A serious question that is brought about by a number of articles I have come across today, some of which declare in their headline that John McCain is "The Luckiest Man Alive".
Today I see a number of articles that question the regularity and predictability of how presidential elections traditionally play themselves out.
In what the Baltimoresun.com article, which touts the headline shown above in the introduction portion of this article, calls the "bedrock" (rule of thumb), during times of economic distress the voters punish the party in the White House.
Yet John McCain is showing signs of rising in the minds of the public, in spite of, not because of the fact that he is a Republican.
A senior McCain strategist, Mark Salter, believes much of John McCain's appeal is the battle that the Democratic contenders, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, are waging and another Republican strategist, Scott Reed, calls John McCain the luckiest man alive.
Even Democratic supporters have indicated that they'll support McCain if their candidate doesn't win the nomination. A couple of prominent pollsters have all gotten that result in their polling process. (Gallup here and Franklin and Marshall here.)
The top strategist for Hillary Clinton, Mark Penn, has even stated that John McCain is "well-positioned" to bring Hispanic voters, the newest and fastest-growing sector of the electorate, back into the Republican fold.
The Baltimoresun.com piece also reports that according to the latest Pew Research poll, McCain now leads in those independent votes by six points.
Other Democratic strategists have noted that McCain's patriotic image and war-hero status could appeal to the white, socially conservative working-class voters, once known as Reagan Democrats, who are expected to be a pivotal group again this November.
His assets as a candidate also reflect the weaknesses of his Democratic rivals.
One of Obama's greatest liabilities, his lack of experience, plays directly into McCain's qualifications. His 48 years of public service are divided almost evenly between careers in the military and as a legislator in Washington.
Then we get to the issue of truthfulness and credibility.
Using North Carolina as an example because it was the most recently polled state in regards to credibility we see reports from the Charlotte Observer that quotes a self proclaimed Democrat, Robert Brown, 46, an online trader from Chapel Hill, saying, (about McCain) "(It's) his whole background. He was a prisoner of war. He's an upfront, straight-talking man."
That Observer/WCNC Poll the report speaks of shows that John McCain, gets higher marks for trustworthiness than either Barack Obama or Hilary Clinton.
And N.C. voters gave Arizona Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, higher marks than either Democrat on both counts, as well as on his credentials to keep the country safe, according to a new Observer/WCNC Poll.
That poll found that trust would be the top consideration for most voters. Nearly nine in 10 said it would play a big role in determining their vote.
That report points out Clinton's recent publicly exposed lies about Bosnia, where she was caught in a major lie, on film no less.
That poll, nor the article takes into account the most recent publicly exposed "misstatement" by Hillary Clinton where she has been using a story in her stump speeches about a health care horror: an uninsured pregnant woman who lost her baby and died herself after being denied care by an Ohio hospital because she could not come up with a $100 fee.
The problem with that heart wrenching story Clinton has repeated time after time, is that it wasn't true, as the New York Times points out in an article published yesterday.
The woman, Trina Bachtel, did die last August, two weeks after her baby boy was stillborn at O’Bleness Memorial Hospital in Athens, Ohio. But hospital administrators said Friday that Ms. Bachtel was under the care of an obstetrics practice affiliated with the hospital, that she was never refused treatment and that she was, in fact, insured.
“We implore the Clinton campaign to immediately desist from repeating this story,” said Rick Castrop, chief executive officer of the O’Bleness Health System.
After that article was published, news came in today that the Clinton campaign says they will desist from telling that story anymore and admit that they never bothered to vet (verify) the story before she started to use it.
Clinton spokesman Mo Elleithee said, “She had no reason to doubt his word”. He said,” Candidates are told stories by people all the time, and it’s common for candidates to retell those stories. It’s not always possible to fully vet them, but we try. For example, medical records are confidential. In this case, we tried but weren’t able to fully vet the story.”
Elleithee added, “If the hospital claims it didn’t happen that way, we certainly respect that and she won’t repeat the story.”
These publicly exposed "misstatements" can and is being attributed as a portion of the reason Clinton is not trusted as much as McCain.
As of late, Barack Obama has also been caught in his share of "misstatements", starting with Tony Rezko, who is currently facing federal charges of attempted extortion, money laundering, and fraud, and Obama claiming he wasn't a close associate, which later was proven to be a lie very publicly, Obama also did not come completely clean about the amount of money he received from Tony Rezko... again, proven to be a lie because it was far more than what Obama publicly admitted to. Then Obama admitted to having poor judgment regarding Rezko.
Then there was the NAFTA ordeal, where Obama made a public statement during a Democratic debate with Clinton and it was later discovered his advisers asked Canada to not pay attention to those statements because they were just political posturing.
That was followed up by Obama denying he had heard his pastor, Jeremiah Wright making highly controversial racial and anti-American statements, then four days later he gave a speech where he admitted to having heard some controversial statements.
Publicly exposed lies hurt any candidates credibility and many prefer someone to tell the truth, even if they disagree 100 percent with that position, than being lied to just to receive a vote.
There is no doubt that part of John McCain's "luck" is stemming from the very heated public battle between the Democratic candidates, nor that he, in large part, is benefiting from the exposure of both Democratic candidates and the media's intense scrutiny on their words and stump speeches.
Many people asked, when McCain became the presumptive nominee for the Republican party, if the intense battle between the Democratic candidates would edge John McCain out of the news and therefore hurt his chances of being seen in the public eye.
In a way, that is exactly what has happened, but the nature of that intense media scrutiny on the Democratic contenders, has brought about such negative attention for both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, that John McCain, by default, has benefited from almost every one of those news articles.
Are the recent headlines correct? Is John McCain the luckiest man alive, politically speaking of course?
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