 John McCain pictured with the Quaker Oats guy. An endorsement that's worth a thousand points of political market share (or not)
Oatmeal is a breakfast food that when you were a kid, you actually craved on occasion, and could even get excited about. Especially the flavored kind in the packets. On a cold morning, it could be just as great to wake up and make yourself a bowl of maple swirl or apples and cinnamon oatmeal as it would be to pour yourself some Captain Crunch. Over time, however, oatmeal stopped being exciting. Now that you're an adult, you eat oatmeal because it's part of a "heart healthy diet." You eat it because your doctor says you need to get your cholesterol down. At no time, however, do you leap out of bed, excited to run down the stairs, put on the kettle, and make yourself a heaping bowl of ... oatmeal. You may eat it ... you may even choose it over a big, pancake and egg breakfast (that damned cholesterol...) but you sure as hell aren't excited about it.
That's the challenge for the McCain campaign. In 2000, he was bacon and eggs -- or rather, that turkey bacon and egg panini sandwich at Starbucks -- smells good, tastes good, and you don't really expect it to come from Starbucks. But now, having traded in his Y2K, maverick positions for George W. Bush's policy cast-offs, he's just your run of the mill bowl of plain oatmeal. (Worse, he's oatmeal seven years into an American diet of not just oatmeal, but oatmeal that we've since discovered has been contaminated with dog poop...)
Call it "losing his branding," or whatever you want. That's what the McCain challenge boils down to -- convincing voters to eat oatmeal for another four years when the Democrats are serving wild blueberry pancakes, a side of scrambled egg whites, and a hot cup of vanilla hazelnut coffee from this brand new neighborhood joint that just opened ... and Shaq's at the opening... you get my drift... Independent voters have to decide whether to grab BK with Shaq and their new Democratic friends, or saunter down to the linoleum floored kitchen and whip up a bowl of Quaker freaking Oats...
Damn.  Or...  On a serious note: In politics, the name of the game is turnout, and turnout on Election Day is in large part a function of passion. Who is going to make you want to stand in line and vote? Who makes you want to give money? Volunteer? Back in 2000, both sides came to the election with equal passion: for Republicans, passion to drive out the last vestiges of the Clinton presidency; and for Republicans, passion to prevent a re-crowning of the economy-killing Bushes. In 2004, the Republicans had the surplus of passion, as evangelicals sought to make Bush make good on his promises to turn the judiciary into God's Own Earthly Hand. (They were duped ... you do know that now, right..?)
This year, the passion is all D. Even if lots of GOP and even some Independent voters feel more comfortable with McCain than with the alternative, will Mac be able to generate the passion, either for himself, or against Obama, to fill those long, long lines with his voters in November? Signs point to "no," though it's very early, and the GOP slime machine hasn't kicked into full gear yet...
At the end of the day, the problem McCain will have in matching what will almost certainly be record Democratic turnout, and record Independent identification with Democrats, will be giving his side something to get passionate enough to turn out for. Oatmeal is good for many things, but generating excitement sure as hell ain't one of them. Related: Historians compare McCain to a different breakfast food: toast. | Labels: 2008 election, George W. McCain, John McCain, John McCain is wicked old, presidential candidates |
