Crane: I'm getting worried. I know you told me not to worry, but I really can't help it.
Schmidt: What worries you?
Crane: I just think we had a lucky coupla months. I worry what's going to happen when people who don't look like our candidate...you know... younger people... start to pay attention.
Schmidt: We've righted the ship. We've closed the gap. We've succeeded in making this race about Obama. We've browbeat the press into a bit of submission. We're so good, in fact, that our advance guys are driving people nuts by insisting on their own backgrounds and even their own stage catwalks. It's all good now.
Crane: And we're still behind.
Schmidt: We're within the margin of error.
Crane: Obama has had an awful month, and we're still not able to beat him. Maybe Americans need to learn more about John McCain?
Schmidt: Americans know John McCain. He's been a national political figure for years.
Crane: No, they know Barack Obama. He's been in the headlines for 16 months. They know his basic story. Look, we've been lucky that the Obama campaign has been too nice to us. Lucky that they haven't really started to pound on our guy's character. They haven't turned him into a Republican yet.
Schmidt: They've tried to do that, and it hasn't worked. Americans get that the next president is going to be a change agent regardless of who it is. They know John McCain enough to know that it's absurd to equate him with George W. Bush (even though, on economic policy, I gotta admit.. I'm kind of surprised that we haven't been able to figure out a way to finesse this... ) ... let the Obama campaign try and make this race about John McCain and George Bush. Americans know better. The charge isn't credible. It won't stick.
Crane: They haven't put millions of dollars behind the charge yet. That's why it hasn't worked. If Americans learn what type of ties McCain wore... how many houses he owns...
Schmidt: You're talking like a liberal Democrat. Let's look at the fundamentals again. A few months ago, we had no field program. We had a joke of a field structure. Now, we have the party's best field guy, Mike DuHaime, working 24/7. He's definitely got us up to speed, if not with Obama then with the basics: precinct captains, microtargeting, metrics-based field reporting.
Crane: We're doing better. But the fundamentals I'm looking at aren't good. Item: Obama's voters are much stickier and much more enthusiastic than McCain's.
Schmidt: counter-item, Crane: McCain's getting more Republicans than Obama's getting Democrats.
Crane: That's a common pattern. And the point is that McCain could lose Republicans more easily than Obama could lose Democrats. Item number two: all the polls suggest that McCain is doing a little better among weakly partisan Republicans. Fine. They were going to vote for him anyway. But he is not increasing his share among independents, and he is not gaining votes from the type of voters he needs. He's basically doing the old Base Two-Step: Bringing your folks around and suppressing, temporarily, what Obama's able to take from the middle. This strategy can only take them so far.
Schmidt: After the conventions, McCain will shift gears a bit. Look, he HAD to make this race about Obama. He HAD to stop Obama's momentum. He's done that. Now, he can move on.
Crane: So you're saying he's going to rediscover his inner maverick? Maybe... make a pro-choice pick?
Schmidt: Ask Mike Allen. But in general, this summer has been about raising doubts about Obama, and it's worked.
Crane: I don't agree. Ron Brownstein's latest Atlantic piece raises a good question...actually, John Weave...
Schmidt: HE WHO MUST NOT BE NAMED.
Crane: Whatever. He who must not be named wondered what type of presidency a Democratic Congress could expect from McCain if McCain wins the election by trashing Obama.
Schmidt: McCain hasn't alienated independents yet. The polls show that.
Crane: Maybe they're not paying attention. What is McCain's rationale going to be after the convention? Ok, so Obama is defined. But what's McCain going to do? How's he going to fix things? His tax cut plan is a total joke. Democrats are never going to agree to it, and they're going to HAVE to agree to everything McCain wants to do.
Schmidt: Look, Obama is the challenger here. That's a very important advance. We're running ads now casting McCain as the "true maverick," saying he'd take on big oil and the rest. We're moving to a better-defined position.
Crane: McCain is kind of the incumbent here. He's basing his campaign on trashing the change agent challenger. That didn't work for Jimmy Carter in 1980. It didn't work for George H.W. Bush in 1988. It didn't work for frikkin Mario Cuomo against George Pataki in 1994.
Schmidt: It worked for George W. Bush in 2004
Crane: And 2008 is so different. Remember at the Republican in 2004, when speaker after speaker was so proud of the fact that Bush was going it alone in the world... they reveled at
Schmidt: The way to win an election hasn't changed
Crane: Well, Mark Halperin didn't even mention Obama in his...
Schmidt: Never mind that. The way to win an election hasn't changed. They're about contrasts. They're about dividing your opponent's base. They're about a mix of the dark arts and the light arts. And they're not for lilly-livered wimps. One of the best things that we've been able to do is to convince McCain that he can be a maverick without acting like a referee. McCain has changed a lot. He used to hate the idea of the Secret Service. Now he doesn't seem to mind those staged rope-line encounters at all. He used to love mixing it up with the press. Now, he has contempt for his press corps. He's beginning to act like a guy who knows wha the has to do to win.
Crane: I...
Schmidt: You know, at the beginning of this campaign, a lot of Republicans wondered whether McCain would have the stomach to fight a political fight. He's proven them wrong.
| 
