I am more than ready for this friggin’ election to be over with and, my personal preferences aside, I think McCain is in trouble based on some of the ads I’ve seen running in southern Wisconsin. What I find interesting about these ads is that unless you look and listen closely, you’re not sure who the ads are for. For instance, I caught one out of the corner of my eye the other day and it ends with white text proclaiming “Change Is Coming.” Surprisingly (to me at least), it was an ad for John McCain.

As an undergrad I took a course on American History 1914-1945, and one part of the course I remember very clearly was something said regarding a presidential election during that time period. Of course, I can’t remember the candidates and I can’t remember the issues, but what I do remember is the professor saying that one candidate tried running on a “me too” platform, which basically meant that he was trying to outmaneuver his opponent using similar rhetoric on the issues. And I also remember the professor saying that in politics this almost never works, and that candidates are almost always better served trying to work diametrically opposed positions.

Regardless of your political bent, you have to admit that Obama’s got that whole “candidate of change” thing pretty well sewn up. Therefore you’d think McCain’s tactic would be more along the lines of “we need a strong, steady hand on the tiller.” You know, the opposite of change. For this armchair analyst, that’s a strategic goof from the McCain camp.

Again, trying suppress my own political convictions and give a neutral perspective, it seems like the problem for McCain is that if this election boils down to “change” vs. “no change” (which, substantive issues aside, I think it does), then “no change” is a tough position to take when all is not great with the state of the union. That leaves the other option of “me too” politics, where McCain has to also be the candidate of change, but a different kind of change. From a neutral perspective, that’s a tough sell coming down the home stretch.

From my wildly biased perspective, I don’t see how Obama can’t win. But I guess we’ll wait and see…

Current Mood: @#$#@% Tired of Politics |