Bill Kristol: McCain Should Get a Do-Over
Billy Kristol (the unintentionally funny one) at the NYTimes wants McCain to fire everybody and start over:
What McCain needs to do is junk the whole thing and start over. Shut down the rapid responses, end the frantic e-mails, bench the spinning surrogates, stop putting up new TV and Internet ads every minute. In fact, pull all the ads — they’re doing no good anyway. Use that money for televised town halls and half-hour addresses in prime time.
This, of course, misses one of the truths of campaigns. The longer a campaign goes on, the more it resembles the candidate. In Obama’s case, it has led to a smart and focused campaign. On McCain’s side, the impulsive, whiplash-inducing spins that make up most of what we’ve seen are actually indicative of John McCain’s character.
At Wednesday night’s debate at Hofstra, McCain might want to volunteer a mild mea culpa about the extent to which the presidential race has degenerated into a shouting match. And then he can pledge to the voters that the last three weeks will feature a contest worthy of this moment in our history.
Yeah, that’s not going to happen. John Sidney McCain III has gone all-in, and if he doesn’t win, he has nothing left.
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