Conservative Take on McCain Strategy: Is This Real?

Two respected conservative voices, Rick Lowry and Naresh Ponnuru, provide their take today on how John McCain can regain his political footing:

"The good news for Republicans is that Obama can be beaten. The bad news is that the McCain campaign has embarked on a course that — although it has some of the right elements — seems likely to fail.

McCain would be most comfortable running in accord with his particular notions of political virtue while emphasizing character, national security, and a few pet causes such as earmarks. If he wants to win, he has to leave his comfort zone. He should take a page from Hillary Clinton. She did not, of course, defeat Obama, but she road-tested a strategy that cost him support among crucial constituencies — and that strategy is even better suited to McCain’s general-election run than it was to her primary campaign."

Of course, Messrs. Lowry and Ponnuru are overlooking one stark reality: John McCain has looked far less than ready for prime time to date. From my persective, he can only win by sewing deep seeds of doubt about Barack Obama in pivotal states, since there are very few states he might take from the 2004 roster of Democratic wins, e.g., Michigan. (Does this make yet another argument for a McCain-Romney ticket? Probably.)

But don't listen to me. Read the conservative case for McCain.