Saturday, I was listening to the radio during my daughter's soccer game, when a McCain ad concerning stem cell research played. After the game, when I got back to the computer, I found that most people who had posted about the ad seemed surprised by McCain's pledge to move stem cell legislation through Congress. Personally, I wasn't surprised by the content bcause though he had failed to answer the science questions submitted by Nature, unlike Barack Obama, they had inserted previous language from McCain and I had just read his position, hours earlier.

No, what struck me about the stem cell ad was that though it mentioned Palin and ended on their logo, the phrase "John McCain and his Congressional allies" was repeated so much, it was like he had a new running mate. Which, if you think about it, running with his "Congressional allies" is almost the direct opposite of some advice offered by George Will on a recent edition of This Week and in one of his newspaper columns. If I might paraphrase, essentially Mr. Will says that since there's no doubt the Democrats will increase their majority, perhaps McCain should run on the concept of divided government.

Admittedly, I had intended to post about McCain's new running mate, but time started slipping and I became more focused on other matters. By itself, I probably would've let that one completely slide, but then earlier this evening, as I was sitting down in my swing state to laugh at David Caruso, a totally incongruent ad ran on the television.

YouTube says that this new ad was uploaded six days ago, so it was obviously part of a larger strategy and because it made no sense in light of the headlines from the day, the ad time must've been bought well in advance and it unquestionably shows that not only has Sen. McCain been playing the current economic "crisis" for political gain, but he's so far out of touch that no one thought to pull it.

Perhaps, I'm misreading the ad, though I've now played it several times. I really can't see any other purpose or intent, except for Sen. McCain and his "Congressional allies" to try and take credit for the bailout package passing through Congress. Though as we all know, it did not and it failed due to a lack of Republican votes.

IOW: If Sen McCain wanted to claim leadership, then something would've had to have happened and instead, the protections about which brags did not become law.