Is McCain Losing Altitude?

22 July 2008 |permalink | email article

The Republican buzz, sources citing conservative columnist Robert Novak, is that John McCain may name his vice presidential running mate this week, attempting to draw attention away from impressive Obama headlines abroad.

Politico cited a McCain operative as declining to categorically rule out an announcement in the coming days, but other plugged-in sources said it was unlikely. McCain’s schedule suggests that’s accurate.

“A smart feint,” one Republican source said as the whining about what the McCain camp sees as clear media bias favoring Obama rises to hysteria.

So when McCain spent Sunday at Yankee Stadium with Rudy Giuliani and yesterday with Daddy Bush in Maine, as the Grand Tour rolls on, the frustrated town-hall candidate is reduced to airing a misleading new ad on cable networks and in 11 swing states blaming Obama for high gas prices because he opposes offshore oil drilling. 

On the Democratic side, there’s renewed buzz that Jack Reed, the Rhode Island senator leading the overseas trip with Obama who’s been to Iraq 11 times and voted against the original Iraq war resolution, could emerge as a sleeper Veep choice.

A 1971 West Point graduate, Reed did not fight in Vietnam but was an Army Ranger paratrooper who once commanded the 82nd Airborne Division, and was assigned elsewhere. Unlike Obama, he was against the 1991 Gulf War and voted against the recent FISA compromise.

Quote of the Day

“Well I think it’s very serious…I don’t know the exact vocabulary, but it’s a serious situation, but there’s a lot we need to do. We have a lot of work to do and I’m afraid it’s a very hard struggle, particularly the situation on the Iraq/Pakistan border.” – A rambling and gaffe prone McCain once again misspeaking about the region on ABC’s Good Morning America when he probably meant to say the Afghanistan/Pakistan border because there is no Iraq/Pakistan border. 

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