The McCain Doctrine (With Update)

Here is an excellent Move-On.org commercial (thanks for the link, JB). Unlike GOP attack ads, this one tells the truth, and the timing couldn't have been better.

It is great to see Democrats and progressives doing the framing for a change. Senator Edwards started it with his "McCain Doctrine" remark, and Move-On is carrying it further. The Democrats should distribute their own talking points telling everyone in the party to start referring to Bush's surge plan as the McCain Doctrine.

McCain and the rest of the GOP are in big trouble over Iraq, and they know it. Bob Novak wrote this the other day (via Daily Kos):

The gloom pervading the Republican Party cannot be exaggerated. The long-range GOP outlook for 2008 is grim. The consensus is that U.S. troops must be off the ground of Iraq by next year to prevent an electoral catastrophe in the next election [...]

Iraq, one of Bush's top political advisers now notes, is a black hole for the Republican Party. A nationally prominent Republican pollster reported confidentially on Capitol Hill after the President's speech that if U.S. boots are still on the ground in Iraq and U.S. blood is still being spilled there at the end of the year, the GOP disaster in 2008 will eclipse 2006.

Although I look forward to a "GOP disaster in 2008," I feel sorry for all the troops who will be sacrificed in the coming months just because Bush is too cowardly to admit his mistake with regard to Iraq and order a withdrawal.

And speaking of the GOP, here's a piece that you can place in the "yeah, no shit" file:

Rep. John Boehner, the House Minority Leader, admitted to Roll Call today that his party was running low on ideas, making it difficult for the Republican Party to move forward while it is in the minority.

Susan Davis's article finds the Ohio Republican bemoaning the current state of the party he is leading since it lost its 12 year majority in the House of Representatives. He told her that "We’re still in that listening mode, and we’re going to have to come to some decision on how to proceed here soon."

The House Minority Leader also admitted that there was a definite cause for the failure of his party to retain the majority. "You could say that our reservoir of new ideas is low ... to some extent, you could argue that we got lazy," he said in the interview with Davis.

You're just figuring that out now, Boehner? I'm glad the Republicans don't have any new ideas, because it will take this country decades to recover from their old ones.

UPDATE: Here is some great news from New Hampshire (via Political Wire):

The Boston Herald's Brett Arends got an advance look at a new American Research Group poll from New Hampshire that shows Sen. John McCain’s popularity among New Hampshire’s independent voters "has collapsed."

"For seven years, conventional wisdom has said that the state’s pivotal independent voters would line up behind maverick Sen. John McCain, as they did so famously in the 2000 GOP primary. But new polling data, to be released later this week, will suggest that might no longer be the case."

Said ARG's Dick Bennett: "John McCain is tanking. That’s the big thing [we’re finding]. In New Hampshire a year ago he got 49 percent among independent voters. That number’s way down, to 29 percent now.”