McCain's people haven't figured this out yet. He is unelectable on Iraq and the economy and those are going to be the decisive issues this time around.
It's a pretty well-accepted phenomenon that candidates pander to the far right/left during the primaries and tend to move more toward the middle in the general. That's why I wasn't surprised to hear McCain's bad Iraq policy and bad economic policy up until he sealed the nomination. But he's been the Republican candidate for a while now and I don't see him moving toward the middle.
But moving toward the middle is not going to be enough of a winning strategy for McCain. He needs to move away from Bush's policies. Far, far, away. Miles away. If the world is a playground and Bush is in the sand box, McCain needs to be headed toward the jungle gym, pronto. This is his only real chance of winning in November.
Over the next month or so you'll see Obama begin to solidify his base and stake his claim to the Clinton voters. Even the ones that said they wouldn't support him will see McCain as an unacceptable alternative. Obama's already been playing the "Bush's third term" card against McCain. McCain deftly countered that Obama would be a second Jimmy Carter term, but the problem with that is that Carter's blunders are not fresh in the minds of every American.
If McCain truly wants to be the president, and not just a lame duck candidate in a year that his party doesn't think they have a chance (a la John Kerry, maybe?), then he's going to have to run against W. He needs to forget about Barack Obama, because this election is about George Bush.
