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Ellen Belcher is the Dayton Daily News opinion pages editor. She writes about state government, education, the environment, higher education and all things Dayton.
Martin Gottlieb is an editorial writer and columnist for the Dayton Daily News opinion pages. He focuses on the political process itself and does such national issues as war, the economy, taxes and Social Security, as well as a hodge-podge of local and state issues.Home > Blogs > A Matter of Opinion > Archives > 2008 > July > 01 > Entry
Terrorists no threat to Obama
On the Dayton Daily News opinion pages of Wednesday, July 1 (available at http://www.daytondailynews.com/o/content/oh/story/opinions/editorial/2008/07 /01/ddn070208dyer.html), Gwynne Dyer proclaims that it is perfectly obvious that a terrorist attack during the presidential campaign would help John McCain.
He is wrong. A terrorist attack would just be more bad news for the country. Bad news hurts the incumbent party. It would hurt McCain.
The Republican Party cites as one of its main accomplishments since 9/11 the very fact that there have been no terrorists attacks in this country since. That’s one of the very few good things they can point to about their watch. If it disappears, they’ve got a problem, and the Democrats have an opportunity.
The same “obvious” conventional wisdom that holds that McCain would benefit from an attack holds that Obama benefits from the fact that most people see things as going the wrong way for the country. That number could only increase in the event of an attack.
The notion that McCain would be better able to deal with an attack would run smack into the fact that his way of dealing with 9/11 was to send this country into Iraq, something the public in general now tends to see as a mistake. This fact would be widely pointed out.
The campaign would not stop just because of an attack. True, when 9/11 happened, everybody wanted to rally together. But there was no presidential campaign going on. This year, the people would have a decision to make, and they would focus, perhaps as never before. The Democrats’ points would get plenty of attention. So would the Republican points, of course. My point in mentioning the Democrats’ here is only that they would not forced into silence. What would matter, in the end — when all is said and done and heard — would be the big picture: the electorate is not satisfied with the direction of things on the Republican watch.
Some people see the nation’s rallying around George W. Bush after 9/11 (and, for that matter, around George H.W. Bush after the first war with Iraq) as a public preference for tough guys during war, or for the incumbent president (maybe even the incumbent president’s party).
No. In those situations, when voters tell pollsters they support the president, they as opposed to foreign leaders. When the opposition is the opposition party, the whole dynamic changes. Like it or not, the voters will have to make a decision. If they don’t like what’s going on, you don’t want to be the incumbent party.
Permalink | Comments (8) | Post your comment | Categories: National politics, Syndicated Columns
Comments
By Mike
July 2, 2008 11:30 AM | Link to this
I think Gwynne Dyer’s logic is flawed. He is spouting the conventional wisdom of pundits and the hopeful wish of some Republicans that says it is a fait accompli that “a terrorist attack would obviously drive millions of American voters back into the arms of Mr. Security, because a great many people assume that ex-fighter pilots are just better than first-term senators at dealing with that sort of thing.” I just don’t think the evidence bears this out as being a certain outcome. This certainly might have been true before the Republicans flogged to death the terrorist fear meme in the run-up to the 2004 election. But when they tried it again in 2006 it fell flat. Americans are extremely worried about the prospect of John McCain just being a perpetuation of the Bush policies, which have wrought such havoc on the country. And this includes, primarily, the policies which have helped tear apart Iraq, thrown the Middle East into added turmoil and provided a fertile breeding ground for hatred of all things American. Dyer makes another misleading statement when he characterizes Obama’s desired for a carefully phased withdrawal from Iraq as an “early withdrawal from the Middle East”. This is a sneakingly deceptive conflation of two totally different scenarios in order to imply it as a surrender to “the terrorists”, leading to a situation where terrorists “could reasonably hope to overthrow one or two regimes in the region and come to power themselves.” They must sell some mighty powerful crystal balls over there in London because Dyer gives absolutely no rationale or, heaven forbid, actual facts, for why he believes this to be true. Again, it is just a pundit’s “conventional wisdom” at work. But in all his scratching around on this subject he does manage to make a somewhat truthful statement at the end of the piece….. “If they would rather keep the U.S. mired in the region for longer, inflicting casualties on American troops and building up their own prestige with radical youth in the area, in the expectation of greater political gains later on, then they would back McCain.” Now, finally, there is the one thing on which Dyer and I agree. With McCain, the terrorists would most certainly get that wish granted.By TRS
July 3, 2008 5:15 PM | Link to this
