The Kitchen Sink Method Part Two

The choice before us hasn't changed much from what I wrote long ago despite McCain using the kitchen sink method to try to improve his polling. His messages have changed sometimes daily, sometimes weekly. Some messages have gone away. More strawmen have emerged since Palin was announced. Increasingly negative and demagogue-ish type ads are appearing (the Obama wants to teach kindergartners about sex in school was the worst yet) while he decries sexism by Obama that doesn't exist (the pig thing was ridiculous and Obama handled it excellently by calling a spade a spade about the reaction. Joe Blow saw a week, cheap shot at calling Obama sexist by using a phrase most everyone has used)...

Maybe the McCain campaign forgot that this throw everything at the wall and see what sticks strategy caught up with Clinton when her messages changed too quickly day-to-day because nothing resonated enough to increase her poll numbers. When a candidate's message changes too much or they're saying too many things than the average person can clearly organize about their positions, people tend not to "know" that candidate as well and feel less likely to vote for them. In other words, people given too many messages catch on that they're just being told anything the candidate thinks will get their vote and lose faith in that person's promises. McCain seems to be going there as a candidate. It is really desperate. If you're too desperate and you don't have enough style/charisma points to put those messages out there in a way that makes the candidate witty/funny/intelligent/empathetic to the voter so they feel "connected" to the candidate, you can't pull off the strategy and your numbers go back down as the number of messages go up over an extended period of time.

McCain just isn't Reagan enough to pull that off. He doesn't have enough style. He doesn't have enough witticisms. He doesn't even deliver the old standards about raising taxes and expanding government well. He just looks like a cad willing to say whatever he can to get in bed with his date...oh wait! A month or so ago that's what McCain accused the Obama campaign of doing.