As the McCain camp continues to crank out ads featuring pseudo-endorsements by Hillary Clinton, the campaign could potentially be risking the vote of the Republican base.
A recent ad features a former Clinton delegate, Debra Bartoshevich, throwing her support behind John McCain and assuring other Democrats that it is OK to vote Republican. What should a core Republican make of this push to attract former Hillary backers?
The name Hillary Clinton does not exactly elicit feelings of affection amongst GOP voters. The primary contenders for the Republican nomination even quibbled with each other over who would be the better candidate to go up against the New York senator should she have received the nomination.
Now the party-faithful are expected to wait in line while McCain courts the voters of the very candidate he positioned himself against in the primaries. If McCain is now positioning himself to disgruntled Democrats as an acceptable alternative to Hillary Clinton, what kind of message is that sending to the Republican base?
Many conservatives have not fully embraced the idea of a McCain presidency, and it has been noted that the evangelical vote is still largely up for grabs too, which becomes all the more important as Obama continues to integrate faith as a central part of his campaign. McCain gunning for Clinton voters before locking up the base seems like a dangerous roll of the dice.
Maybe the campaign is counting on the base to realize these ads are just a push to sow seeds of discord amongst Democrats while picking up enough votes to put McCain over the top. Or maybe they are hoping to create enough Obamaphobia to scare people into voting booths Nov. 4.
Still, voters do not like being taken for granted, and McCain seems to be wielding a double-edged sword. A CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll released Sunday shows 27 percent of Clinton supporters backing McCain. With 18 million voters having turned out in the primaries for Clinton, McCain could pick up as many as 5 million additional votes, enough to potentially swing a few crucial states.
That is what the campaign seems to be betting on, at least, but the question raised is how many conservative votes do they stand to lose by going this route? Enough people may end up staying home to throw some states back toward Obama.
McCain has no easy task before him, trying to distance himself enough from President Bush to attract the middle while still appealing to Bush voters.
With McCain set to announce his running mate today, it is likely that his pick will help shore up some of the base if he goes for someone such as Mitt Romney, but he risks further compounding his dilemma if he opts for someone such as Joe Lieberman.
For now, it is an interesting dance to watch, and only helps to reinforce McCain's status as a "maverick" candidate. Whether or not that style can appeal to a broad enough segment of the population to claim a victory remains to be seen.
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