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LETTER FROM JOHN MCCAIN ON JOINT TOWN HALL MEETINGS

Dear Senator Obama:

In 1963, Senator Barry Goldwater and President John F. Kennedy agreed to make presidential campaign history by flying together from town to town and debating each other face-to-face on the same stage. In Goldwater's words, those debates "would have done the country a lot of good." Unfortunately, with President Kennedy's untimely death, Americans lost the rare opportunity of witnessing candidates for the highest office in the land discuss civilly and extensively the great issues at stake in the election. What a welcome change it would be were presidential candidates in our time to treat each other and the people they seek to lead with respect and courtesy as they discussed the great issues of the day, without the empty sound bites and media-filtered exchanges that dominate our elections. It is in the spirit of President Kennedy's and Senator Goldwater's agreement, in the spirit of the politics of change, and to do our country good, that I invite you to join me in participating in town hall meetings across the country to discuss the most important issues facing Americans. I also suggest we fly together to the first town hall meeting as a symbolically important act embracing the politics of civility.

I propose these town hall meetings be as free from the regimented trappings, rules and spectacle of formal debates as possible, and that we pledge to the American people we will not allow the idea to die on the negotiation table as our campaigns work out the details. I suggest we agree to participate in at least ten town halls once a week with the first on June 11 or 12 in New York City at Federal Hall until the week before the Democratic Convention begins at locations to be determined by our campaigns. Federal Hall is particularly fitting as it was the place where George Washington took the oath of office as our first President and the birthplace of American government hosting the first Congress, Supreme Court and Executive Branch offices. These town halls should be attended by an audience of between two to four hundred selected by an independent polling agency, could be sixty to ninety minutes in length, have very limited moderation by an independ ent local moderator, take blind questions from the audience selected by the moderator and allow for equally proportional time for answers by each of us. All of these are suggestions that can be finalized by our campaigns. What is important is that we commit to participate in these history making meetings to join in the higher level of discourse that Americans clearly would prefer.

To show our good faith, we should both commit to the first town hall I have suggested. In the mean time, we can work out dates for future town hall meetings.

I look forward to your favorable reply and to the opportunity to work with you to give Americans a better opportunity to understand our differences, our agreements and the leadership we offer them.

Sincerely,

John McCain

Democrat Disunity

Following all the uncertainty surrounding Barack Obama's path to becoming the presumptive Democrat nominee, Obama is now faced with two very clear certainties as he "wheeze[s]", as The New York Times puts it, across the finish line. First, he will inherit a fractured party that is deeply divided over his role as standard-bearer and his ability to be President. Second, he will inherit a national party apparatus that has been significantly outraised throughout the cycle.

Here are the facts:

• Nearly 18 million voters in the Democrat Party's nominating process felt that Obama was not the best candidate to be President. The number of ballots cast against Obama in 2008 exceeds the number of total ballots cast in each of the last four Democrat Presidential primary cycles.
   
• Obama is not wearing well as a candidate and has lost momentum since his high point in February. The more people learn about him and his views, the less they support him. Since March 4, he has lost a majority of primaries to Senator Clinton, including the all-important states of Texas, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana, and West Virginia. He lost Kentucky by 35 points, West Virginia by 41 points, and suffered a 36-point defeat in Puerto Rico. Were it not for the Democratic proportional system of delegate allocation, these devastating defeats might very well have derailed his nomination.
   
• Obama has failed in key battleground states. States like New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia are critical to success in the fall, and Democrat voters there felt that he was not the best candidate for their Party or the office. Furthermore, his failure to seriously compete in Florida and Michigan has left Democrat voters there skeptical of his commitment to them.
   
• Obama will not be able in the general election to count on many of the states that fueled his primary campaign. Recent public polling shows Obama losing to John McCain in at least half of the states that he won in the Democrat primaries.
   
• Obama faces difficulties defending key states that were won by John Kerry and Al Gore in the last two Presidential elections. Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania are each polling competitively or in favor of McCain, as is New Hampshire, which voted in favor of John Kerry in 2004.
   
• McCain is attracting large numbers of Democrat voters, which significantly undermines Obama's base. The most recent Newsweek poll (5/23) shows 19% of Democrats favoring McCain over Obama, and 7% undecided. By contrast, Obama only attracts 7% of GOP voters, with only 4% undecided.

According to May data from Rasmussen Reports, one quarter of Democrats trust McCain more than Obama on the issues of the Economy (25%) and National Security (28%) – as compared to only 13% and 7% of Republicans (respectively) who trust Obama more. Similarly, less than two thirds of Democrats trust Obama more on the issues of the war in Iraq (66%) and Taxes (64%).

A recent poll by Pew in May shows that fewer than half (46%) of Clinton supporters expect the Democrat party to "unite solidly behind" Obama – down from 58% in March.

Obama's primary election coalition of urban voters, young voters, ideologically liberal voters, and elites is far too narrow to sustain him amid a center-right general election electorate. His coalition more resembles the losing coalitions of John Kerry, Michael Dukakis, and George McGovern than it does a supposedly new type of candidate with broad appeal.

Many key constituencies that are necessary for a winning coalition in November have voted overwhelmingly against Obama in the Democrat primaries. Obama has time and time again failed to connect with rural voters, union voters, Catholic voters, senior voters, Hispanic voters, and women.

Despite raising a record amount of money in the primaries, Obama has also spent the most of any candidate to get to this point. Together with the DNC he will begin the next phase of the campaign with less cash on hand than Senator McCain's campaign and the RNC.

The DNC itself faces nearly a 9:1 cash-on-hand disadvantage versus the RNC.

And this leads us to the DNC rules committee meeting on Saturday when the Democrat party leadership again failed to promote the unity that their party desperately lacks. Howard Dean's fractious meeting of party elders seems a fitting exclamation point to this year's Democrat primary season.