John McCain's three biggest problems - Himself, George Bush and history

Some folks are asking what I meant yesterday on MSNBC during an interview with Chris Jansing when I said that presumptive GOP presidential nominee John McCain's "three biggest problems are John McCain, George Bush and history, and he's yet to effectively address any of the three."

To win, McCain must motivate the conservative base of the Republican Party to get out and work, vote and contribute on his behalf at record levels if he is to have any hope of defeating the onslaught of money, media and manipulation coming from Democrat Barack Obama and his allies.

The problem is McCain simply isn't credible with these voters as a fellow conservative and he has done almost nothing to give them reasons to think otherwise. The lone exception here is McCain's recent emphasis on opening up the Outer Continental Shelf to drilling for oil and natural gas, but even here he blunted the sharpness of his position by continuing to oppose drilling in the Artic National Wildlife Refuge.

This mixed message - is McCain a conservative, a "maverick" or just another Washington politician? - is reflected in surveys like the most recent Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg Poll that found only 58 percent of conservatives are excited about the prospect of voting for the Arizona senator, according to the Times' Doyle McManus:

"McCain suffers from a pronounced 'passion gap,' especially among conservatives who usually give Republican candidates a reliable base of support. Among voters who described themselves as conservative, 58% said they would vote for McCain; 15% said they would vote for Obama, 14% said they would vote for someone else, and 13% said they were undecided. By contrast, 79% of voters who described themselves as liberal said they planned to vote for Obama.

"'I'm a Republican . . . but I don't like some of the things McCain voted for in the Senate, especially immigration,' said poll respondent Mary Dasen, 77, a retired United Way manager in Oscoda, Mich., who said she was undecided. 'There's a big chance I might stay home and not vote.'

"Even among voters who said they planned to vote for McCain, more than half said they were 'not enthusiastic' about their chosen candidate; 45% said they were enthusiastic. By contrast, 81% of Obama voters said they were enthusiastic, and almost half called themselves "very enthusiastic," a level of zeal found in 13% of McCain's supporters.

"'McCain is not capturing the full extent of the conservative base the way President Bush did in 2000 and 2004,' said Times Poll Director Susan Pinkus. 'Among conservatives, evangelicals and voters who identify themselves as part of the religious right, he is polling less than 60%.'"

These numbers strongly suggest that McCain 2008 is very much like Dole 1996. About the only bright note here is that the energy issue clearly offers McCain a way to define himself to conservatives as the guy who will shake up business-as-usal in Washington.

President Bush rates as McCain's second biggest problem for the simple reason that the lame duck chief executive is among the least popular chief executives in memory. Worse, Gallup finds Congress gets the lowest confidence rating ever but then McCain has been in the Senate for decades whereas Obama has only been in the Senate for less than one term. The mud sticks to McCain as if he were the incumbent.

Finally, there is the historic tide against which McCain must struggle. I don't know of any surveys that have yet sought to measure it specifically, but it's clear that a significant part of Obama's support results from a desire to see the country elect a black to its highest office.

If Obama wins in November, it would be a powerful refutation of the notion that America is a racist society and would go a long way towards encouraging racial reconciliation in the country. Those are significant results and are all but impossible for McCain to address in an overt manner without seeming to be blocking the tide of history.

Thus, expect to hear much more in the mainstream media and Democrat surrogates along the theme of Obama's recent prediction that the GOP attack machine would come after him by reminding voters that he is black. It is a masterful way of maximizing white guilt about America's past treatment of blacks that recalls JFK's handling of his Catholicism - vote for me to prove you aren't one of those Baptist bigots.

The recent flurry of 5-4 Supreme Court decisions illustrates better than anything else how important the outcome of the November contest will be to the future course of the country. Even so, it's hard to see how the Republicans could have nominated less likely to bring victory than John McCain.