We all know that Senator Obama will be on his best behavior at tonight's Presidential Debate, just as he was last time. And that is, frankly, the best course of action. While you and I are convinced of his "Presidentialness", and most of America saw him as much more presidential than McCain last time, he has one deal left to close with moderates of all registrations. He has to show those who are not as strongly in his corner as we are that he can spar just as well on offense as he can on defense.
Follow me over the lump for the specifics.
Last time, he was complimentary. He was the better man. He exuded a level of class to which McCain would never bother to aspire. Barack was downright diplomatic, and for that I applaud the man and his choice of tactics. This time, though, America needs to hear Senator Barack Obama land a few verbal haymakers on McCain's chin. And I don't mean to suggest that our man call his opponent "old" or "erratic" or (for gawd's sake not again) "out of touch". Yes, I expect Obama to continue to be the gentleman we all know him to be. However, Obama has to take a few swings at McCain tonight - lest he be perceived a wimp. And I have found the perfect punch. Yes, I have discovered that holiest of boxing holies - that one swing for which your opponent can have no defense and from which he cannot recover.
You can use all of the ephemeral charges you want on a political opponent, but that doesn't make them facts.
They can call Obama a radical, a Muslim, an America-hater - but that doesn't make the man any of those things. We all know that he's none of those things. Americans are learning more and more each day how those things are not true.
We can level all the charges we can think of at McCain but unless they are facts, they aren't necessarily believed. We all know that he's a deregulator, that he was once one of Chuck Keating's little band of criminal errand boys, and that if there's an elitist in this campaign, it is the hundred-millionaire, seven house-owning, personal jet-flying John Sidney McCain who spends $250,000 a year on servants. But just like the charges they level at our man, those intangibles don't necessarily stick with voters.
But there are some dirty, sticky, indisputable facts about John McCain which Obama can bring to the attention of the American Public that will land on McCain's chin like a Rocky Marciano uppercut. They're the facts that McCain has been trying to run away from since the campaign started in earnest, and they're absolutely the worst things you can say about him.
John McCain is a Republican.
John McCain is the new leader of the same Republican Party that has lead this nation to the brink of economic disaster.
John McCain and George W. Bush are two peas in the same Republican Party pod.
John McCain represents the Republican Party which is responsible for the unacceptable state of this nation.
And the dirtiest, stickiest, most undeniable fact of them all:
John McCain has been endorsed by Republican President George W. Bush.
Barack Obama has got to marry John McCain to his own Republican Party - and all that goes along with that fact. The American People have lost sight of McCain's party affiliation. You haven't. I haven't. But alot of voters have forgotten this about McCain during all of the coverage of the convention events, the hurricanes, the fairy tale story of Caribou Barbie, and the smears that have been blasted into their living rooms.
McCain has been able to at least partially bury the fact that he is in an unholy state of wedlock with the Republicans who have brought ruin to this country's standing in the world, weakened our currency, made our addiction to petroleum stronger than ever before, increased the size and expense of our government, started a wrong-headed war, and worst of all - wiped their collective asses with our sacred Constitution. (The Senator may wish to adjust my choice of words here. I'll understand.)
Please, folks...rec this thing up so that somebody high in the campaign will see it and will add this weapon to Barack's arsenal.
To the Obama Campaign, we of the Daily Kos implore you to take what opportunity you get during tonight's debate to fuse John McCain inseparably to his Republican Party and their failures and to strongly, pointedly bind John McCain to George W. Bush for all the world to see. Don't be polite about this one. Bring it to his doorstep like a criminal charge. Don't wait until the final debate to use this club on McCain. Haul it out tonight! Knock McCain on his ass with it and then hammer the issue home for the rest of the campaign. Keep these facts in the forefront of the minds of America so that by the time they go to the polls, McCain is indelibly equated with the Republican Party and their failures, their Republican failure of a president, and the enormous degree to which Republicans have failed their responsibility to us.
America can't survive four more years of Republican failure.