Politics

Attacking John McCain

August 18, 2008 / 2:01 PM EDT / Political Animal

ATTACKING JOHN McCAIN....Is John McCain an unrepentant warmonger who wants to cut taxes so his beer heiress wife can take home a few more dollars per year? Beats me. But as a campaign attack tactic, it ain't gonna work. Instead, why not concentrate on character critiques that have some real grounding in reality? Just to give a few examples:

McCain is old and gets confused occasionally.
McCain is running an ugly, smear-based campaign.
McCain has a legendarily short fuse.
McCain is annoyingly self-righteous.
McCain's straight talk has evaporated in the face of his need to win evangelical votes.

Does this sound like commander-in-chief material? I think not. With solid repetition, these can all be made into fairly devastating attacks that have the added benefit of (a) being true, and (b) sounding true. So use them early and often. That's my campaign blogging advice for the day.