WASHINGTON — Republican John McCain’s game plan for beating Democrat Barack Obama this fall rests on one huge assumption: Despite an unpopular war, an uncertain economy and the GOP’s beleaguered status, the country still leans more to the right than to the left.
“There are going to be stark choices between a liberal Democrat and a conservative Republican,” McCain says at nearly every turn as he seeks to portray Obama as out of step with the nation.
The more the GOP nominee-in-waiting can frame the debate along those lines and capture a larger chunk of the electorate’s center, the better his chance to eke out a victory in an extraordinarily challenging political environment.
Of course, other factors will come into play, including experience, character and outside events.
And, although Republicans shy away from publicly discussing it, race could have an enormous role. Public attitudes about issues including taxes and health care have been tested for years, but no one knows whether the nation will elect a black man, Obama, as president.
Age is another unknown. McCain will be 72 in August and would be the country’s oldest elected president. Obama is more than two decades younger.
McCain has spent the past few weeks laying out arguments against Obama, who is on the verge of clinching the Democratic nomination over Hillary Rodham Clinton.
McCain has contended that Obama lacks experience, raised questions about his judgment and suggested that he offers change that could imperil the country.
At the same time, McCain — a Vietnam prisoner of war and four-term senator — has started trying to make the case that he alone has the qualifications to be a wartime commander in chief. He is, in effect, using his experience to counter concerns about his age.
Six months out, polling shows that McCain is competitive against Obama, and that heartens McCain’s advisers, who recognize the difficult landscape for a Republican after President Bush’s eight-year tenure.
In a sign of the troubled times, the GOP has lost three special congressional elections to fill vacant Republican seats this year.
“Both candidates will represent change. The question will be the right type of change versus the wrong kind of change,” said Steve Schmidt, a senior strategist for McCain.
“There is an overwhelming difference between the right-of-center John McCain and the most liberal member of the Senate, Barack Obama,” said Frank Donatelli, the Republican National Committee’s deputy chairman. “The contrast is great on the issues.”
Dismissing the criticism, Obama spokesman Bill Burton said, “This is less about left and right. It’s about which candidate is going to take this country in a new direction.”
Democrats contend that McCain is not that candidate. They argue that all he offers is a continuation of Bush’s eight years of “failed” policies on Iraq and the economy.
