John McCain is probably going to lose this election. The economic crisis, which he is ill equipped by training and interests to handle, threatens to wipe out his campaign. Though Barack Obama has shown no greater insight or skill in handling the looming disaster, Mr. McCain's personal deficit on economic policy redounds to his opponent's benefit.
But Mr. McCain has gifts that Mr. Obama does not, convictions and leadership traits that the country could very soon need more desperately than a policy expertise. Mr. McCain should risk that Americans don't want to be mollycoddled and manipulated. He would do well to buy commercial time on national television and deliver a speech that goes something like this:
My friends, I am neither young nor eloquent, handsome nor smooth. But I have lived a long life, much of it in service to America in war and in peace. And I have always stood for straight talk. There has been no time in our nation's recent history when the American people more needed to hear the plain truth from their leaders. A fundamental reason our country faces economic catastrophe is that we have built our lives around running from truths about the American way of life
RealClearPolitics - Articles - The Speech John McCain Should Give
But Mr. McCain has gifts that Mr. Obama does not, convictions and leadership traits that the country could very soon need more desperately than a policy expertise. Mr. McCain should risk that Americans don't want to be mollycoddled and manipulated. He would do well to buy commercial time on national television and deliver a speech that goes something like this:
My friends, I am neither young nor eloquent, handsome nor smooth. But I have lived a long life, much of it in service to America in war and in peace. And I have always stood for straight talk. There has been no time in our nation's recent history when the American people more needed to hear the plain truth from their leaders. A fundamental reason our country faces economic catastrophe is that we have built our lives around running from truths about the American way of life
RealClearPolitics - Articles - The Speech John McCain Should Give