These are strange times. I don’t know if the conventional wisdom of the incumbant party would be right or Dwyer. While, according to Mike, Americans are worried about Senator McCain, the same can be said for Senator Obama. If there were such great concern about Senator McCain why would the polls be so close? I think Americans are up in the air on both. Another attack could remind folks that terrorism is real and the stuff Democrats have called fear mongering, was indeed warning about a reality. They may look back at the history of the Democratic predecessor, the Clinton Administration, see its inaction and indecision in regards to responding to terrorism to the USS Cole, Somalia, Kobar Towers and letting Bin Ladin out of their sights and wonder how Senator Obama would differ just as people wonder how Senator McCain would differ from President Bush. Both have to convince the public they would react differently than their predecessors. One does have to admit the resume of Senator McCain certainly is more substantive on the security issue and Senator Obama. I disagree with the “mired down” because at the end of the day, there won’t be a dime’s worth of difference between McCain’s drawdown of troops and Obama’s. Iraq actually is heading in the right direction, amazingly none of the news media picked up on the 15-18 benchmarks of political progress being satisfactory and the military progress is well documented. If things continue Iraq will be ready for both Obama or McCain to draw down the troops and both will consider the recommendations of the military on site. Perhaps the pace may differ by a few months but the result will be similar. I see already the wording of “carefully phased drawdown” coming from Obama’s supporters, much different than we’re gone in 16 months regardless. Even Senator Obama says there will be a residual force left in Iraq as does Senator McCain. When January comes and assuming things in Iraq continue to improve, should Senator Obama win, neither he nor the Democrats will want to be tagged with the responsibility of taking action which throws away the progress of the Iraqis and our fine troops. Certainly some think President Bush overacted and took a wrong headed approach in Iraq. This will be decided by the historians, certainly not pundits and partisans of the day. Whatever the case, I certainly hope either man is up for the task because it will be a difficult one.By Rauol
July 7, 2008 6:54 PM | Link to this
To suggest that terrorists would prefer McCain over Obama because of a greater opportunity to keep US troops mired, while building up prestige for recruitment purposes is absurd. McCain, like Bush and other Republicans, want to actually win the war by killing as many terrorists as possible, unlike virtually all the Democrats who just want terrorism to go away. Obama is ill qualified to handle any foreign affairs, and will certainly bungle his way through. McCain may not be much better, but he will have one characteristice that will be very hard to downplay; that is, he will want to win. It would be nice if more Americans, and those around the world who don’t like terrorists, could say the word “WIN”. Winning this war is the objective, and all the parisanship and hand-wringing will not change that.By Heckofaman
July 11, 2008 6:38 PM | Link to this
Clearly any attack, terrorist or otherwise, on the US would help McCain just like 9/11 helped Bush in 2004. Most Americans don’t trust the Dems to handle any serious threat, because they make such a fuss about any use of military force…ie they’re doves and prood of it. McCain is clearly a hawk, but also understands the horrors of was first hand…an ideal President in these times.By dave
July 16, 2008 1:24 PM | Link to this
The thought of Bush being responsible for no more attacks on American soil is completely crazy. The terrorist element is the one to thank or blame. We have been led to beleive America is much safer today than we were prior to the 9/11 attacks in New York and D.C. How many people are sneaking into our country through the Mexican/American border everyday? We can’t stop the infiltration of poor hungry Mexicans from coming in, what makes us beleive we are stopping terrorist networks that have millions of dollars at their disposal from gaining illegal access to our country?By Chuck
July 25, 2008 8:01 AM | Link to this
Can’t stand the truth huh?By Rick
August 22, 2008 9:02 PM | Link to this
I am not sure what truth you are referring- if you mean that we are safer now than we were before we attacked another country on false premises and gave every lunatic on the planet a reason to hate us- I don’t see how.By Randy Jones
September 3, 2008 1:42 PM | Link to this
To think that any U.S.political party will not defend this country if attacked is ludicrous. The only pacifist group in our history were the Quakers and the Indians must have eliminated them. The use of our military in foreign incursions since World War II has been dominated by Democrats not Republicans (read Bacevich: The New American Militarism). Neoconservatives and the Military Industrial complex Lincoln and Eisenhower warned against seem to have captured the Republican party. They have promoted an uncharacteristic fear in the American public. In previous elections they even raised and lowered terrorist warning levels depending on the polls. To loosely quote Heinrich Himmler and Karl Rove “repeat a lie often enough and the people will believe it”. It’s happening again in this election cycle. Now our security is dependent on drilling for more oil at home? T. Boone Pickens, a bigger oilman than the Bush family together, recommends converting to our natural gas reserves to eliminate Arabian supply and make for a cleaner environment. Isn’t it strange that the Iranians have started the conversion process and we haven’t?