I've noticed that some of the writing in McCain's speeches has improved.  Some of the commercials are actually pretty good.  Specifically the ones that focus on John McCain's biography, military history and his character.  
But the campaign strategists knee-cap their own efforts by attacking Obama with Bush/Cheney/Rove-like lies, half-truths and misleading tactics which omit relevant facts.  
For example, the McCain campaign ran a  commercial that blames the high price of gas on Obama.  It's identical to President Bush blaming the high price of gas on the democrats.    When John McCain writes an op-ed that attacks Obama in every paragraph, touts the success of the surge and parrots Bush talking points, they sound like the same old neocons that have led us astray over the last eight years.  
They spent a lot of time putting together a video that focuses on the media's infatuation with Obama--and their constant coverage of him.  
But with every sentence, every commercial, every speech, every attack, every complaint, McCain and his strategists seem to be more obsessed with Obama than the media is.
And now, it appears that Maliki advocates a withdrawal plan more like Obama's than Bush or McCain's.  
Here again, though, the McCain strategists make the mistake of not even acknowledging this and then they try to reframe the whole Iraq debate by repeating over and over again-- the surge is working, 
Sounds like George Bush to me.  
The more they do this, the more they sound like the neocons. 
If I were John McCain, I'd be asking my communications strategists to stop pushing Bush rhetoric, stop talking about Obama, Obama, Obama,  and start talking about me.  
If they insist that it's important to draw contrasts, point out that they haven't really established a "stand alone" John McCain, or a well-grounded, independent McCain brand to draw a contrast with Barack Obama.  
If they say they just need to hammer away what's essentially coming off as "Republicans vs. Barack Obama, it is, tell them putting millions of dollars behind the wrong communications strategy can make a political campaign fail faster.