The Occasional Observer

Assuming Obama wins the nomination, McCain is going to have his hands full taking on all the sunshine and rainbows rhetoric from Obama. The interesting question is, how will Obama attack McCain? Of course the obvious first point is that Obama represents a fresh change, a new way, while McCain represents "old washington" and failed methods. But here is some more insight from his speech:

“It’s a Washington where politicians like John McCain and Hillary Clinton voted for a war in Iraq that should’ve never been authorized and never been waged — a war that is costing us thousands of precious lives and billions of dollars a week,” Mr. Obama said.

In his speech in Janesville, Mr. Obama proposed creating a National Infrastructure Reinvestment Bank to invest $60 billion over 10 years and create nearly 2 million new jobs in the construction field. He said the program would be paid for by ending the Iraq war. He also renewed his call to create an energy plan to invest $150 billion over 10 years to establish a “green energy sector” to add up to 5 million jobs in the next two decades.

“It’s time to stop spending billions of dollars a week trying to put Iraq back together and start spending the money on putting America back together instead,” Mr. Obama said. He added, “We’ll also provide funding to help manufacturers convert to green technology and help workers learn the skills they need for these jobs.”

Clearly, Obama is going to strike at McCain on the cost of the Iraq war. McCain is going to be in a difficult position: a majority of Americans are opposed to the war, and when you throw the dollar costs out there and present as an alternative that the money could be spent here in the U.S., it's tough to fight on the face of it. In contrast to Obama's easy-to-make and understand argument, McCain will have to defend a more complex (but correct) position, that to simply cut and run will cost us far more in the long run.

McCain will have to defend his position of maintaining a more costly and larger longer-term presence in Iraq than Obama proposes. From Obama's website:

He [Obama] will keep some troops in Iraq to protect our embassy and diplomats; if al Qaeda attempts to build a base within Iraq, he will keep troops in Iraq or elsewhere in the region to carry out targeted strikes on al Qaeda.

The best way to press Iraq’s leaders to take responsibility for their future is to make it clear that we are leaving.

McCain's difficulty is that to the average voter who spends little or no time understanding these complex issues, Obama's position will not only sound correct, but look at all the money we'll save that could be spent here. I hope McCain's team is preparing some succinct talking points to make his case.

IMO McCain's best position is as follows. First, until recently the reconstruction effort was poorly handled. No consideration for political realities on the ground; insufficient or inappropriate equipment for the troops; wasted/stolen funds due to no-bid contracts for rebuilding; etc. However, all this will change under McCain: he was right on the surge, and he'll be right going forward. Second, and perhaps more importantly, he needs to get people to divorce their opinions on whether we should have ever invaded Iraq from what we do now. He needs to make the point that we are where we are; the important question is what do we do from here that is in the US' best interest, and which candidate is best equipped to execute. He needs to paint Obama as too naive to handle the situation, and play up his own strength here.