Why Painting McCain As "Another Bush" Won't Work

Patrick Ruffini has a great post up on his website titled The Left's Stupid Anti-McCain Messaging. He points out that the Democrats are moving full-steam ahead with attempting to spread the meme that John McCain is another George Bush. Fortunately for the GOP, that's not going to work, no matter how hard they try.

The American public first really got to know John McCain via the media's love affair with him from 2000 to 2006. The central theme of nearly every story written during that period was that McCain opposed Bush - they even highlighted the Senator's difference with Bush over the need for a "surge" in Iraq - a stance that Bush eventually agreed with.

Now I'm troubled a bit locally with the number of people that attempt to repeat the "McCain is Bush" mantra. But with remarkably little prodding, they then remember why they first grew to like the Senator - he was the anti-GOP anti-Bush, a pain in the Right's collective butts. Therefore, I don't think that much of a push-back is needed at all from the McCain camp to defuse this particular line of attack. Do it with humor, and do it often.

A suggested McCain line: "I was literally canonized by the media and the Democrats for being against George Bush and many of my fellow Republicans for the past eight or so years. You'll have to ask them why they're suddenly trying to change that story..."

That probably won't dissuade the Left from continuing this line of attack, but let them go ahead and waste their money. To paraphrase what Ruffini said, the Dems are great at online organizing, but they suck at messaging.