"You know me. You know I’ve been a reformer all my life."

[Bucky]

from HuffPo, via C&L:

“I think we’ve got a world of problems,” said one Republican strategist with extensive experience in presidential campaigns. He said this came home to him with a thud when he watched Obama and McCain give speeches last Tuesday, with the Democrat speaking before “20,000 screaming fans, while John McCain looked every bit of his 72 years” in a speech televised from New Orleans. {...}

Another strategist with similar presidential experience said “McCain has not claimed the maverick ground that should be his. He has not seized the mantle of ‘change’ and reform that he could own by going to Washington and saying, ‘you know me. You know I’ve been a reformer all my life. Now, here’s how I am going to change Washington if you elect me president.’ And he has not taken economic turf. He has not explained how he is going to grow, not Washington, as the Democrats plan, but this economy to meet the challenges of global competition.”

There's a reason why John McCain doesn't "seize the mantle of change" (which, until you say "of change," sounds like a euphemism for "Cindy's out of town again").

You can be a reformer. American history is filled with reformers. But if you're a senator and you've been a senator a really long time and you're saying you've always been a reformer, too, it's basically an admission that you can't get important things done, that you're ineffectual. Reform, in a democracy, comes from outside the capital; it comes from the people. When a reformer gets to Washington, he either reforms, conforms, or washes out.

One reason John McCain struggles to establish his reformer credentials is that he's gotten in tight with lobbyists and everybody knows this. When a Bob Dole or a John Kerry runs for president, he runs on his experience. John McCain is in the same boat: he can say he's a reformer, but after 20 years in the Senate he's got to run on the reforms he's actually accomplished. In most cases he's either accomplished things that don't work so well (McCain-Feingold, which, surprise-surprise, fat cat lobbyists figured out a way to work around so they could still influence our politics with their dollars) or he's now flipped and runs against the very changes he once championed (as with his opposing his own immigration bill or his former resistance to conservative theocrats which changed to this year's display of his impressive sucking up skills).

I don't advise being smug or satisfied to watch him run his campaign into the ground. He's weak at big rallies, but he's probably a better one-on-one debater than Obama is. John McCain is a smart guy and at some point his marketing people are going to get the right message to sell this man with. But that message won't be "change." It's a dud issue for the Republicans.

Until they do find a solid theme, the temptation will be for them to smear Obama directly until they can devise a stronger sales pitch for their own guy. And I don't know if you've noticed this, but Republicans don't deal so well with temptation.

[kentuck]

1. And I ask ??

Just what is he going to change? C'mon, don't rush yourself. Name one thing that he is going to change? He is the third term of George W Bush and he can't run away from it, try as he might.