Joe McCain: Let John Be John
Senator John McCain’s brother, Joe, sent an angry e-mail to top McCain advisers on Monday blasting them for not permitting his brother to be himself. According to the younger McCain, his brother is “a great leader for his time,” but the campaign has depicted him as “crank and curmudgeon.”
Joe McCain was sharply critical of unnamed advisers and campaign official who “so tightly control the message” that those know John best are not allowed to the media to defend the Arizona Senator.
He went on to call the strategy of the campaign with regards to the media “counter-intuitive, counter-experiential, and counter-productive.”
The clampdown, he wrote, “has gradually bled away all the good will that this great man had from the press.”
Increasingly more individuals close to John McCain are criticizing the manner in which his campaign is run. They believe that his top advisers and officials have limited him too much and created an image of McCain – or allowed his opponents to create an image of him – that is incorrect. “Let McCain be McCain” is a mantra heard quite regularly among those who support McCain for years, decades even.
Although the e-mail from Joe McCain might have made a different months ago, there is little to no chance of it having a positive impact three weeks before the elections. McCain will have to cope with the situation as it is now, and with his image as it is now. The only thing he can do is to talk about the economy, day in day out, and to convince voters that his plan, not Obama’s, is what Americans need.
Meanwhile, those supportive of Obama will undoubtedly cite Joe McCain’s e-mail as further evidence that the McCain campaign is falling apart and ‘erratic.’
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