All he has to do is the impossible
Via TPM Election Central, the Obama campaign cuts to the chase about tonight’s debate:
On the big issues, this debate is one last chance for John McCain to do what he has failed to do throughout this entire campaign: explain to the American people how his economic policies would be any different at all than the failed Bush agenda he has supported every step of the way. It’s his last chance to somehow convince the American people that his erratic response to this economic crisis doesn’t disqualify him from being President.
. . . the real question is not how many attacks McCain can land in the debate, but whether he can finally communicate a vision to turn this economy around.
Not only that, the vision he unveils has to be so convincing that a significant chunk of people who are currently planning to vote for Obama step back and say, “Whoa! What were we thinking?!”
After all, Obama built his lead during the recent financial meltdown by consistently presenting (in the debates and his omnipresent ads) the kind of policies and temperament that people think are best suited to getting us out of the ditch. McCain needs not only to show that he can play in the same league, but to convince people somehow that what we saw from Obama over the past month was some kind of illusion.
It’s McCain’s bad luck that after building up a mythology about his awesome leadership potential and supposed ability to take charge in a crisis, an actual crisis and test of leadership erupted in the middle of the campaign, and he failed.
Update 1: Then again, I could be wrong — McCain’s highly focused debate preparation may carry him through.
Update 2: More seriously, if it weren’t probably too late (and beyond McCain’s ability to pull off performance-wise), this is reasonably good advice on how to re-establish his brand from one of the guys who helped him build it.
Stumble it!