The unbearable state of being "unable to say"

Many, many people have dumped on John McCain for betraying North Carolina Republicans by trying to stop the now-famous political ad (which skewers Obama for the Wright and Weather Underground relationships, and concludes that Obama is "too extreme for North Carolina").

Maybe Obama is too extreme for North Carolinians, but I'm wondering about McCain's motivation for opposing the ad.

He certainly irritated the conservative Republican base in North Carolina, as well as a lot of other people. And he is being seen as opposing the truth:

Predictably, however, Obama's cheerleaders in the mainstream media, the left side of the Blogosphere and political fellow travelers in the Democratic party immediately began blasting the North Carolina ad. Typical was Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean who called the ad "racially divisive" and challenged presumptive GOP presidential nominee John McCain to pass this "test of leadership" by forcing the state party to stop airing the ad (which by the way has been viewed more than 200,000 times on YouTube at last count). Amazingly, McCain quickly joined this condescending chorus, demanding that the ad be pulled as "inappropriate" and "offensive to some." During a Friday conference call with bloggers, McCain added that the ad "is not the tenor of the campaign we want to wage." And he said the North Carolina GOP is "out of touch with reality." A McCain campaign spokesman was unable to say what part of the ad conveyed the objectionable tenor.
(Via Glenn Reynolds.)

Unable to say?

Why might that be?

Unless the primary is over, McCain is not yet running against Barack Obama. Is it possible that what the McCain campaign found objectionable was that the ad might cause North Carolinians to vote for Hillary Clinton?

Suppose for the sake of argument that McCain would rather run against Obama. (I've been arguing ad nauseam that Obama would be easier for him to beat.) Imagine then (hypothetically) that McCain came out out and said that he'd rather run against Obama than Hillary, and that he hoped Democrats would vote for Obama. It would become a huge campaign issue, and Hillary's campaign would seize on it so fast it would make your head spin. So, if McCain thought that, he could never have said it; likewise, if he opposes running anti-Obama ads, he has to advance boilerplate claims that the ads are inappropriate or offensive.

This might explain why his campaign is "unable to say" why.

In any case, I think it was a mistake for McCain to attack the ad. He should have just kept his mouth shut, and I agree with M. Simon and Glenn Reynolds that attacking the ad only helped publicize it.

Obviously, I don't know whether McCain wants Obama to beat Hillary, and this is only speculation. I also don't know whether his reasons for opposing the North Carolina ad matter.

Frankly, I feel a bit conflicted posting about this, because I want McCain to win in November, and I'm not sure it's especially helpful to his campaign to speculate about a possible hidden agenda. I'm also well aware of the possibility that the more I claim Hillary has a better chance to beat McCain than Obama, the more I'm helping Hillary.

What this means is that I may be a conflict of interest. I want to say what I think, yet I don't want to say things that might be harmful to McCain's candidacy.

Having disclosed that, I should probably relax, and just say what I think, lest I find myself in the McCain camp's "unable to say" position.

Because things are sure to get worse before they get better.

posted by Eric on 04.28.08 at 11:54 AM





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