Obama's substance & Hillary's problems

It's fairly easy to fall into the trap that Obama is nothing more than a candidate spewing empty rhetoric, which is true to a point, but it isn't as if the guy doesn't have ideas, liberal ideas, really destructive and bad liberal ideas.

The reason he does this is because it masks his ultra-liberal positions and makes him more electable. It is hard to believe that a candidate is advocating for the destruction of American life as we know it if he is smiling. That is similar to what happened in the 2006 mid-term elections. While the GOP was digging itself into a hole, the Dems were running, not on their radical liberal agenda, but with feel-good rhetoric that masked what they really wanted to do.

I do think that McCain should play up his own experience to contrast with Obama's lack thereof. This tact didn't work for Hillary because she has no experience, or no experience that isn't her husband's. Her claims of "35 years of experience" were as empty as Obama's calls for change and hope. She simply wasn't a credible candidate to making that pitch. McCain is.

I'll also note, since I'm on the subject of Hillary's awful campaign, that the reason her campaign failed is because (a) she wasn't credible on the experience issue, and (b) there wasn't a dime's worth of difference between her and Obama, policy-wise, and thus the more likable candidate prevailed. That's why the campaign descended into plagiarism charges, racist innuendo, "shame on you" and whining debate theatrics. McCain won't need to resort to that type of silliness as there are actually policy differences between he and Obama that he can key in on.

Thus, I agree that, generally speaking, McCain should focus on specifics of Obama's Jimmy Carter policy proposals and left-wing college professor ideas and attitude.

In any event, while McCain and the GOP shouldn't underestimate Obama's campaign, I'd argue that Hillary lost the Dem nomination more than he won it. I don't believe he's truly been tested on the campaign trail and if McCain runs a policy-driven campaign, he can smoke Obama big-time.

(Cross-posted at Redstate)