My wife consistently expresses a fear of clowns.  There is, for her, something profoundly frightening about the cadaverous white face, the fixed, artificial smile and the in your face neediness that just freaks her out.  Watching John McCain give his so called pre-emptive speech on Tuesday brought that whole fear of clowns thing in to sharp relief for me.

            John McCain has a problem and it’s a problem that started for him when he ran for president back in 2000.  He doesn’t understand why he ever appealed to voters.  In 2000, his appeal to moderates and independents was only evident when he stood next to George Bush.  He wasn’t so much appealing because he was John McCain, but because he wasn’t George Bush.  The marketing geniuses who were running the Bush campaign saw this, and re-branded John McCain.  They did the same thing with Al Gore and John Kerry.  They didn’t change their candidate, they changed the opponent.

            John McCain is now stuck with a Republican imposed stain among core Republicans that requires one kind of re-branding and that contradicts the “I’m not George Bush” brand of 2000 which was more of a lesser-of-two-evils thing anyway.  The net result is that McCain has become an amorphous blob.  He has no clue what he needs to say to bring back his halo.  He believes he’s the same guy he was in 2000 and doesn’t understand why people can’t just love him and vote him the way they used to.

            One could argue that the same thing happened to Hillary Clinton after Iowa.  She and her handlers couldn’t figure out why the “Hillary is inevitable” strategy was failing.  They attempted to re-brand her and she became a shape-shifter, a say anything candidate.  Any way the wind blew- that’s the direction she went.  She couldn’t figure out why so many refused accept her inevitability and finished whining about how nobody understood her.  Nobody understood her because she went out of focus.

            John McCain appears to be heading this direction as well.  We see McCain and his marketing staff flailing around, looking for a way to sell him.  He can’t run as McCain2000 and keep the Republican base.  McCain is losing moderates and independents, because they’re looking for contrasts and finding Ron Paul (among others) more satisfying.  He’s tried channeling Ronald Reagan, but he has no on-camera charisma and comes off like the crypt-keeper.  He’s tried channeling the no-nonsense toughness of Dick Cheney, but he can’t pull of the scary “I don’t give a shit” cruelty that Cheney uses to such great effect.  McCain comes off as a grumpy, but needy grandparent who you know won’t follow through when push comes to shove.

            So, lately his handlers have got him channeling his opponent, Barack Obama- except we already have an Obama running.  McCain is beta-testing an “I’m just like him- only safer” campaign.  There’s no way he can pull this off, not with the extra baggage he’s accumulated.  And the more nebulous John McCain becomes, the harder it will be for people to see him as President.