Column: McCain's New Strategy Should Focus On Youth Vote

This story was written by Joel Cohen, The Diamondback

John McCain, I know how to fix your struggling campaign. It's not by attacking the opponent's character, trying to shift the debate away from the economy, suspending the campaign or even picking a potential beauty-contest winner as your running mate. It's actually fairly simple: Target the college vote.

You've heard the news: As reported by The Diamondback last week, volunteers from the TerpsVote coalition registered 2,514 students at the University of Maryland alone before theOct. 14 voter registration deadline. Hundreds of similar efforts have registered tens of thousands of students all across the country. We're finally going be relevant (for real this time, unlike the past 28 elections themedia says we haven't been), so pay attention to us, John!

At this point, you and I both know very well that the general public will never be convinced you're the best man to be our president. It's like trying to pronounce the names of Sarah Palin's kids -- it just won't happen. But college students are the most gullible people out there. I mean, we believed the tour guide when she said College Park was a safe town, and so many of us have already been brainwashed by that guy Ron what's his last name? So why not try to brainwash us some more?

First, if you want to get any college students' votes, you need to get rid of that Joe Six-Pack reference. The only people who respond to that phrase are gun-toting, Southern rednecks, and I'm pretty sure you've already won their votes. If you're trying to swing some votes, you need to start talking about Joe 30-Pack.

Also, if you want to get that college vote, you need to get on a college campus. Sure, you visited Wilmington College in August. But you should probably visit college campuses that have a few more than 1,481 students. You saw what happened when your opponent visited a large campus of 35,369 students in February: Those college students came out loving the guy, even though they couldn't (and probably still can't) name one of his policies.

And please, John, stop blinking so much. During last week's debate, you blinked about as many times per minute as that annoying CNN live tracking poll. It's basic psychology that the more you lie, the more you blink.

Finally, John, make it the Palin-McCain campaign. Maybe then we'll start paying attention.