(c) 2008 Knobloch.
With the Republican convention now comes some insight into the inner workings of the McCain strategy. From an all-but-over campaign just 18 months ago, the careful and quiet strategy of John McCain can hardly be kept too secret for too long.
The path to win is now so clearly simple, as so skillfully expressed in the speaches of Palin and McCain. In those speaches, they wooed five states in particular: Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio, Michigan, and Minnesota. I imagine that stonewall Regan Republicans, like Congressman Steve Stockman, could immediately see where the game was now going. You see, regardless of positions on abortion, foreign policy, community service, and even illegal immigration -- these five states hold the electoral college key. Without these states, no one can win this year's Presidential Election.
Just as the adept John McCain picked a VP candidate practically worthy of going head-to-head alone against Obama, he also picked the three issues that control the voters of these five key states. And those issues are all tied together. What are those issues? They are the life blood of the economic United States -- the dollars of fuel that enables us to have luxuries like advanced medicine, internet, and social programs. They are: coal, steel, and automobiles.
Like Congressman Stockman, folks who grew up in the Great Lakes have this special realization burned into their sub-consciousness. Iron Ore still comes from Minnesota. Coal still comes from Pennslyvania and West Virginia. Steel is still made in Ohio, Pennsylvania. Ohio and Michigan make the automobiles out of steel. The Great Lakes provides the unique low-cost transportation to tie them all together to make this great "economic perfect-storm" possible.
The candidate who can serve and win the trust of these people, and their powerful economic interests, will win their states and win the electoral college. Social pandering to left-coast liberals and career welfare recipients of inner-city Chicago are what puts the Great Lakes into this Kingmaker position. Only coal-steel-and-automobiles have enough electoral votes to cancel out the combined force of $5 coffee sipping folks who make their living off of fantasy and virtual programming and the millions of folks whose living is derived from government social programs.
For that, McCain needed to relate to the part of America who generates the real wealth in this country. McCain needed to prove this through a moose-hunting, grandma VP who is married to a steel-worker union husband.
So, the McCain secret is now out. Sure, this election has to do with foreign policy, right-to-life, oil, and even immigration. But, when folks are losing their jobs and the nation is starving, it still boils down to coal, steel, and automobiles. Any fool Michigander knows that.
(c) 2008 Knobloch. All rights reserved. Contact for publication permission.
Posts
