If McCain were a Democrat

[treestar]

food for thought:

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/JG29Aa01.html

CAMPAIGN OUTSIDER
If McCain were a Democrat ...
By Muhammad Cohen

After well over a year of campaigning by both candidates and dozens of debates, there aren't any surprises left along the road to the White House.

Vice presidential choices won't change the game. The job itself isn't worth a pitcher of warm spit, according to one VP, and hardly anyone votes based on the number two person on the ticket. Count on both John McCain and Barack Obama to pick mainstream figures, and the "surprise" of putting a woman or minority on either ticket would be no surprise at all.

What we're all wondering is how the Republicans and their unaffiliated political hatchet groups will go after Obama. It may be despicable, but it's the way the Republicans and the right do business in America today. McCain says he wants a clean campaign, and he may run one. But allies in 527 groups - named for the statute that allows these so-called independent groups to operate - such as Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, can be relied on to push the campaign into the gutter. McCain himself, from lobbyists running his anti-lobbyist campaign to his claims of being an environmentalist while getting a zero rating from the League of Conservation Voters, has proven himself quite capable of saying one thing and doing another.

Easy target
You know the right will go after Obama, you say you don't like and won't fall for it, but, like me, you're dying to see how they'll do it. Obama's campaign has already set up a website, www.stopthesmears.com to deal with the slime it rightly expects. There are so many avenues open to attack: Obama is liberal, elitist, black, with a colorful cast of characters in his past and present. How subtly or explicitly will anti-Obama forces play the race card? To what extent will Reverend Jeremiah "God damn America" Wright's fiery sermons feature? What's the right way to frame Obama's foreign, Muslim father for maximum negative impact on his son who didn't wear a flag pin? Will "typical white person" be the tagline for this campaign, the way Willie Horton is for 1988? Will the lasting image be that New Yorker cover featuring his "terrorist fist jab" with gun toting "baby mama" Michelle Obama (or an equally fanciful doctored photo of Obama embracing Louis Farrakhan), or his empty seat on key votes stretching back to the Illinois legislature?

What is really interesting is later in the article, there is a description of just what the Republicans would do if McBush were the Democrat.