As Aides Map Aggressive Race, McCain Often Steers Off Course

[babylonsister]

As Aides Map Aggressive Race, McCain Often Steers Off Course

By Juliet Eilperin and Robert Barnes
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, July 31, 2008; Page A01


KANSAS CITY, Mo., July 30 -- Sen. John McCain last week delivered one of his sharpest critiques yet of Sen. Barack Obama's Iraq policies, carefully reading a prepared speech that accused his Democratic rival of failing the commander-in-chief test and promoting ideas that would force American troops to "retreat under fire."

But just hours after his crisp performance, the Republican presidential candidate blurred his own message with an offhand comment to a television interviewer that Obama's proposal for a 16-month time frame for removing combat troops from Iraq might be a "pretty good timetable." That seemed to run counter to his attempts to cast Obama as naive on foreign policy, and it sent his aides scrambling.

As Election Day nears, McCain's campaign is adopting the aggressive, take-no-prisoners style of Karl Rove, the GOP operative who engineered victories for President Bush. The campaign continued the attack Wednesday with a sarcastic television ad deriding Obama as a "celebrity," part of an intensifying effort to cast him as an elitist.

But the sharp-edged approach is being orchestrated for an unpredictable candidate who often chafes at delivering the campaign's message of the day. It is that freewheeling style that has made him popular with voters and cemented his reputation for candor and straight talk.

McCain, who was most comfortable as an underdog in the unscripted environment of the New Hampshire primary, makes his advisers cringe as he delivers the attack line -- and then keeps talking. In that respect, he is no Bush, his handlers say.

The result is a presidential campaign that sometimes rolls between serious policy discussions about the nation's future and gotcha politics aimed at undermining his opponent's character. McCain himself is often caught in the middle, proclaiming his commitment to the former while participating in the latter.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/30/AR2008073003246.html?hpid=topnews

[Alter Ego]

1. Or, maybe McCain's just a doddering old dunderhead

who can barely hold it together--thus the frequent slip-ups.

"Freewheeler" my ass.

[babylonsister]

2. This article, and others, don't bode well for McCrabby. The media

is finally catching on to the fact that he's a LOSER.