Rasmussen: McCain Up By 8 in Florida; No Damage, It Seems, From Offshore Drilling Position

Hm.

Which suggests a possibility, which will not happen, but what the hell:

If Florida will go along with offshore drilling, then there's no remaining political barrier to McCain simply calling for offshore drilling, period, determined by the federal government (as is always the case), no state-by-state determination.

The big two objectors here were Florida and California -- McCain needs Florida, but can't win California. So it hurts him not at all to move in the coming months to a more aggressive posture and simply urge more drilling, whether California wants it or not.

Pissing off Californians, whose electoral votes he won't get, might ingratiate him with Michaganders or Ohioans, whose votes he might.

So, in a fantasy world where McCain actually advocates the right position in terms of both policy and politics, who knows, maybe, in this Bizarro World, he'd slowly roll out a more powerful pro-drilling position.

In the real world, he'll continue running on Iraq, which due to the recent success, might actually not even be an issue in November and could, actually, stand on its own reasonably well by then,* and cutting pork, which is a good-government sort of issue, and goo-goo issues have never, in the entire history of politics in the whole of the known universe, won a single election.

* As the surge succeeds and violence ebbs and normalcy takes hold, Obama's reckless "let's try to lose this as soon as possible" position becomes less reckless. He might be presented with a fait accompli in November in which, actually, he can't lose Iraq anymore, no matter how much he tries, absent re-invading it on behalf of Al Qaeda and Iran.

So, perversely, as Bush and McCain are more proven right, Obama's position becomes more wrong, but also more irrelevant. As Iraq is truly, finally won, the difference between Obama's position and Petraeus' position might narrow quite a bit. We could see Obama arguing "withdraw now," and Petraeus saying "Well, we won the fucking war, so we can prudently withdraw most troops within 3-6 months" -- which is a difference, to be sure, but probably not enough of one to change votes either way.

In short, as victory comes, the difference who say "withdraw after victory" and those who say "withdraw now" narrows. When full and final victory is at hand, "withdraw after victory" becomes "withdraw now."

The pro-surge, pro-victory coalition will have been proven right -- but the public doesn't seem to give a shit, and besides, they're not going to vote against Obama for being on the wrong side of a now-mooted issue.

So, as I keep saying, it would be kinda-sorta helpful to McCain to have a couple of issues where he's on the right side of politics and policy, and which actually might animate voters.

He is behaving as if it's just not "sporting" to take a position opposite your opponent when your opponent is locked in to an godawful position. After all, wouldn't that be taking unfair advantage of an opponent's weakness?

thanks to Gabe.

posted by Ace at 04:43 PM

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