Senator John McCain is changing the famous name of “The Straight Talk Express” which he has used since his unsuccessful 2000 campaign to “No Surrender” for his 2008 campaign.
And Comedy Central’s Jon Stewart had some suggestions for the good-natured and telegenic Senator, who was on his show. See the Stewart/McCain video here.
Is this a smart move? Some will say it’s dumb since he’s simply adopting a pro-war slogan and wiping out the “Straight Talk Express” stress. After all, “Straight Talk” fit into his career and life narrative as a blunt-spoken straight-shooter.
This narrative was sandbagged by McCain himself as he walked a political tightrope and fell off, trying to win over the GOP base voters that nixed him as too much of a maverick in 2000. GOP voters distrusted his position adjustments and he lost the bulk of his independent voter support.
But it WAS an old slogan, and even Wal-Mart has now changed its slogan after a while.
To reassure GOP voters in light of the men’s restroom scandal involving Republican Idaho Senator Larry Craig, perhaps McCain should have changed the name of his campaign bus to “The Straight Express.”
And since he might change the name again, here are a few ideas he might consider for his campaign bus that might attract support:
—Free Pornography Here (he’ll attract the youth and old guys wearing heavy overcoats vote).
—The Base’s Bus
—Shake Hands With Rush Limbaugh (once Republican voters pour inside, sign them up)
—Destination Iran
There may be other suggestions, but we’ll leave them to our readers in comments.
FOOTNOTE: McCain is GREAT on comedy shows. He could quite seriously have a post-political career as a comedy actor since he has tube charisma and great comedy timing. Just WATCH these You Tube examples below of him doing comedy.
Here he is on Saturday Night Live spoofing Barbra Streisand songs (and singing):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTuwBw9q3Sw
And, from the same show that he hosted in 2006, here he is spoofing then-Attorney General John Ashcroft (wig and all):
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.