When will the surprise end?

I don’t doubt that the conservative base wishes they had a candidate that at least tended to the right over the middle. I don’t doubt they wish they had a candidate whose first reaction would be in defense of the right. I don’t doubt that it is frustrating when McCain shoots back at the likes of Bill Cunningham and the right and the recoil of his salvo pushes him closer and closer to the center. But honestly, I ask you, how are you still surprised? This happens again and again and every time the response is surprise.

Where you really that shocked this is how the situation played out? If I came to you last week and said “at a McCain rally, Bill Cunningham will make an over the top speech that will offend the Obama camp, what will McCain’s reaction be?” I bet you would have called how it happened today. When you listen to conservative talk radio tomorrow, you will hear from Rush to Hannity how this is a failure on McCain’s part to build up support for his base…but they will be wrong.

This wasn’t a failure on the part of McCain -- his reaction was consistent with his MO -- no, it was a failure on the part of his event organizers. The regional organizers should have seen how this would play out. Instead of setting up a standard event, they projected yet another scene to highlight the separation between the conservative base the McCain camp. This separation is a problem, but you don’t close the gap by highlighting the issue and you don’t set up an event in hopes the problem doesn’t exist. Whether you like his policies, his stance and his fly in face of conservative attitude, in the game of elections, it is the job of the campaign team to line their event up with the candidate, not the be surprised when their candidate doesn’t line up with the event. I imagine the McCain camp has some strategic vision on how to address this problem and I can’t imagine a confrontation with Bill Cunningham was anywhere in the mix.

So, the real question isn’t whether the fissure between the conservative base and McCain will be an issue again -- I can assure you it will be -- the real questions is, when it happens, will you still be surprised?