It's obvious why McCain doesn’t want to talk about the Republican Party.

The Obama campaign is not a reaction to events. It is the product of a THEORY about how a non-Republican might be able to win despite the presumed broad public antipathy toward Democrats. It is a reaction to ten and twenty year old political events that were formative of Obama’s political sensibilities. (Like all those 1990s “food fights”)

In the interim the Republican Party has controlled every aspect of government and behaved pretty much like Hitler 2.0. There hasn’t been a partisan “food fight” lately, since that requires two sides both willing to have a fight.

Eventually the public got a little teeny bit wise and has rejected the Republican brand. So the starting conditions for the Obama theory do not exist. It was a crackerjack idea for 2000, but ass-backward for 2008.

Obama likes to pretend that Republicans are mostly lovely people of good will, spoiled by a few bad apples. For the first time since 1976 most Americans disagree.

What is McCain’s greatest weakness?

He is a Republican. In the public mind he’s a sort of not-so-bad Republican… the public doesn’t hate McCain and would be generally happy to support him if it weren’t for that one thing…

He is a Republican.

Obama seeks to tie McCain to Bush while soft-peddling their most salient point of similarity. That’s like writing a novel without using the letter ‘E’—possible, but stupid.

Tactics are not independent ends. They are useful only to the degree they advance strategies. (The Iraq War is a perfect example of tactics without strategy. Hopelessly lost but making good time.)

Tying McCain to Bush is supposed to be the tactical expression of a strategy of capitalizing on the public distaste for Republicans. Without the strategy, the tactic is just some un-focused thrashing.

Assemble a focus group. Say the word “Republican” and people get red in the face.

It's obvious why McCain doesn’t want to talk about the Republican Party. His reasons are political. It is less obvious why Obama doesn’t want to talk about the Republican Party. His reasons seem to be personal… like he got some idea in his head in the 1990s that approval from Republicans is worth more than approval from Democrats.

That was an uber-kewl idea back when Republicans were 40% of the country. It’s an uber-dumb idea when the Democratic Party is MUCH larger than the Republican Party. The Republican Party is now about the size of Bush’s approval ratings. It’s less than 30% of the electorate!

To be reluctant to run against the Republican Party as a wholly discredited INSTITUTION in a year when, for the first time in a generation, that is a Majority position is political malpractice.

Rather than merely stating the negative, I should have been explicit in offering an active prescription.

Obama needs to step back some. The people who will love him love him, and that won't change. But he's maxing out on the luv thang so he needs to request/allow a wide spectrum of Dems to surrogate a message line he cannot propel himself, which is that America needs to take the country back from the Republicans.

The love side is only half the job. It cannot win on its own because nobody is loved by 50%+. The decisive voting block is always people who don't love either candidate, and they vote AGAINST things, not for things.

And Populism doesn't work without a shadowy conspiratorial enemy. "Us" requires a "them." Republicans... boo, hisssss.

Kerry tried to offer himself as Kerry and ran a convention that was about what a great guy he was. He also got the smallest convention bounce since forever. He probably would have done better as simply been the anti-Bush. (Everyone wants change, but not everyone wants a particular change.)