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There are many people already wondering if the Obama campaign's forceful response to this latest dirty turn by the McCain campaign will force McCain back into a more civil and substantive campaign. It won't. I saw this turn by McCain coming a week ago and it will only get worse.
McCain once prided himself on running a clean campaign. And in apparent respects, he did exactly that in 2000 against Bush. But while he retained his principles, he lost the election to the kind of smears and dirty tricks that he decried. And so, as much as anyone, John McCain is unable to avoid the following conclusions:
1. A principled campaign is one based on substantive issues. 2. As with most Republicans, John McCain cannot win if the campaign is about substantive issues. 3. Dirty tricks and smear campaigns produce favorable results when substance does not.
And so he had the following choices:
1. Sell his soul and possibly win. 2. Retain his soul and likely lose.
Likely, McCain knew all of the above in 2000, and yet he still ran a clean campaign and went out with his campaign principles intact. But 2008 is different than 2000 for McCain for central reason: He has made the choice to abandon his principles. If McCain dipped his toes into Rovian waters with his ad starring Paris Hilton and Britney Spears, then he became completely submerged with his ad accusing Obama of wanting to teach first-graders how to have sex. And so the question of integrity in his campaign has already been decided: Integrity has been jettisoned with McCain's ambition to win. His soul has been sold.
Therefore, in 2008, McCain has the following choices:
1. Sell his soul and possibly win. 2. Sell his soul and possibly lose.
It's a no-brainer. There is no longer anything ethically holding him back from the dirtiest campaign we've ever seen.
And so, it will only get worse. This latest tactic is an attempt to drag Obama down into a mud fight, hoping that he takes the bait into remaking the contest into a smear war. Such a contest would neutralize the issue-advantage Obama has, bring Obama's favorability ratings down to McCain's level, and bring the fight to GOP home turf where they thrive: character assassinations. Obama can't win that fight, and McCain knows it.
If the Obama campaign is smart - and by all indications they are - then they will continue to do exactly what they're doing: running ads lamenting the very negative nature of McCain's campaign, and highlighting the lies his ads contain. This serves to turn McCain's negative ads against McCain himself, letting him wallow around in the mud all alone, watching his favorability ratings drop further - essentially making McCain attack himself. Obama needs to attack, but in substantive ways - which they are doing with the Keating ads - tying the attacks to substantive issues.
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