Attack McCain the way another campaign attacked a former Arizona Senator.
Much has been made of the Obama's desire to conduct a positive upbeat campaign against the Republican nominee. There is just one problem....that type of campaign doesn't work. Advisors like Carl Rove and Mark Penn aren't stupid, they know negative campaigning is the key. Ads like "Hands" can be effective with educated rational voters, unfortunately you can't win with only that constituency.
So, if Obama has to go negative, what should that campaign look like? Arianna Huffington, in her column today, wisely advised going after McCain's strength, National Security. I suggest the campaign consider taking a page from another campaign against an Arizona Senator, the Johnson 1964 campaign's "Countdown" ad. Utilize an attack theme like that ad, "McCain is too crazy and too old to have his finger on the button", examples from McCain's statements like "Bom-Bom Iran", could be intermixed with a countdown audio overlay.
This campaign is going to get tough. Winning this isn't going to be as easy as a lot of people think. It is difficult to predict what the "white guy" will do when he gets in the voting booth. Obama can't afford to run another campaign as lackluster and passive as Gore and Kerry did, he must attack, attack and attack from now till November.