McCain Attempts to Stay on Message, Block Out Campaign Distractions

John McCain, a week after handing day-to-day campaign operations to a key adviser, is making a fresh attempt to stick to the script.

The presumptive Republican presidential nominee embarked this week on a tour stressing “Jobs for America,” and so far he has taken every chance to hammer home that theme and block out distractions.

McCain struggled to focus earlier in the season — but the renewed emphasis on message discipline is seen as a way to guide the campaign storyline, and prevent the news of the day from interfering with his intended talking points.

Though he strayed Wednesday to address reports about an Iranian missile test and a vote by Barack Obama on a controversial surveillance bill, McCain advisers told FOX News they are pleased with McCain’s effort so far to stay on track.

“I think what we’ll see for the next 100 and something days, I think you’re going to see an incredibly disciplined campaign, and they’re going to be driving the message,” said Chip Saltsman, former campaign manager for GOP candidate Mike Huckabee. “The McCain campaign’s setting the table right now … and they’re forcing Obama to talk about what they want to talk about.”

The Arizona senator has been accused of wavering on his campaign message, toggling through various labels for Obama while struggling to focus on a single theme on the stump.

By contrast, Obama consistently has pressed his message of change since the primary and portrayed McCain as the third term of President Bush.

McCain advisers acknowledge that they had trouble getting their message out despite a three-month head start over Obama. Through the spring months, McCain launched themed weeks devoted to his biography and issues like poverty and health care, but they were undercut as the campaign pushed multiple messages in the same week.

McCain often held press conferences on the same day as big speeches, in turn allowing the media to ignore the substance of his address and cover his fresh comments. For instance, in early April he revealed he had a list of about 20 possible vice presidential candidates during a week when he was supposed to focus on his military service.

Adviser Steve Schmidt, though, was given full control of day-to-day operations last week. He essentially has been in charge of message-shaping for months, only now has significantly more power. And the campaign has limited the once-daily, hours-long sessions with the press, as well as press conferences after he gives a major policy speech.

Rather, the campaign is giving national reporters time to ask questions after evening news deadlines, or on days when the campaign does not have a message. As of this week, face time with the candidate will mostly be limited to a small pool of reporters who will then feed the interviews out to the rest of the national media.

The Wall Street Journal reported Saturday that the primary reason for the staff restructuring had to do with a desire to sharpen the campaign’s message.

McCain’s campaign recently has stuck with the accusation that Obama is a flip-flopper who will say or do anything for political gain, and this week it made pains to stress economic themes at every turn.

“To achieve full economic recovery, we need to think as well about the leading job creators in America. … Small businesses are the job engine of America, and I will make it easier for them to grow and create more jobs,” he said at a town hall meeting Wednesday in Ohio. “The choice in this election is stark and simple. Senator Obama will raise your taxes. I won’t, because jobs are the most important thing our economy creates. And when you raise taxes in a bad economy you eliminate jobs.”

McCain, in an interview Tuesday morning with FOX News, also stressed his theme of the week. And when he addressed the League of United Latin American Citizens on Tuesday, he tied his appeals to Latino voters to his weeklong economic chorus.

“All of us know what’s happening to the economy. And it’s slowing,” he said at the top of his address. He attempted to link all topics, from energy to immigration to tax policy, back to the economic downturn and job creation.

Earlier at a town hall meeting in Georgia, Obama said McCain is asking for trouble with his focus on taxes.

“If Senator McCain wants to debate about taxes in this campaign, that’s a debate I cannot wait to have, because John McCain doesn’t have an answer to the housing crisis, he doesn’t have and answer to the education crisis, he doesn’t have a plan to rebuild our infrastructure,” he said. “The only plan that he has is to not only continue the Bush tax cuts to the wealthy corporations, he wants to increase them. … A McCain administration would mean a fiscal Groundhog Day in Washington.”

Obama spokesman Hari Sevugan also told FOXNews.com that McCain’s latest strategy won’t alter what he called the outdated set of policies he’s offering.

“What I think is clear no matter how John McCain wants to package it, is that he’s offering more of the same, and that’s not going to change the direction of the country or help American families,” he said.

McCain is stressing the economy as national polls consistently show him trailing Obama on domestic issues.

McCain’s strong suit is national security and foreign affairs, and he has a tendency to rely on those issues to carry him through town hall meetings and similar campaign stops.

But Monday in Colorado, McCain hammered the economic message on all fronts.

He re-proposed a plan to balance the federal budget by 2013 in Denver, flanked by new “Jobs for America” signs.

In addition, his campaign announced that 300 economists endorsed his economic plan. It held two conference calls for reporters pushing the jobs message. It rolled out a national “jobs coalition” of small business owners in 19 states. And it released a comprehensive briefing paper on their plan to balance the budget in four years.

The campaign also did not hold a press conference where other issues would likely come up.

The Arizona senator says he wants to run a “respectful” campaign and recently has shown restraint in personally responding to Obama’s comments on his Iraq policy. Obama took heat last week when he said he’s willing to “refine” his policy on the war, which includes a pledge to withdraw all U.S. brigades within 16 months of taking office.

Asked Monday by one town hall participant what was the biggest difference was between him and Obama, McCain kept his criticism mostly to the economy.

But his campaign surrogates and staffers freely attack Obama, and McCain has been unable to stay on message entirely.

McCain criticized Obama’s Iraq position as “all over the map” in an interview with a Denver-area radio show, and on FOX News Tuesday morning said “there’s been definitely shifts in position (for Obama), and one of them is Iraq.”

One Democratic source also noted that McCain jumped off the economy track on Wednesday to respond to reports of Iranian missile tests, and reprise criticism of Obama for not voting to call Iran’s Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization last year.

(The Obama campaign points out that the Illinois senator co-sponsored an earlier bill that would have done the same thing.)

As McCain focuses on message-tightening, his campaign is centralizing.

Mike Duhaime, former campaign manager for Rudy Giuliani, was announced Sunday as the McCain campaign’s new political director.

Schmidt announced in a memo to staff last week that he would also hire a field director, all part of an effort to “increase our capacity to reach out to voters, build coalitions, identify supporters and ultimately turn them out to the polls on November 4.”

Schmidt wrote that “hundreds more field staff” would be deployed in the coming weeks.

McCain says he performs best as the underdog, and told FOX News last week that Schmidt’s reassignment was part of a “very great expansion” in the campaign.

He’ll have a ways to catch up.

McCain’s campaign is roughly 300-strong compared with Obama’s 1,000-person plus operation.

And Obama has a daunting fundraising lead over McCain — that lead could easily expand since the Illinois senator announced he would not be accepting more than $84 million in public financing for the general election. He’ll be raising money privately.

“We need to keep doing what we’re doing, only do it a lot harder,” McCain told FOX News, declining to fret about his standing in the polls.

“I’m happy with where we’ve come, I’m happy with where we are. We have been declared dead many times … but somehow we seem to stay in the race and we will stay in.”

FOX News’ Mosheh Oinounou and Judson Berger and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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07:07 - 2008-Jul-10 - post comment