A Strategy for McCain

National Review Online ^ | July 21, 2008 | Lowry and Ponnuru

[Checkers]

yep

[supercat]

My grandmother used to love watching Groucho Marx on "you bet your life"-and that is about the best note I can strike about this whole miserable situation.

I used to watch that show on the local PBS affiliate, but I never saw anyone get the magic word.

[TADSLOS]

And if you factor in the fact that the war is no longer issue # 1 in the election....he’s going to lose.

Exactamundo, and he is handing the election to Obama by goading him to go to Iraq to go see success for himself (and his media circus). The Iraq campaign is done thanks to Bush and Petraeus and a new surge in Afghanistan is unfolding. Obama can say he didn't support the surge in Iraq and wants a troop withdrawal over time to focus combat power in Afghanistan, which is in the early stages of happening now anyway.

McCain's one and only campaign "strength" has been sucked out from under him by his own poorly played hand by giving Obama a giant free pass to re-frame Bush's current execution of the war in his own image while he's "on the ground". The ineptitude of the McCain campaign for encouraging Obama to go global and steal his one and only discriminator is just stunning.