SIEFF: McCain’s Michigan pullout latest bad tactical move

ANALYSIS/OPINION:

What profiteth Sen. John McCain if his running mate wins her debate but he gives up on Michigan?

The McCain campaign’s decision to give up the fight in Michigan is one of the stupidest tactical decisions made in this presidential race. Only Al Gore’s refusal to let President Bill Clinton campaign for him in key states eight years ago even approaches it.

If Mr. McCain loses, it is likely to rank alongside his failure in the first presidential debate as one of the two turning points in the campaign.

For Mr. McCain must have Michigan. With 17 Electoral College votes, it is one of the key prizes in the Midwest, and its influence extends into its neighboring states, too.

To win, Mr. McCain, the Republican presidential nominee, must hold on to Florida and Ohio - two states where he was looking strong until his meltdown over the past few weeks and where he now is struggling to run neck-and-neck.

For Sen. Barack Obama to win, the Democratic presidential nominee must take Pennsylvania and Michigan. If Mr. McCain can win either Michigan or Pennsylvania, he wins the presidency. It’s as simple as that.

Pennsylvania has voted Democratic in every presidential election for the past 20 years. Mr. Obama was dangerously weak there until the recent turnaround in his fortunes. Now he looks close to having a lock on the place. And Mr. McCain has just handed him Michigan on a platter.

There is the strong hint of panic and meltdown about the McCain camp’s public ceding of Michigan. The McCain campaign in the state was not consulted about it in advance - an absurd decision that, from his Navy background alone, Mr. McCain never should have countenanced. The staff work involved was obviously superficial, hasty and emotion-driven.

All of Mr. McCain’s wounds are self-inflicted.

His debate-preparation team and strategy over the past few weeks have proved disastrous. He still hasn’t begun to put together an economic message or package that matches the gravity of the situation. The stunt of flying back to Washington to help the bailout measure go through Congress wasn’t backed by any substantive and credible policy changes.

Mr. Obama is equally complacent and feckless on the economic crisis. But his party hasn’t been running the federal government for the past eight years, and it wasn’t responsible for the policies that led to the financial catastrophe.

Also, Mr. McCain and his inner circle completely blew it in their handling of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. They let themselves get spooked by the relentless attacks and ridicule she received from the mainstream media and offered her up as a sacrificial lamb to hostile liberal cross-examiners like Charles Gibson and Katie Couric.

The McCain team should have ignored the inherently hostile liberal television news networks and simply had Mrs. Palin deliver one knockout speech after another, emphasizing her blue-collar, working-mom appeal in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Florida and Ohio.

They had the perfect wordsmith in Matthew Scully, the conservative speechwriter who helped her craft her great speech to the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minn., that wowed 40 million viewers. Instead, they bought into the Beltway insiders’ conventional wisdom and tried to turn Mrs. Palin into as useless a mediocrity as they were themselves.

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