What's my message again???

I can't help but notice that all the headlines the past several days are talking about how John McCain is struggling to find a "big, strategic message" to bolster his faltering campaign against Democratic presumptive nominee Barack Obama. It seems peculiar that a political candidate should have to "search for" his message so far into the campaign. If he hasn't figured out why he should be president by now than perhaps the American people ought to take that as a sign of things to come and see to it that the candidate who HAS had a consistent message since Day One walks through the doors of the Oval Office on January 20, 2009. We can't exactly afford to make the wrong choice AGAIN.

If you listen to the campaign coverage these past several days the language of the reports actually makes the race for the highest office in the land sound more like a game of chess, in which strategy and clever manipulation of the playing field will determine the winner rather than an intelligent side-by-side comparison of the candidates' political views, policy positions, leadership qualities, and moral character. Correct me if I am wrong but is not the object of this protracted competition to determine which individual would actually make the best president and not to simply smear the opposition so effectively that the lies actually begin to define the individual and leave the voters with a bad taste in their mouths on Election Day?? This may seem naive but I find that as the General Election campaign gets into full swing it grows increasingly difficult to determine what is factual truth and what has been fabricated and/or exaggerated to make good dramatic news.

The problem as I see it is this: John McCain's fundamental message has proven inadequate to the task of defeating the Obama Movement. As a result the McCain camp thinks that the next best thing to an actual message is a calculated strategy aimed at defining Barack Obama on their terms rather than his own. If they can convince the American people that voting for Obama is dangerous and that it might even result in another terrorist attack (which the McCain camp has already stated would be "good" for their cause) than perhaps people will be frightened into supporting McCain even though his own camp admits that he isn't really sure what his message is anymore. After all the scare tactics did after all work for the Bush Administration and where GWB treads John McCain isn't generally far behind.

So while John McCain waits for someone on his campaign staff to tell him what his message is going to be this week the rest of us are left to wait and wonder.. what will they think of next???