The ad, like much of McCain's messaging lately, focuses on energy independence, global warming, and standing up to other Republicans. Not to be too much of a concern troll, but there is simply no way that a Republican can win a campaign with this message. It is the exact same thing that caused Democrats to lose elections for the past two decades: McCain is admitting that the opposing party is right. Not only will this anger McCain's base, but when even the Republican nominee for President admits that Democrats are right on global warming, odds are that people will just vote for actual Democrats instead of the Republicans who are trying to act like Democrats. To quote Arianna Huffington quoting George Lakoff:
As cognitive psychologist George Lakoff told me: "Democrats moving to the middle is a double disaster that alienates the party's progressive base while simultaneously sending a message to swing voters that the other side is where the good ideas are." It unconsciously locks in the notion that the other side's positions are worth moving toward, while your side's positions are the ones to move away from.
McCain's message focus for over a week now has been on how we need progressive change on energy and global warming. Even if his policies don't match, he is at least running on a progressive, Democratic message. Not only does this imply that Democrats have the right ideas on energy, global warming and other ideas, McCain's ad explicitly says that he stood up to other Republicans on this issue. In other words, McCain is bluntly saying that Democrats are right, and Republicans are wrong.
I don't know how you win an election by making "the other guys were right along" the focus of your message. Seems to me that it will only reinforce the growing notion that Democrats were right all along, and result in more people voting for Democrats. While McCain might be claiming in low-key conference calls that he was right and Obama was wrong on Iraq, that is not the focus of his paid media, campaign appearances, or press releases at this time.
If McCain wants to win this election, he needs to convince people that Republicans are right, and Democrats are wrong, not the other way around. Now, granted, that might be an impossible task right now, so perhaps he is simply stuck between a rock and a hard place on this one. He can either run defending a message, a party and ideas that the vast majority of the country now opposes, or instead run a campaign where he says the other party was right all along. That is a pretty tough place to be in, and it is why he is losing this campaign right now.
As a final note, while Obama appears to be moving to the right in the general election, it should be noted that he paid media, which is what most voters will actually see, is generally vague and doesn't talk about standing up to his own party. Obama isn't overtly opposing his own party or base in his advertising like McCain is. His positioning toward the center seems to be directed more toward pundits, news junkies, and the highly engaged. . In other words, right now he is interested in securing favorable media coverage from The Village, and in collecting $4,600 donations from Clinton's heavy hitting fundraisers.
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