Wednesday, October 22, 2008

The Economist: Three arguments that could help turn things in Sen. McCain's favor

According to The Economist, Sen. McCain still has three arguments in his favor that could begin to reverse the growing momentum toward Sen. Obama:

1. Sen. Obama is not business-friendly in a business-friendly country.

2. Democratic domination of the House, Senate, and the White House is not in America's interests.

3. There is little evidence that Sen. Obama will be able to say no to the many demands his party will make of him.

The first and third arguments are untruthful, but could have traction. The middle argument is one that is the fairest to truth. But together, I think the three arguments make a strong case, and roughly approximate what I would emphasize were I running the McCain campaign. Of course, in the end, The Economist sees reason to qualify their case:

These are far from watertight arguments. Mr McCain is a military man who married his money rather than made it. Mr Obama bravely took on the Clinton establishment (though he largely did it by pandering to more Democratic interest groups). But this plan of attack does at least have the virtue of appealing to widespread worries about an Obama victory rather than pandering to the foam-flecked fringe. “Vote for me to avoid the Democratic deluge” is not the most inspiring political platform in the world. But it is the only plausible one Mr McCain has left.

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