It is, in short, a campaign heavy on tactics and light on strategy. Three weeks out from the 2008 election and John McCain's campaign has no discernible central theme, no succinct answer to the most basic question voters ask as they consider their choice: Why should I choose you over the other guy?
Four years ago, George W. Bush's critique of John Kerry was a simple, two-pointed attack: He's too liberal and he flip-flops. "Much as he tried to obscure it, on issue after issue, my opponent showed why he's earned the ranking, the most liberal member of the United States Senate," Bush said at a campaign event on October 9, 2004. Top aides Karen Hughes and Karl Rove circulated among the press pointing out that Kerry had voted for the resolution authorizing a war in Iraq that he had come to oppose and telling reporters that Kerry "really is a liberal who is out of touch with mainstream America."
Ask McCain advisers for a succinct description of his message, and you'll get several different answers. Obama's too risky. He's too inexperienced. He has bad judgment. He's not bipartisan enough. He has no record. His record is too liberal. He avoids tough decisions. He's all rhetoric. He's the wrong kind of change. And on it goes. Many of these things are true, of course, but in trying to communicate all of these messages at once the campaign risks communicating none of them.
The Obama campaign, by contrast, seems to have settled
on one message, which it is driving nearly every day: John McCain is too erratic to be president.
Even for voters not inclined to believe the charge, McCain's last month has lent it credibility.
By the end of the week, however, conversations with several McCain advisers indicated that the campaign may have settled on its closing argument. If they are successful, voters will enter polling stations with this thought in their head: Barack Obama cannot be trusted because he's done nothing and has consistently put his own political ambitions before his country's needs.
Stephen F. Hayes, a senior writer at THE WEEKLY STANDARD, is the author of Cheney: The Untold Story of America's Most Powerful and Controversial Vice President (HarperCollins).
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