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Mike Hodge: Necessary roughness

Column by Mike Hodge

Interesting column by Bill Kristol in today’s New York Times. He says “fire the campaign” to John McCain. He has a very valid point. It seems the McCain campaign has been fumbling the ball a lot lately. I hate to pile on (in keeping with the football theme), but the campaign seems to be going three-and-out. If the old John McCain emerges, he has a real chance of winning. If not, start practicing “President Obama.”

McCain and his campaign are not in sync. They’re not on message. If McCain will be himself and let Gov. Sarah Palin be herself, they will win hands down. Gov. Palin is a formidable person, when she’s not trying to act like McCain. After all, she revived his campaign for a second time this year. Palin always seems to energize the crowd, while McCain is just there. It’s beginning to look like Rush Limbaugh is right on when he said his listeners need to carry McCain across the finish line in spite of himself. McCain is too worried about being politically correct. If he would focus on the issues and lay his plans out for the future, he wins easily.

Let’s face it, Obama hasn’t closed the deal yet, and that speaks volumes about him. Obviously, there are people out there that have their doubts, and it’s showing, just like it did in the Democratic primaries. As much as the Obama camp tries to tie McCain to President Bush, Obama ought to be ahead by a huge margin (15-20 points) in the polls, he’s not. I think McCain still has time to turn this around, but it’s a very short time. I guess we’ll find out more at the debate Wednesday night. If McCain can’t score then, he’s going to have to go for the Hail Mary pass, and we know how they usually turn out.

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