McCain needs new advisors

Marc Ambinder has some good analysis about what's going on here.

Senator John McCain needs to clean out the advisors who have pursued this negative strategy and replace them with people who know what they are doing. The American people aren't going to let McCain off for dishonesty and craveness because he was a heroic POW 30 years ago. What matters is NOW; these advisors' failure to realize that will damage McCain. They have consistently attributed false and craven motives to Senator Obama without evidence; they jumped to the most favorable conclusion for themselves about Obama's cancellation of a troop visit and used wounded soldiers as political props in the process. This action alone is worth absolute rejection and disgust.

Rather than wait and get the facts, they sent out statement after statement and released a false ad for their own political benefit. The craveness of this is beyond words. They also accused Obama of preferring to lose a war in order to win a political campaign. This charge is beyond belief; yet, rather than retract, they doubled down and have repeated it. This will play with rabid supporters; the rest of the electorate will wonder what has gone wrong with Senator McCain. To say that Senator Obama does not care about the lives or honor of soldiers as much as he cares about winning a campaign is a charge apt to Harry Reid and Nanci Pelosi, not Obama, who has voted for war funding in all but one instance, despite his opposition to the Iraq war for more than five years.

These advisors have brought a mocking and angry air to Senator McCain's campaign. I haven't mentioned Obama's efforts to tarnish his own character in this post; that's a whole other story I won't get into here. This is about McCain. These advisors don't have a clue about what they are doing and will damage McCain if they are not replaced. McCain hasn't just gone negative; he has made accusations about Obama that will simply not hold true to the American people. Now that the truth about the troop visit cancellation has come out, McCain's campaign will just look more foolish and sickeningly opportunistic.

There is plenty about Obama's record and views to illuminate and so make people think twice about voting for him; this is what the campaign should be doing. Instead, they are taking an implausable road with these accusations of lack of care for soldiers and the military and moral depravity concerning the Iraq war. Senator McCain should replace these advisors before his campaign becomes a snarky operation utterly without credibilty.