The McCain Brand

John Heilemann’s article on how John McCain tarnished his brand and has managed to see his stock plummet among his ex-fans in the press corps is worth a read. That said, he seems to be underplaying structural factors. If you’re a center-left pundit who usually pulls the lever for Democrats but also hates and loathes the dread liberal “base” (a common condition) then as long as the relevant comparison class is between McCain and other Republicans (Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, George W. Bush) he can look pretty good. And you might admire McCain’s clashes with his base and say that you wish more Democrats would pick similar fights. But once the comparison becomes between McCain and a Democrat that you’re still the kind of person who usually pulls the lever for Democrats and suddenly McCain doesn’t look so good. Then for a “straight” reporter, once you see that the McCain Fan Club in the center-left punditocracy is losing all its members, then it becomes a bit less acceptable to be as in-the-tank for McCain as the press has often been. None of this, though, is really due to anything McCain did.

Meanwhile, it’s hard not to be suspicious of any convenient moralism which holds that adopting lowbrow campaign tactics has actually been a mistake for McCain. I think you can make a credible argument that the reverse is true. The so-called “fundamentals” in this race have always favored Obama and everyone’s always known that. But most people have long had some doubts as to how much traditional analysis would apply in a race featuring a black candidate. I think there’s a strong argument to make that the smart play for McCain would have been to try to inject much more racial controversy into the election, much sooner.