DEFINING McCAIN….This anti-McCain ad from David Brock’s shop is pretty decent. A little bland, but that might not be a bad way to start. However, I agree with Matt Yglesias:
I would, however, somewhat prefer to see early attacks focus on McCain’s disastrous thinking on national security issues — the economy argument is very easy to make, so it’s more important to get started on the more difficult task of making the case that for all the honor of McCain’s military service, it’s left him with a reckless and absurd strategic vision.
There’s no question that the economy is going to be a far more salient topic this year than it was in 2004, but it’s unlikely to be salient enough all by itself. And as Matt says, changing public perception of McCain’s national security credentials will be a slow task, so the earlier it gets started the better. Luckily, the basic structure of the current ad lends itself to any number of topics — not by coincidence, I’m sure — and my guess is that we’ll see an Iraq war version in the very near future.
