Stra-tee-jary

As the presidential campaign season enters its final lap (Wow does it feel good to write that) I can't help but feel the McCain campaign is feeling a little confused. They've struggled throughout the season to obtain a clear branding of John McCain. Originally this race seemed to be about 'Experience vs. Youth'. You had McCain as the old Washington pro and war vet, who knew how to get the job done. When that didn't work it morphed into 'Work Ethic vs. Rhetoric', highlighting Obama's long-winded speeches and characterizing them as nothing but empty words. From there, the addition of Sarah Palin gave an added youthful boost to the ticket so the McCain campaign once again rebranded itself as 'Real Change vs. Change'.

Now the McCain camp hasn't been completely ineffective in its charge for identity. One word that has come up again and again to great success is Maverick. In an election year where the presidency was almost guaranteed to a Democrat, the Republicans nominated the man with the greatest chance of victory. McCain's storied independence from his own party has been one of the only continually effective strategies of his campaign. Recently however, the campaign made one too many rebrandings and may be in an identity crisis with less than a month from November 4th.

A recent series of attacks from the McCain camp has sought to question the leadership ability and judgement of Barack Obama. Questions about domestic terrorist Bill Ayers and radical associations with everyone from Black Liberation theologists to militant Islamic thinkers have been spread through various news reports, campaign rallies, and television advertisements. The charges repeatedly ask us, the American people, to question, "Who is the real Barack Obama?". The charge rests on the assumption that we don't really know much about the junior Senator from Illinois and that perhaps his past record shows he is unfit to be President. Now, there are two things that worry me about this latest rebranding from the McCain camp:

1) If we can assume that Barack Obama is, 'Paling around with terrorists' as Governor Palin has been quoted as saying, then why has the McCain campaign not brought this issue to the forefront sooner? It seems to me that if Barack Obama really were some sort of Manchurian Candidate or terrorist sleeper cell, someone probably would have brought it to our attention sooner.

2) Probably more importantly the latest round of charges are causing a lot of uproar within the Republican faithful, which would be great, if the McCain campaign even believed what they were saying.

You see the problem is when you say that Barack Obama is friends with terrorists and you point out repeatedly that he has a funny sounding middle name, you invite some pretty harsh comparisons. So when a woman at a recent McCain event stood up and told everyone that she didn't trust Barack Obama because 'He's an Arab' well you've sort of made your bed, now you have to sleep in it. To think that this close to the election you're going to successfully brand your opponent as a terrorist sympathizer, is like Angelina Jolie branding herself as a normal mother. I mean, she had a vile of Billy Bob Thorton's blood around her neck for a while. It took Angelina years to go from wacko to normal mother, so if you want to transform Obama into a terrorist, you're really going to need some time.

But the real problem is that they don't even believe what they're saying. Immediately after the woman at the McCain rally charged Obama as being an Arab, McCain took back the microphone and told the crowd, "No, ma'am. He's a decent, family man, a citizen that I just happen to have disagreements with (him) on fundamental issues and that's what this campaign is all about."

Here is a little last minute advice to the McCain campaign, if you want this election to be about fundamental disagreements, then talk about them. Don't talk about radical associations, talk about the economy, or the state of education, or the multiple wars we're involved in, or the future of energy in our country. But when you come out with advertisements questioning whether Obama thinks bombing the Pentagon is a good idea, you sort of look foolish. Tell us Obama's tax increase on wealthy Americans will stall the economy even more. Tell us that Obama's views on health care will actually make our system less efficient and more costly. But you're running out of time.

Just recently the Obama Campaign released a plan that aims to free up money for small businesses, including a provision that seeks to cut down on capital gains taxes, making Obama sound more pro-business than McCain. It could spell good news for small businesses investing in the economy, and with money on the mind of every American, that's bad news for the McCain campaign.