Mr. Invisible

By BJ

John Cole noted yesterday that the most invisible person this election cycle so far seems to have been John McCain:

For all Hillary�s talk about invisible voters, it really seems like there is one person who is actually invisible this election cycle- John McCain. I have had the news on since 7 am, and I honestly do not think I have heard his name so much as mentioned. it is as if the race in the fall is a fight between Obama and Clinton. Still.

And when he is mentioned in the press, it is not flattering. Either it is his flip-flopping on wiretapping, concerns about his inability to be competitive with Obama in fund-raising, or stories like this about his disastrous speech:

As one of the commenters noted, "As a political strategy for McCain, invisible is good", and it would appear as though Matt Stearns at McClathchy agrees:

But the intense media focus on Obama and Clinton may have worked to McCain's advantage, Ornstein said.

"He had the great luxury of not only time, but of flying below the radar, so he could send discordant, contradictory messages and not have them immediately thrown back in his face," Ornstein said.

That meant that some missteps may not have mattered much outside Washington's chattering class and some ever-angry bloggers.

For example, McCain's first speech on the housing crisis, in which he said that the federal government had little role to play, was such a dud that he essentially offered a do-over a few weeks later, calling for more federal action.

In Iraq, McCain repeatedly said that Shiite-led Iran was training Sunni al Qaida; a traveling friend, Sen. Joseph Lieberman, an independent Democrat from Connecticut, had to whisper a correction in McCain's ear. That undercut McCain's claim to superior international experience.

The campaign was beset for days over a controversy about lobbyists advising it. That narrative was especially dangerous for McCain, given his efforts to present himself as a reformer. Infuriating the McCain camp, media coverage all but ignored the fact that Obama also benefits from the advice of corporate lobbyists.

McCain also was forced to renounce endorsements from two prominent evangelical pastors, John Hagee and Rod Parsley, whose inflammatory comments on Islam and other issues proved offensive.

Then, in a week when McCain had hoped to focus on the environment and his distinction from Bush on that increasingly popular issue, he felt forced instead to embrace Bush when the president gave a speech in Israel that implicitly compared Obama to Neville Chamberlain, the British prime minister who declared "peace in our time" after he met with Adolf Hitler.

That last example is a telling one because it was the first hint of what an united front for the Democrats could do. The appeasement angle has been the go-to weapon for the Republicans since 9/11 to shoot down Democratic candidates. This time, Obama fired back, and the rest of the party, including Hillary, lined up with him in pushing back. The result was a Democratic victory on the foreign policy debate, something I think we'll see more of in more policy areas as the debate turns to a one-on-one between Obama and McCain.

Of course, how long it will take for the media to get over the Clinton-Obama speculations, including; How sincere will Hillary's endorsement be? How what will Obama have to do to get those Clinton supporters vowing to vote McCain? Does Hillary want the VP slot and will Obama give it to her? Will that satisfy Hillary's supporters? And so on, and so on.

In the meantime, the GOP and its supporters will be pumping out massive piles of excrement to throw at the Obamas, which McCain will eventually get around to condemning parts of so he can maintain the illusion of being a fair and clean campaigner.

It should be interesting to see if McCain can keep from tripping himself up with the spotlight finally starting to shift towards him, but it will be a long five months, regardless.