Observing the McCain campaign this week is becoming uncomfortably akin to watching a New York Jets game. Even if you really, really want them to win, you get a sick feeling in your gut as you see them drop passes, fumble and throw the ball to people wearing the wrong jersey. Opportunities are there, but flailing, wild swings are taken in the wrong direction. And now we see McCain comparing Obama to a pop star such as Paris Hilton or Britney Speares?
“This is a typically superfluous response from Barack Obama. Like most celebrities, he reacts to fair criticism with a mix of fussiness and hysteria,” says McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds
Really? This is the new approach? The move is already being ripped to shreds. It is once again time to track down the person on McCain’s campaign staff who keeps feeding him these ideas. Previously I had felt that firing them would be enough. No longer! This individual must, I fear, be dragged into a steel cage on pay per view, drawn, quartered and hided, with their limbs sent to be displayed on bridges at the four corners of the country and a stern warning to future advisers stamped on their skin which should be hung on the wall of McCain’s war room.
This bewildering move immediately delivered benefits for Obama, as the press caught up with him boarding his bus. He smiles broadly, as if McCain were nothing more than a housefly buzzing around him and takes advantage of the opportunity to say, “He doesn’t seem to have much positive to say about himself, does he? He’s just talking about me. You need to ask John McCain what he’s for, not just what he’s against.”
The networks are already running that clip in an endless loop.
Meanwhile, the answer for McCain is right in front of him. He had a good week hitting the swing states and talking about the Three E’s – Energy, Education and the Economy. There is new ammunition coming into his arsenal every day. You want to run some new advertisements, Senator McCain? Talk about this. A majority of Americans now want more drilling for domestic oil production. Hell’s Bells, even in California more than half of the residents are willing to look into drilling off their own shores. (This helps to take some of the wind out of the sails of the “Not in my back yard” arguments brought up by some opponents of domestic production.)
This is one of the winning issues where you can pin your opponent’s considerably large ears back and you know he can’t back down on it. But instead, you’re spending time and resources on ads trying to link him to pop music divas? It’s not as if this election wasn’t going to be tough enough to start with. There’s no need to make it harder on yourself.
Ah well. Maybe the Jets will pick up Brett Favre this week and we’ll be sure to go to the Super Bowl! Yay!