Legal Commentary

NR's Strategy For McCain: Make It A Brawl

By Big Tent Democrat

This seems obvious, but the argument for what McCain should be doing is well stated by Lowry and Ponnoru:

The first step toward getting [white working class voters] is to make the anti-Obama case. The cliché among political operatives and pundits is that this election is “about Obama.” The truth in the claim is that since the public would rather have a Democratic president, the race will turn largely on whether Obama is an acceptable one. It follows that McCain’s main task is to make him unacceptable to voters — and particularly to non-black working-class voters. He has to first raise concerns about Obama and then show how his candidacy addresses those concerns.

More . .

The case against Obama need not (and probably should not) be subtle. In a nutshell: He’s too inexperienced, too liberal, and as a result too risky. McCain has to argue that a man who has been in the Senate a mere four years, and whose most significant résumé items prior to that are a stint in the Illinois legislature and time as a community organizer, is not ready to be commander-in-chief in dangerous times. The flip-flop charges against Obama will achieve nothing for McCain unless they are deployed to make him look risky: immature (he doesn’t know what he thinks), weak (he caves to pressure), and dishonest (he tries to fool people).

The good news is that McCain is an inept campaigner and his campaign is also inept. The other good news is that the Media does not want to play along. More good news is that McCain made a ridiculous fuss on the Clark comments, boxing him in on the question of scorching the earth.

It is because McCain is so weak a campaigner that Obama seems a shoo in to me. A better Republican candidate could have a chance. McCain is not that candidate.

By Big Tent Democrat, speaking for me only

Full post as published by TalkLeft on July 21, 2008 (boomark / email).