One of the oddest aspects of the campaign so far is that Obama has only a slight lead in the polls. McCain has run a miserable campaign, featuring embarrassing speeches, vicious infighting among campaign insiders and an apparent strategy of throwing one supporter a week under the bus. McCain does not seem to understand that he won the republican primary only because the real republican vote was split among other challengers, and that his policy of praising democrats and attacking other republicans is not really very sound. He doesn't seem to appreciate that the media, his real constituency, has already swooned over Obama and will offer him no help whatsoever. Still, McCain has a real chance to win, provided he doesn't waste any more time. He needs to capitalize on the fact that the public does not know Obama very well and that a good part of what they do know is unflattering. To win, McCain will have to steel himself to be criticized severely by his former cheerleaders in the liberal media and he will have to reverse his apparent acceptance of the Obama-dictated limits on criticizing Obama. So what should McCain do? It's simple. He needs to go back to the formula that won for Bush, Bush Sr and Reagan, namely construct an alternative persona for his opponent and convince the public it is accurate. In many ways, his job is easier because he is facing a guy who is not well known to the public. The media's slobbering adulation of Obama ironically is a turnoff as well for the substantial portion of the public fed up with the pervasive liberal bias of the mainstream media. McCain's task is made easier still by the parade of unsavory Obama associations that surfaced during the primaries. He should take Dick Morris' advice and begin immediately to run ads that show Obama taking contradictory positions on hot button issues, eg Iraq, gun rights, trade, energy. They would have the twin effect of not only making Obama look silly but would also delegitimize his claim to be a new type of politician. That could be crucial to demoralizing Obama's base among young first time voters, who tend to have poor turnout rates in any case. These ads would use a tag line, such as "Who is Barrack Obama?" Next, it will be crucial to go heavily negative. These ads will feature Obama's more controversial statements, his wife's not proud of America blunder, Obama slouching when the National anthem is being played, etc. Message here is "he's not someone we're comfortable with." Another series of ads would be even more negative, with clips of Rev. Wright going nuts, Father Pfleger goign nuts, Bill Ayers bragging about blowing up things, Toney Rezko doing a perp walk, etc, with tag lines noting Obama's long associations with them. In selected states, quick ads noting Obama's father and step father were muslims, with pictures of Obama in muslim garb would run, with the now familiar line, "Who is Barrack Obama?" I know the usual suspects here will go postal on me, but this is a proven formula for winning elections. It's a matter of not only swaying voters but of taking Obama off message and forcing him to respond to them. If McCain thinks voters are just going to line up for him because he is a "maverick" or was a POW, he's nuts. If he allows this thing to become a media officiated personality contest, as it is now, he will take a terrible beating. He needs to decide right now if he actually wants to win, because he doesn't have too many more days before this window slams shut. The media is doing its best to convince people the election is over, and right now McCain is not even in the news cycle.
It would work, but.... 1. Mccain won't do it 2. eventually, conservative 527's will do it. 3. Obama and media will call it all a swift boat slime. 4. Mccain will then attack the conservative 527's for their sliming of bho.
2 can play the flip flopping game,against McCain obama would win the effect of revered wright etc has run thier course,people realized that obama has never himself expressed those views and has moved on.McCain also has paster problems and rezko problems(keating 5 which lost steam do to other events but could be brought back up as well as a campaign full of lobbyist) there is a McCain video with him saying something to the effect he did not love the USA McCain wants to keep wives out of it,Cindy mccain is no angel and racks up 700,000 monthly credit card bills quite simply McCain wont do what is suggested in this thread because the tables in all those situations could be turned against him.McCain will just hope that there is enough racist and core GOP supporters to elect him or that something worse then rev wright comes up to derail obama
I imagine this is the argument inside McCain HQ. There are two answers to it. One, McCain is well known to voters, and while many on the right do not exactly love him, most voters are fairly comfortable with him and see him as a plausible president. Obama by contrast is not well known. If McCain goes after him hard, he can convince enough voters that Obama is far too inexperienced, untested and unreliable to be president. Two, I really don't see an alternative for McCain. The Bob Dole strategy of being a nice guy and running a campaign the media approves of will get him exactly what it got Dole. Ps. I disagree about Cindy McCain. I think she is his biggest asset. Most voters don't care about the drug use, etc as long as they "like" her. She is very likeable. Michelle Obama has all the warmth and likeability of the early Hillary Clinton.
