John McCain is nearing the end of the Presidential Campaign, he’s behind in the polls, he’s made lackluster showings at the debates (not that his opponent has been all that glorious in them either), he’s coming from the party that in the eyes of the American people carries much of the blame for our current economic state (in truth it’s more complicated than blaming a single party) and the party that produced a quite unpopular current President who has come to be recognized as a face of failure and bad policy.
When the finish line can be seen, but so can the back of your opponent, what do you do?
Well, first you make grand gestures to rally the people behind you (“suspended” campaign to go “save” the bailout proceedings- they passed not on that take, but on the next one where there were less cowboy-ish gestures), then if that doesn’t work, you pull a Tanya Harding and hire someone to go after your opponent (yes Sarah Palin, make no mistake about it, you are simply a hired gun to do and say all the dirty little things that McCain won’t), but what if that assault attempt failed? (and perhaps even hurt your cause due to overwhelming bad vibes of racism, mob mentality, and calls for death that go ignored or worse- seemingly endorced by your little “pitbull”) Then what do you do?
Well, if you want something done right, you do it yourself. McCain has pretty much jumped on the dare set out before him by the Dems to go ahead and bring up Ayers (if you haven’t been paying attention thus far, just google him, we’ll wait) and says he’ll bring up the (at one point in time) controversial figure from Obama’s past. But there’s a danger here. Obama is not the only one who has ever worked with the man in bipartisan public committees. Many Republican’s have, and probably still do. Not only that, if Obama’s smart, he’s got a list of them to throw right back in McCain’s face, daring him to go after his own party as well if he’ll be making allegations of terrorist plots. On top of that, McCain has skeletons of his own. What politician doesn’t? A few of those brought up evens the playing field nicely…
But what if Obama doesn’t want the playing field to be even? What if he wants to be above it? If McCain comes across and ham-handed and fear-mongering as his Alaskan counterpart, he runs an amazing risk of alienating voters as he had long promised a campaign that would stay clear of mud slinging. By inferring that Obama is un-American and a terrorist, McCain could look bigoted in the eyes of the viewing public. Let’s be honest, the crowds that Palin has been playing to have been largely, well, shit… how do I say it without sounding “elitist”? They’ve been misinformed, violent, bigoted, white trash. Folks calling for death to the “A-rab” is hardly the kind of base you want to trust your campaign to. All Obama would have to do is sit back and let McCain hang himself with his own rope.
So which McCain will be coming to the debate tomorrow? Will it be the one who promised a civil issues based campaign, or will it be the one who’s campaign promotes intollerance in many forms? If he’s smart, he’ll stick to the issues and let sleeping dogs lay.
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