The right says McCain needs to get mad—O’Reilly, town hall attendees, “the folks” want McCain to fight, stand up for himself, articulate the severe differences between he and his opponent. Republicans across the fruited planes are pleading and praying that McCain will break the previous two debate stalemates tonight.
McCain needs to talk about Obamanomics—“spread the wealth” economics—Obama’s own revealing words to a plumber at his rally. He needs to articulate why taxing any income bracket in this economic environment will hurt are economy and why pro-growth economic policies work. It’s the economy stupid and McCain’s policy prescriptions are far superior to Obamanamics, which is a throwback to 1930s economic policy that was responsible, thanks to FDR for extending the Great Depression, not fixing it. Or, in the words of Mark Steyn, “Lots of other places – from Britain to Australia – took a hit in 1929 but, alas, they lacked an FDR to keep it going ‘til the end of the Thirties. That’s why in other countries they refer to it as “the Depression” but only in the US is it ‘Great’.”
Is McCain capable of articulating the differences between himself and Senator Obama without looking like a hot head? Is he too wedded to being the guy in the middle that everyone likes, getting a free ride from the media because they love his buck-your-party nature, that he doesn’t know how to draw necessary contrasts that will help Americans understand why he’s the better candidate for this economic environment?
Rumor is that McCain will confront Obama—about what? Bad economic policy prescriptions, associations from his past that tell voters legitimate things about Obama’s world view—that he doesn’t think America is a force of good in the world—or worse, that he’s chosen to associate with people of that world view for the purposes of political opportunism?
Rush says we’re going to have to drag McCain across the finish line… I don’t believe it. McCain has to do it himself, and tonight he has another shot at it.
During the debate I’ll be streaming live from FoxNews.com’s Strategy Room—email us at strategyroom@foxnews.com.
