the potential to shape the debate.
Even if McCain's lack of details is due to the less substantive primary, it doesn't absolve him, it makes him more culpable. What's more, the extended Democratic primary gave McCain a perfect opportunity to lay out detailed policy plans because he didn't have to concern himself with attacking Obama and doing rapid response, like he does now. He was starved for media attention, and policy papers could have bought him some coverage.
But even if Higginbottom were right, why is she saying this? She's purposefully ducking a chance to hit McCain on his strongest attribute -- his perceived substance (as opposed to Obama's "celebrity" style). If Obama eventually does attack McCain on this front, Michael Goldfarb can dig up Higginbottom's quote and say, "Hey, even Obama's campaign thinks the lack of specifics is understandable because the primaries were shorter for Republicans." It's not just wrong on the merits, it's bad politics.
--Dylan Matthews
