SAVING MCCAIN FROM HIMSELF

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Wednesday

As I write this, the US Senate has overwhelmingly approved the bailout package in close to the same form as the one rejected by the house. Both candidates for POTUS have voted YES. And Senator McCain is now trailing badly in the polls.

As a trial lawyer, I have some advice for Senator McCain…

SAVING MCCAIN FROM HIMSELF

There are several reasons that we should all want McCain to do much better in this phase of the campaign. These are mine.

A DISCLOSURE:

As a Truman democrat, I am appalled at the current ideological condition of my party.

MY REASONS

I am uneasy at the prospect that the country might have to experience four years with no one in the White House able or inclined to restrain the impulses of the current Speaker of the House and Senate Majority Leader.

I am nervous about the prospect of the Junior Senator from Illinois as its Commander in Chief, given his earlier record of pandering to the internationalist left.

I think that a spirited bipartisan government is by far healthier than any mono-partisan government. There is every reason to expect that McCain will govern in a bipartisan spirit and little reason to expect that Obama will even be able to do so.

A closer race will ensure much more scrutiny is given to Senator Obama’s suitability for our nation’s highest elected office.

If, as I suggested in an earlier post, this really does become the Obama express, we will witness the putative and premature coronation of an insufficiently vetted candidate.

ADVICE FROM EVERYWHERE

Dick Morris advises McCain to draw a line in the sand in the congress until the bailout bill is reconfigured as a more fiscally responsible measure. Go to this link--http://thehill.com/dick-morris/theres-still-time--john-mccain-2008-09-30.html .

Rush Limbaugh advises McCain to get down and dirty with the democrats, exposing their leadership in Congress as having earned the blame for setting up the whole underlying mess. Go to this link --http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_093008/content/01125107.guest.html .

The McCain campaign has launched a short spot on YouTube highlighting his leading role in fighting to curb the Fanny & Freddy excesses against democratic resistance. The video includes a clip from President Bill Clinton corroborating that congressional democrats resisted his own efforts to accomplish the same. Go to this link-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2RZ0sUcVcE

MY ADVICE AS A TRIAL LAWYER

The time for pulling punches is long gone. In spite of the YouTube piece, Senator McCain has personally refrained from landing any hard hitting rhetorical blows on the democrats at all. He has about 30 hours to make the credit meltdown his own issue. If there ever was an event that emphasized the virtues of traditional economic principles and zero tolerance for corruption, this is it. The Senator from Arizona needs to go on the warpath, name names and promise to make things right.

And candidate McCain should concisely and pointedly make the case for a divided government. Does America really want Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid to have a rubber stamp in the White House?

He can repeat that Obama is out of touch with the mainstream, but this sort of charge loses traction as a generality. Every recent democratic presidential nominee is called a “liberal”.

Big deal.

But none of these candidates, while serving in the legislature, supported a measure that sanctioned allowing a delivered baby to die after a failed abortion. The explanation that Mr. Obama didn’t want to undermine Roe v. Wade is sufficiently lame that he should have to make it before a national audience.

There are more examples. But the forensic principle operating here is that details speak louder than repeated generalities. Former Navy Commander McCain needs to load the ammunition and get his off shots as frequently as possible.

Finally, Senator McCain needs to spend a solid, reassuring FDR moment in front of each audience, one in which he slows down and simply and clearly expresses his love for this country and his abiding faith in America’s future. I can hear him say these words with a conviction borne of a lifetime of struggle: “America is still the greatest country in the world. I have fought for her all my life. We are still a powerful and good nation, still the inspiration of the world, still the liberator of the oppressed, still the hope for those who live in the darkest places. Every runner stumbles sometimes. But this great nation will not fail because we will never give up. God bless America.”

JBG