OPTIMISM

Posted at 7:48 a.m. ET

One key to turning this race around is keeping up troop morale.  The mainstream media would love to declare the race over, give Obama his crown and celebrate the ultimate victory of the 1960s.  They're not up to date, you know.

Bill Kristol, wisely, will have none of it.  We can win this thing.  Yes, accept the bad news as real, then determine a strategy to turn that bad into good.  Kristol:

...this year's race has already--twice--moved by more than 6 points over a span of only a few weeks. The race went from McCain up 2 (these are the Real Clear Politics averages) on September 14 to Obama plus 6 on October 2, less than three weeks later. In the four weeks before that, the race had moved from Obama plus 5 on August 12 to McCain plus 2 on September 12.

So while there's reason for McCain-Palin supporters to worry, there's no reason to despair.

Exactly.

On Thursday night, Sarah Palin more than held her own in the vice-presidential debate against Joe Biden. She may well have stopped the McCain campaign's slide and, with her assaults on Obama's tax-and-spend liberalism and his willingness to lose in Iraq, set up McCain for a strong performance in Tuesday night's debate.

He's got to deliver.  No more Mr. Nice Senator.

McCain can go on the offensive for the final weeks.

But what kind of offensive?

The positive component is pretty straightforward: McCain and Palin are common sense conservatives and proven reformers. The record of reform can be emphasized and contrasted with Obama's and Biden's record of conventional, go-along, get-along liberalism. And implicitly: If McCain and Palin are reformers and outsiders, it's not Bush's third term. More important is the negative message. The McCain campaign has to convince 51 percent of the voters they can't trust Barack Obama to be our next president. This has an ideological component and a character component.

You mean, we have a right to ask about Obama's character?  Wait.  My pills!

Character is a legitimate issue. Obama hasn't shown much in the way of leadership or political courage, and he's consorted with dubious figures. It's fair to ask whether Barack Obama is personally trustworthy enough to be president, and the McCain campaign shouldn't be intimidated from going there.

That's the key word:  Intimidated.  There is far too much intimidation in this campaign.  The race card is played, in a subtle way, almost every day.  There are whole areas of Obama's life that seem to be out of bounds, beyond a wall.  Mr. McCain, tear down that wall!

But one shouldn't underestimate the ideological issue, and the potency of the fact that Obama and Biden are orthodox liberals. They're for raising taxes, federally funding abortions, naming activist judges, and losing wars. The American people may think--they do think--the country's on the wrong track, that the Bush administration has made too many mistakes and that the Republican party's no great shakes. But they haven't suddenly become liberals. And they probably aren't crazy about the prospect of a liberal administration governing unchecked, hand in hand with a liberal Congress. During the next four weeks, the McCain-Palin campaign should make this risky prospect vivid.

That's good advice.

October 4, 2008.