It's Not the Speechwriter: McCain Must Be Younger than Obama

Don Surber thinks McCain needs a new speechwriter. I’m not so sure. I’ve seen that solution too often in Hollywood. Problem…? Get a new writer. It usually doesn’t work.

The real solution to McCain’s difficulties, such as they are, is to become more daring with his ideas, to inspire us. And this should be fun for him. (The speechifying will follow.)

Ironically, the most glaring weakness of his opponent is how deeply conventional Barack Obama is. Less than a centimeter beneath the “new politics” surface, Obama is the old politics personified–from “Chicago politics” to the most shopworn of liberal playbooks. Not one original idea there. (When you think about it, this whole endless campaign has featured almost no creative thinking. The only thing original about the Democratic candidates was their gender and skin color – if you can call that original.)

McCain must show himself to be the “younger” man by thinking more creatively. He should lead the way on innovation and dismiss Obama’s “change” for the silly rhetoric that it is. One possibility is to challenge America with a solid and detailed “Manhattan Project” for energy independence. But there are many others. What would you propose?

(And, please, no blather about rallying the base. Let’s talk ideas here.)