It's long, so I'll just post an excerpt.
So much for the 'respectful campaign', eh John?n a year when polls show an easy victory for a generic Democratic candidate, McCain has until now been loathe to employ the tack many strategists see as essential and which anonymous e-mailers and commenters with no apparent links to his campaign have been practicing since last summer: hitting Obama not on his record or his platform, but on his values and person.
The Democrat’s Achilles’ heel in this model is an inchoate sense among some voters that the new arrival on the national stage with the unusual biography—and who’s the first black nominee from either party—isn’t American enough.
Prior to Obama’s trip overseas, though, McCain had instead employed, without appreciable effect, a more conventional critique of his opponent as an ordinary politician, a “flip-flopper,” and, of course, a liberal.
On Saturday, though, McCain released a new television advertisement in which the announcer says that on his trip, Obama “made time to go to the gym, but cancelled a visit with wounded troops. Seems the Pentagon wouldn't allow him to bring cameras.”
"John McCain is always there for our troops," adds the announcer, before concluding with the campaign’s new slogan: “McCain, country first.”
The slogan’s inverse implication for his opponent was made clear earlier in the week, when McCain accused Obama of placing the his political ambitions before the national interest.
Though I will say that if McCain's going negative so early, it's either indicative of some really scary internal polling numbers that the campaign feels the need to counter now, or simply that Grumpy McSame's lost his temper and is lashing out.
The very real risk in going negative so early is that such campaigns hurt both sides and the trick is to make sure that it hurts your opponent more.
If you fail, you're toasted by the backlash.
Mmm...toasted McCain...smells like Victory!
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- PeZook
