by Amanda Erickson
Play hard. Hillary Clinton-style hard.
That is the message of a new National Review piece urging presumptive Republican Presidential nominee John McCain (Ariz.) to hit Obama aggressively instead of trying to run a "politically virtuous" campaign.
Who did this best, the piece asks? Hillary Clinton. Authors Rich Lowry and Ramesh Ponnuru point out that once Clinton started playing mean in late February, her luck began to turn. She won a string of states, including Texas, Ohio and Pennsylvania. But by then, it was too late. Not so for John McCain, who still has four months to campaign.
See the full article on John McCain's campaign at NationalReview.com.







Comments
Hillary ran a tougher campaign against Barack than Grandpa McBush has.
Watching McCain's campaign is like watching a slow-motion train wreck. The old guy is all over the map and he's on both sides of almost every single issue.
Posted by: John E | July 21, 2008 1:24 PM
McCain couldn't run a campaign like Hillary's even if he wanted to because McCain is running for Bushs third term.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnb2IrsU1Cg
Posted by: Kurt | July 21, 2008 1:56 PM
Ahh the myth that McCain is running a clean campaign continues. He's running a campaign based on questioning the other candidates patriotism, attacking the other candidates wife, spreading rumors and lies about the other candidates heritage, hypocritically attacking the other candidate for pulling out of public financing when he did the same in the primaries, surrounding himself with lobbyists for foriegn dictatorships, and allying himself with bigots like Col. Day.
That's no clean campaign, it's the typical Republican play book.
Posted by: Liz | July 21, 2008 2:12 PM
This campaign is the same old slime at work. Question everyones patriotism and smear and fear.
Posted by: bill "Hussein" r. | July 21, 2008 2:47 PM
This is the thing that really bugs me about McCain--his total lack of curiosity. He knows nothing about, say, Social Security except for the neocon talking points, and he refuses to learn anything. He can't tell the difference between Sunni and Shi'ia and again, fails to learn. He talks about Czechoslovakia as if it still exists and can't remember after a couple of corrections that it still isn't a country anymore. I don't think it's seniity, I think it's intellectual laziness. We've put up with that for the last 7.5 years and we can't afford any more of it.
Posted by: Cheryl | July 21, 2008 3:00 PM
LOL!! OMG. The McCain Campaign is considering going into desperation mode and it's not even August!? McCain is supposedly so much more qualified yet McCain has to resort to smearing and sliming his opponent. McCain can't excite his base and bring in Independents because he has so many flaws. WOW!
Posted by: julia | July 21, 2008 3:14 PM
Cheryl:
Don't forget Grandpa's statement about the Iraq-Pakistan border today.
Also, since the media is so interested in Michelle Obama, why aren't they asking questions of Cindy McCain??
Like, how much money will you make with the buyout of A-B? How many millions?
And for a person who knows the average American so well, why did his wife say the only way to get around Arizona is in a private plane?? How many people in his state can affford a private plane?? Or the fuel it takes to fly it??
Talk about being out of touch!!!!
Posted by: BobHusseininAtlanta | July 21, 2008 3:55 PM
Notice how the reporter morphed the plan from playing "hard" to playing "mean"--a word the NR authors never used? No bias there. Nahhh.
Frustratingly to Republicans, McCain has not tried hard to go after Obama's many weaknesses. Perhaps because he's still playing by the "do not dare attack St. Barack" rules of the media.
Hopefully, McCain will realize what the polls show (overwhelming public recognition that the media is just another Obama campaign committee) and ignore the media's rules.
Posted by: Truth detector | July 21, 2008 4:11 PM
Hey, McCain his almost neck and neck by doing very little against OB. Things will heat up some, but it's still early. Summer time, everyones busy right now and not paying that much attention to the race like they will be coming up.
Tell ya what, if the had a debate, that would heat things up.
Posted by: Teresa | July 21, 2008 9:36 PM
Since when hasn't McCain not attacked Obama,He has been doing that since before the primaries ended.If not himself the republican party,so he does not have to take the blame.Republicans cannot come up with their own attacks they have to use the ones Clinton used.What does that say about them.They figure the same as Clinton did that Obama would not outright attackonly reply to attacks
Posted by: bernie | July 23, 2008 9:30 PM