Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Law Students Blogs -> Nuts & Boalts

Law Students

: Nuts & Boalts

How to Run Against McCain?

Can we start talking John McCain now? I liked Hillary once upon a time, and I?ve humored her candidacy to ensure my own domestic tranquility, but, to paraphrase a line her husband used in 1992 (that he himself took from Reagan in 1980), ?It?s time for her to go.?

All these months of internecine fighting have not ?strengthened the eventual nominee,? or ?shown our democracy in action,? or ?brought new voters to the fold.? (Where is Chris Farley when you need him?)

They?ve only let John McCain run around the country with a shiny halo undimmed by even the meekest criticism from a docile media. The country hasn?t yet gotten the telegram that he?s no longer a Mr. Rogers moderate. He?s the carnivorous offspring of Strom Thurmond and Glen Beck.

Time matters. At this point in the 2004 campaign, John Kerry was an effete, wind-surfing, brie-tasting, troop-hating pederast. And possibly an informer for Al Qaeda. John McCain deserves the same treatment ? except on, you know, actual issues instead of imaginary demagogic ones.

But don?t worry, there?s plenty to choose from. I think there?s ten themes the Democrats should be trying out:

1. Old man

2. Crazy and ill-tempered

3. Crazy and ill-tempered old man

4. McCain of Arabia

5. Flip-flopper

6. W, the Sequel

7. Anti-choice, anti-Social Security, anti-health care (the usual liberal lines; bleh)

8. Slave to the far-right (playing kissy face with Falwell, etc.)

9. The Double Talk Express (various hypocrisies and about-faces since 2000)

10. Clueless on the economic realities of the middle class

Personally, I like a combination of #6, 9, and 10. Don?t look a gift lame-duck President in the mouth. If Biden or Clarke were the nominee, maybe #4. But I don?t trust Obama (or most Democrats) to be able to talk about foreign policy coherently. Heck, I?m not sure I trust them to do foreign policy.

But, whatever is this attack option, it?s time to start loading the cannons. You can?t transform the country into a radiant, hopeful place unless you first dismantle the other guy.

Full post as published by Nuts & Boalts on May 07, 2008 (boomark / email).