Sne. John McCain, R-Ariz., said he likes being the underdog, but he is going to have to take some drastic steps to change the current dynamics of this election.
The economic crisis has been to McCain’s disadvantage when it comes to voters. In electoral votes, he has secured 160 so far compared to Barack Obama’s 189, according to the current estimate in the New York Times.
Another 40 votes are toward McCain, but even so, he needs to win a large number if not all of the toss up states in order to win the election. In the overall Gallup poll, Obama is currently leading by a 50 percent to 43 percent margin.
Before the crisis, McCain was surpassing Obama in many of the polls. However, as the economy has become a more and more dominant issue in the election, McCain’s popularity has continued to slide.
On “Meet the Press,” McCain was grilled by the late Tim Russert for saying, “I know a lot less on economics than I do about military and foreign policy issues. I still need to be educated.” That came from a Wall Street Journal interview in 2005.
Recently, McCain stated that he believed that “the fundamentals of the economy are strong,” just days before the recent calamity on Wall Street. This forced McCain to come out in support of the $700 billion rescue bill that recently was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Bush.
“To some extent, there is this whole theme that McCain is Bush, another term of Bush, so the economy crisis has kind of been translated on to him and the Republican party,” Laurie Houske, political science instructor, said. “People are frustrated and angry and he is the one that is going to get it.”
However, one of McCain’s strong points, foreign policy, has served to attract many people to the Republican ticket. He has made it clear that the United States should not meet the leaders of belligerent nations without setting preconditions.
This is in contrast with Obama who said a dialogue is needed without the U.S. acting ike a bully.
“When dealing with rogue regimes or rogue nations, you can’t just give them a carte blanch, you can’t just welcome them with open arms,” Eduardo Munoz, political science instructor, said. “These type of governments, the techniques that they use are often deceiving and they deprive rights from their people, so you need to set some preconditions prior to the meetings.”
McCain has also made pork-barrel spending, (an attempt by lawmakers to saddle a bill with appropriations for programs or projects that primarily intend to benefit certain constituents or campaign contributors), the centerpiece of his campaign, claiming it is wasteful.
“I won’t let another pork-barrel earmark spending bill cross my desk without vetoing it, and I’ll make the authors of it famous,” McCain said at a Republican debate on Jan. 10, 2008.
This has earned McCain the reputation as someone who will challenge his own party.
“I’ve heard he has some radical ideas for a Republican,” Ray Huff, 19, said.
