With less than a month to go before the next President of the United States is chosen I thought I would take this time to share a few thoughts with all of you. Both Barack Obama and John McCain have a chance at winning this horse race, but they each have things they need to do to ensure victory.
Obama needs to keep his head on above all things. McCain has been trying to push Obama’s buttons for a while now, attempting to arouse anger in the Democratic presidential hopeful. Obama needs to keep a cool head to avoid being viewed as an angry black man.
Obama also needs to keep attacking McCain on issues involving the economy since it is the issue on everyone’s mind. Using McCain’s tie to the Keating Five incident could help, but reminding the American people that tax cuts don’t equal an economy boost would be even better. Doing so would give Obama another chance to link McCain to Bush and push the strong points of his proposed tax plan.
McCain has two options at this point; he can either keep betting at the tracks (like he did with Palin and his Campaign Suspension) or he needs to pull a 180 and start showing the American people he has a grasp on the important issues (like the economy and health care).
Trying to pull a 180 at this point in the game is not only risky, but difficult. Doing so successfully would require McCain to take control of the narrative (something he seems to utterly fail at) starting with his own image. McCain needs to stop taking cheap shots at Obama which just make him look like the weaker candidate and start showing America he has a better grasp on the problems at hand than Obama. McCain needs to avoid talking about the economy, instead focus on foreign policy and oil crisis two areas he seems strong with voters.
If McCain still wants to throw the dice (I mean what does he have to loose really?) he should stop looking at angering Obama which has done nothing but bite him in the ass. Start by really pushing at Obama’s “socialist” health care plan and start asking the question “What are you going to cut from your change platform now that the economy is in the tank?” Or better yet, really go after the “looking back” aspect that Palin touched on in the VP debate. Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, use the opportunities given to you by that running mate of yours.
-Mr. Ed
