John McCain and the religious right — a problematic relationship

By Robert Schlesinger

I’m starting to think Barack Obama will win comfortably.

Two data-points spur this line of thinking in my head: John McCain’s relations with evangelicals and his now-infamous green-screen speech from Tuesday last.

Today’s New York Times has a front-pager today on religious conservatives’ uncomfortable relationship with the presumptive GOP nominee, and Bob Novak covers the same ground in his column. I found this of particular interest in the Times:

To address this, Mr. McCain’s campaign has been ramping up its outreach to evangelicals over the last month, preparing a budget and a strategic plan for turning them out in 18 battleground states this fall.

…

Mr. McCain’s outreach to Christian conservatives has been a quiet courting, reflecting a balancing act: his election hopes rely on drawing in the political middle and Democrats who might be turned off should he woo the religious right too heavily by, for instance, highlighting his anti-abortion position more on the campaign trail.

The emphasis there was mine. Typical GOP nominees have made their peace with the religious right by now. But McCain has taken a two steps forward (endorsed by John Hagee and Rod Parsley!), two steps back (repudiates and is unendorsed by John Hagee and Rod Parsley!). But more importantly: They’ve started stepping up the outreach in the last month? How long ago did he win the nomination? What has the McCain team been doing?

McCain and his campaign have spent the last few months somewhat out of the public eye, obscured by the never-ending Democratic primary contest. He should have spent that time fixing his standing with his party’s base, but he only stepped that up a month ago?

One thing his campaign did plan was for him to make speech on the night Barack Obama clinched the Democratic nomination. This was a failure in every phase, conception to planning to execution: Setting their man up back-to-back against the most gifted political speech-giver of his generation was mistake one; having him do it in front of a small, listless crowd before a lime-green backdrop should have been a firing offense for whomever advanced the trip; and finally the speech was an irritating flop. And this was long-planned.

This pair of data-points about the McCain campaign’s execution calls to mind this question: Can this gang shoot straight? If not, it’s going to be an awfully blue map in November.

UPDATE: Kevin Drum at Political Animal has a good take on the religious issue, pegging it specifically to McCain’s chances in Ohio.

LATER UPDATE: Tom Edsall has an interesting piece at HuffPo in which he notes how the McCampaign has wasted its four-month head stary.

LATERER UPDATE: J Ro at MyDD has a very good write-up of McCain’s head-start whiff.