The McCain Shift

I will have more thoughts on this later, and will point to some other examples - but you're starting to notice a new McCain shift in tactics, and it might be the best closing move he can make. Watch this video from Letterman last night:



At about 3:40 or so, McCain openly praises Obama without being prompted. You saw it in the closing of the Al Smith speech as well, posted below. I think now that he has aired all of the Ayers laundry (no pun intended) and been able to cement his base by coming off as tough in the debate, McCain is going to make a hard, strong shift to the center to close out the campaign. He'll be the moderate McCain that has been missing for most of the campaign. He will come off as magnanimous and reasonable and likable. He'll hammer Obama almost exclusively on the "share the wealth" line from the Joe the Plumber saga. And I bet you start to see praise for Obama creep into McCain's stump speech with regularity in the closing days of the campaign.

It would be an interesting strategy shift. And it could work.

But as McCain gets more appealing personally, remember how he has campaigned. Remember the the vile venom Sarah Palin still spews from podiums around the country while having yet to face a press conference, the robocalls McCain's campaign is making about Ayers while stating in the debate it isn't an issue that matters to him, the complicity in allowing the Virginia GOP to use mailers like this one and encourage GOP operatives to draw connections between Obama and Osama bin Laden.

Even if John McCain suddenly becomes the man we had all hoped he would be throughout this campaign, remember the man he has been from the beginning of it.