Let us not forget. These were the exact talking points put forth by Hillary, and her supporters - not all that long ago. O.K. for nearly half the democratic party to subscribe to these theories, but 'off limits' for republicans? - Spydertrader
Its more then her just having addiction problems.Cindy stole strong narcotics over a long period of time.The DEA was investigating her and were about to arrest her When McCain pulled strings and got her off If a Wal Mart worker without a Senator for a husband had regularly stole bottles of narcotics from the Wal Mart pharmacy and was investigated by the DEA no way in hell would they get off just by going to rehab.this is not very well known and people get very upset when they find out government officials use there power to be above the law There is also alot of shady business with Cindy's business dealings Team Obama knows what they are doing.Obama warned McCain not to attack his wife and the McCain camp never has.Obama is now warning McCain to keep the independent groups from attacking his wife.McCain does not want to go there When ever McCain starts to get a bit aggressive Obama gives him subtle warnings and a hint of what he will do if team McCain doesn't back off.A General on Obamas side questioning McCain's military record was not a mistake,it was a warning.McCain's military record is that of a guy that got by every step of the way because his dad and grand dad were admirals.once obama gets past the POW stuff alot of questions about McCain's military record can be questioned McCain also knows attacking obama will not do much good,the Clinton's are the best at it and they failed.believe me,Rev wright,rezko and bill airs all came from camp Clinton the Clintons could attack because all their dirt is known,McCain's is not I cant stand Hilary, but a part of me wanted her to win so that she could have attacked McCain like she attacked obama
Great Post, McCain so far has run an ineffective, dreadful campaign. Everything you suggest is exactly what he should be doing. Unfortunately, the high road is a losers game. He needs to expose Barry Hussein Obama on every level. I don't understand this sissy girly campaign he's running. http://www.conservapedia.com/Barack_Obama
Pat Buchanan on McCain's weird strategy: Patrick J. Buchanan "You go hunting where the ducks are," said Barry Goldwater. The successor to Barry's Senate seat apparently believes that ducks come from Mexico and speak Spanish. For in July alone, John McCain made three separate appearances before Hispanic groups. Last week, he spoke to La Raza (The Race), where rival Barack Obama said, "The Latino community holds the election in its hands." McCain would appear to agree. But are he and the GOP letting go of the bird in the hand to grab two in the bush, which may not even be there? Consider. Though Hispanics are 14.5 percent of the U.S. population, they will likely constitute only 7 percent to 8 percent of the electorate in 2008. Why? A vast share are illegal or recent immigrants who cannot vote. Hispanic citizens also register and vote in low percentages. And they are concentrated in New York, Illinois and California, which are out of reach for McCain, and Texas, where McCain will win handily. Some 14 percent of the vote in crucial Florida is Hispanic, but Cubans are overrepresented there, and Cubans do not vote like La Razans. A mid-July Quinnipiac University poll showed Obama leading McCain among black voters 94 to 1. Yet, McCain appeared last week at the NAACP convention. Now, as GOP nominee, McCain is entitled to court any voters. But why has he decided to court the hardest of hard-core Democrats, rather than the Democrats he can win? Who are they? Though the GOP seems deaf to the message, the primaries of 2008 fairly screamed out the answer. Hillary lost 90 percent of the black vote in April and May but routed Obama in Ohio and Pennsylvania by 10 points, and in Kentucky and West Virginia by 35 and 41. With almost no African-American votes, in states where the Hispanic vote is tiny, Hillary crushed the nominee of the Democratic Party who is McCain's opponent this fall. The Democrats who will decide the outcome in November are white folks living in Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. More numerous than African-Americans and Hispanics combined, they have often voted Republican and, as they showed in the primaries, are wary of Barack, his associations and his attitudes. McCain may not recognize that this is where the election can be won, but Obama recognizes this is where the election can be lost. This is why he has scuttled rightward so fast his liberal base is in shock. He has severed ties to Trinity United, defenestrated the Rev. Wright, come out for the death penalty for child rapists, supported the Second Amendment right to keep a handgun in the home, put the flag pin back on and denounced MoveOn.org for the "General Betray Us" ad. If Obama believes his vulnerability is with Hillary's Democrats, why is McCain doing the La Raza-NAACP tour? Why is he not going for the Democrats who carried Hillary to victory after victory? How can they be won? The answers lie in the successful referenda of the past two decades. On the California ballot this year is a proposition that declares, in repudiation of the state's Supreme Court, that marriage is between a man and a woman only, and California shall recognize no other. More than 61 percent of Californians in 2000 voted for a similar law. In 2004, 13 states, including Ohio, enacted -- by landslides ranging from 57 percent of the vote to 85 percent in Mississippi -- ballot propositions that restricted marriage to men and women. Barack opposes the California proposition. Why do McCain and the Republicans not exploit this? On illegal immigration, it is hard anywhere to find a referendum that has called for a cut-off in social welfare benefits that did not pass. That includes Proposition 200 in McCain's own state of Arizona in 2004, which carried with 56 percent, including 47 percent of Hispanics, over McCain's opposition and that of the entire GOP congressional delegation. Ward Connerly of the American Civil Rights Institute has never lost a referendum. In California in 1996, Washington and Michigan after that, his initiatives, which outlaw affirmative action -- i.e., any state discrimination against or favoritism toward anyone based on race, gender, ethnicity or sexual preference -- usually triumph handily. Connerly is fighting the good fight again this year. Why is McCain, why are the national Republicans, not campaigning with him? For the primary victims of affirmative action are the working- and middle-class white Democrats who will decide the election. Campaigning in Ohio, Barack and Hillary discovered NAFTA is toxic. Both denounced it. McCain, however, embraced it and told Michigan voters, "The jobs are not coming back." Then he went to Canada and Mexico to assure those folks that NAFTA is sacred writ. Among the issues on which Republicans can find common ground with Democrats are language, borders, culture, affirmative action, re-industrializing the nation and retention of our sovereignty. Neither La Raza nor the NAACP is likely to be of much help with this agenda.