McCain is in a better position to use this strategy against Obama than Clinton was. She was never wholly convincing in her adopted role as a working-class warrior. McCain, on the other hand, has the warrior part of the persona in his genes. Nor does McCain face the constraints Clinton did. Going negative in a primary makes party loyalists deeply nervous, and explicitly attacking cultural liberalism in a Democratic primary is unthinkable. Obama has more evident weaknesses than he did when the Democratic primaries started and he was freshly on the scene. His core audience, finally, is a smaller proportion of the general than of the Democratic-primary electorate.
Over at Talk Left, Big Tent Democrat actually agrees with Lowry/Ponnuru's advice, but still isn't shaken:
The good news is that McCain is an inept campaigner and his campaign is also inept. The other good news is that the Media does not want to play along. ... It is because McCain is so weak a campaigner that Obama seems a shoo in to me. A better Republican candidate could have a chance. McCain is not that candidate.
UPDATE: I'll be on Sirius Satellite Radio at 5:30pm EST tonight on "Make it Plain with Mark Thompson," discussing Obama's overseas trip.
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