End Game

Have I ever told you about my friend, John? He's a smart guy. Good writer. Sly sense of humor. Carries on lengthy email exchanges with Nigeria scam-artists. OK, maybe not so smart.

But he has a point, made in reference to the 2nd presidential debate, that is so correct as to almost be wrong. Almost. John identified the Achilles heel of the McCain campaign and it is this: voters have not bought a single piece of the McCain rhetoric up to now. (Thus, resultant, the negative campaign that has no substance to it.)

The upshot is that McCain has one chance -- tonight -- to hit Obama where it hurts. Of course, he cannot really bring up the Ayers stuff or go negative in general, because voters also don't like him for that (at least, the NYT says so). So John McCain has only one option remaining: he has to say something completely different than he's said thus far; in effect, he has to contradict himself, reverse course on a host of issues, flip-the-motherfucking-flop, etc. etc. That's no way to win an election. But it's all he has left.

Should make for good TV watching tonight.

Smart guy, that John.