John McCain: A Winning Strategy

This message will go out to 1,000 bloggers and other onliners tomorrow. It's about how we are going to win this election for John McCain and Sarah Palin. Tracy (a political ally), Tracy, I'm going to distribute your site (http://talkstraight.org) widely tomorrow. I think we need to emphasize more and more practical steps (phone calls, contributing money, going door-to-door), the ground game, needed to win the election.

There are several issues that will continue to be "big," including William Ayers, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, and Obama's ties to the people (Franklin Raines, Jim Johnson, Goldman Sachs executives, etc.) that caused the financial crisis. (Also, we need to continue branding Obama as vaguely alien, un-American.)

In PA and Ohio, Biden's anti-clean-coal remarks will be significant. I'm finding a lot of practical benefits in going into the Beaver GOP office, making some calls (not a lot), and urging people who come in -- many -- to volunteer their time. To win the election, Obama MUST carry Pennsylvania, and it increasingly looks like he will not be able to do so.

We've got to emphasize the McCain Online Phone Bank (http://www.johnmccain.com/PhoneBank/NoPhoneBank.aspxand) and actually get people to use it.

The key is not to overwhelm people (volunteers) -- and to give them simple instructions on what to do . . . and say. I'm emphasizing McCain's "creative and dynamic leadership" in choosing a qualified woman -- a fellow maverick -- as his running mate. For most voters, that will be enough.

It's a big task. We need a million people to make an average of 25 phone calls each -- and then for them to make another 25 in the last 10 days of the election. If we do that, we will win.

We really need to get simpler and simpler as the campaign proceeds.

People like Paul, who has great material on the ground game, Kathy Morrison, and Wendy are going to play more and more important roles. We also need to energize people in New Jersey (and perhaps even NY) to win those states.

This is a rather sobering message for bloggers, who like to debate sexy "issues," many of which are of little interest to the public. The election is now about character, who has it (John and Sarah) and who doesn't (Barack and Joe). McCain and Palin are atypical elected officials, while Obama and Biden are more of the same.