You might think it's a little odd, my giving advice to John McCain. But if he's going to get trounced like I think he will be on Nov. 4th, then I can't resist at least trying to help him out so he can come out of this thing with a little bit of dignity intact. After his nasty, dishonest, snarky campaign he will likely end his political career with one of the largest losses in modern presidential campaign history. So forgive me for feeling a little magnanimous for a minute.
What he should do is this -- first and foremost, he should fire all those Karl Rove-ian operatives, the guys who created the dishonest robocalls (the very same guys who perpetrated those horrible robocalls against himself in 2000), and save his campaign a little bit of money. Then he should pull every negative ad he has, which is most of them, and replace it with one ad and one ad only -- a pull-out-the-stops patriotic, Vietnam War hero, tug at the heartstrings ad. Throw in some comments about his family, and show a picture of all of them (don't leave out the adopted black daughter, now!), and do not mention one word about Sarah Palin. Not a picture, not a "McCain/Palin" sign, nada. Just johnmccain.com.
Would it win him the election? Probably not. But at least he could end this thing with some small bit of dignity intact. Because the bulk of his campaign, particularly since he picked Palin as his VP, has been a disgrace.
Barack Obama has almost stubbornly refused to get into personal attacks, letting slide a lot of nefarious contacts John McCain has had (with the exception of a short mention of Charles Keating, which the MSM did virtually nothing with and considering what's happening with the economy, was a perfectly legitimate thing to look into). There's been nothing about McCain's ties to G. Gordon Liddy (among others), despite their focus on Obama's tenuous ties to Bill Ayers; nothing about Cindy McCain's past drug issues despite the fact that some of McCain's advisors have wanted to get into Obama's admitted past cocaine use; nothing about McCain virtually hiding his adopted black daughter, something Obama could have made hay with; nothing about the oddball pastors Palin has associated herself with despite their past focus on Jeremiah Wright; and nothing about Sarah and Todd Palin's associations with a party that wants Alaska to secede from the United States, despite her repeated charges that Obama is anti-American! There's been nothing about a lot of things. It's too bad that John McCain didn't recognize that Obama was pulling his punches and pull some himself. Don't get me wrong, if John McCain won this election I would give up that the voters in this country have a clue... but it's sad to think that a Vietnam war hero has sunk to these levels and will end his political career with a campaign such as this. It would have been a refreshing change if this contest had been a fair and honorable one on both sides.
