Matthew Dowd on McCain's Chances

(cross-posted at Burnt Orange Report)

In an NPR interview this morning, "independent political consultant" Matthew Dowd -- more famous as Bush's number-cruncher -- talks about John McCain and his efforts to restore his relationships with Republican conservatives. In doing so, he all but endorses Barack Obama for the Democratic nomination -- from a Democrat's perspective.

Calling in from Phoenix (what's he doing in Phoenix? hmmm), he says that McCain needs to speak the language of conservatism, to help reassure conservatives that he "gets" them. He also notes that McCain's "brand" is as a maverick, and his campaign struggled when people felt he was not being authentic. But he says McCain's biggest hope of energizing conservatives is for Hillary Clinton to get the Democratic nomination -- "she is the most unifying force for John McCain out there right now, not himself."

On a general election campaign: "If you gave the strategists and the people around John McCain some truth serum and asked them to say who they want to run against, in a minute they'd say Senator Hillary Clinton. They think that she's polarizing, she'd motivate and unite the base of the Republican Party, she's not a generational difference and a change of a figure, she's a bit of a throwback to the past, like to a degree he is."

On Obama: "Against Senator Obama, it's a much more difficult task. It would be a generational campaign, the new versus the older, somebody that had a distinct stand on Iraq versus his stand on Iraq. I think Senator Obama is a much more difficult race, and there is not a vitriol from the conservative and the Republican base against Senator Obama, they don't sort of dislike him to their core like they do Hillary Clinton. I think they would much prefer, the McCain folks, a race against Hillary Clinton than Barack Obama, because it's hard to compose a strategy against a new guy like Barack."

Of course, this could also be disinformation and misdirection, something that Dowd has certainly learned from colleagues like Karl Rove and Mark McKinnon. And the interview does not explain why he's in Phoenix -- consulting for the McCain campaign? But his take on the dynamics of the general election is similar to mine.

What do you think?