Calls To North Carolina Give Insight Into Swing Voters

Over the past weekend, instead of heading over to the massive, completely unreported protest that awaited Sarah Palin's visit to Carson, California -- where footage of the event depicted a humdrum crowd that appeared to be less of an audience for a political darling and more of a Saturday afternoon gathering for a 3 Dog Night reunion concert -- I decided to do some battleground calling. As a native Tennesseean, I was interested to see what the climate was in North Carolina - especially among Independents and more conservative Democrats who could rightly be seen as potential McCain voters. Out of the contacts made, thirty-five percent ran in strong support of Obama, thirty-five percent were going to vote for Obama but weren't crazy for him, twenty percent were voting McCain unenthusiastically, and ten percent were anti-Obama but couldn't bring themselves to vote for McCain and were planning to sit the election out. Over the past four presidential elections when I did phone banking to Independents and Decline to States on behalf of the Democratic candidate, I've never heard Independents express such fierce distaste for the Republican ticket.

One of the first conversations that I struck up happened to be with a former Army chaplain and Edwards supporter who had been impressed by a visit by Obama to wounded Iraq veterans. He told me that military families feel desperately betrayed by Bush and McCain. He personally was sad that McCain and Palin had politicized the Iraq War. We discussed the fact that Republicans are actively trying to disenfranchise the military vote by not allowing hospitalized soldiers to register in V.A. facilities. He agreed with me that hell has a special place for anyone who tries to steal a vote, particularly when our soldiers are dying and fighting for our freedom to choose our leaders. But most of all, he wasn't going to vote for McCain because, and I quote, "He's gone crazy."

Besides those who worried that McCain was still trying to re-fight the Vietnam War, the second reason I was given by a woman and animal lover for not voting for McCain was, "Sarah Palin and the wolf slaughter." She said that she couldn't bring herself to vote for Obama, because he would be a "globalist," but the Palin pick for her made her trust McCain less. She was planning on not voting.

The third reason that many gave for the anti-McCain sway was his age. One Boone resident said, "He's acting like a horny old man all revved up on Viagra. Looks like he wants to start humping his running mate."

The fourth and often given commentary was his own and his campaign's sheer incompetence. In contrast, even the less than enthusiastic Obama supporters had to acknowledge that his campaign has been run meticulously. As for who would be best for creating new jobs, energy independence, stabilizing the economy and quieting international tensions, Obama-Biden were clearly favored.

The fifth and most important reason that North Carolina may give the thumbs down to John McCain has to do with the anger he has just this past weekend started to frame in a less mocking way but with a new sense of made up indignation.

Why is he so angry? That's a question that I was left to analyze on my own. As an author and often ghostwriter or collaborator on famous people's memoirs, my job is frequently to figure out the narrative throughline of someone else's inner life. My challenge, especially with high powered, success-driven people is not to look at what makes them successful, but rather what their weaknesses are, what fears they have, and how they overcome those weaknesses. Or not. And here's what I've concluded about John McCain - his greatest, most secret terrifying fear and weakness is that deep down he feels weak and impotent. Yes, his essential weakness is his greatest weakness, and he knows it. His every action - both when the good McCain comes to the fore and when the crazy, destructive McCain is in charge - is to throw others off from discovering his ugly truth. As his past has proven, he can lie to himself and others that he alone is the boldest, bravest and toughest, exactly what he does every time he shifts into anger-mode, touting his own "maverick" unpredictability with stunts that backfire twice as often as they succeed.

I didn't make this up. Not long after McCain locked up his party's nomination, I was in Texas and spoke with high powered Republicans in deep red Bush country and was surprised that they had no illusions about their candidate's ability to redeem the failing brand of their party. When I said that as a Democrat I was disappointed about how McCain had criticized his own party but then voted right along with them, to my shock those Republicans and oil people agreed. Most, at that time, believed that Obama could easily win. They seemed resigned to it, as if they longed for the good old days of having a Democrat in the White House to blame.

John McCain's mad at them, at the Georgetown cocktail party conservatives and his old buds, the MSM, who used to be his cheering squad. And there's also a more specific narrative that takes in the events of the last eight years now fueling McCain's fury. Everybody knows, John McCain got punked by George W. Bush and Karl Rove in that 2000 election. It wasn't just the South Carolina whispering campaign about his "black baby" that McCain himself rightfully said he was owed an apology over. It was the fact that he had to then be humiliated into publicly supporting the guy who beat him up. That's just obscenely weak. He is still angry over how this spoiled frat boy who never served a day in action, much less had never suffered the horrors of being a POW, got to ride into office on charm and family connections. And now he is being shown to the world again as weak - being bested by Obama, in his mind another charmer with great P.R.. So it's deja vu all over again as his claim on the White House that was promised to him -- his rightful destiny -- slips from his fingers and is given to someone who hasn't earned it. All of sudden, he needs a girl to rescue him, someone whose extreme views he once derided?

To make it all more maddening for him -- and scary for all of us -- there is yet another story here. It's reminiscent of how W was out to both show up the father who had once shamed him as not good enough, while redeeming his Daddy's failure to win a second term and to finish the job of undoing Sadaam Hussein. This is where McCain's deepest shame comes into play. Early in W's tenure, he did sound warning words of criticism, but every time he trotted over to the White House, one could almost imagine the dressing down he received -- and took. And somewhere along the way, you could imagine that Karl Rove got out his little black book to remind McCain of all the dirt he'd been keeping on him - cause that's how they roll - and he made a deal with Johnny boy. He said now here's what's going to happen -- something to the effect of 'you just say whatever you want to say but if you want to be the President to succeed us, you play ball our way and carry our water. When it's time, we'll give you Ws base who've never liked you, and we'll raise money for you, and we might even pull some international strings, get the terror going again, maybe stage an international Grenada kind of coup for you, say over there in Georgia, you can get the details on Wikipedia, and guess what, you can be Ronald Reagan and take on our great enemy, Russia. It will be Cold War time and you can claim credit for the Surge and winning in Iraq. And here's what else, if you do just what we say, you'll have me and my gang to run your campaign for you.." That was the deal with the Devil that McCain made. To use the cliche, he drank the Kool-Aid, sold his soul and his principles. Why is he so mad? Because even after making his Faustian bargain, it isn't working. And maybe, just maybe, it was never supposed to. That's George W. Bush's revenge against JOhn MCCain. W may be going down in flames and he may be keeping a politically appropriate distance from the McCain-Palin ticket, but mark my words -- John McCain's about to get punked again and it will be an inside job. And he knows it. Yeah, I'd be angry too.