Obviously the Obama transition team isn't taking advice from some random blogger on TPM, but if they did, I'd like to raise my one cabinet recommendation: General Wesley Clark would make a brilliant choice for Secretary of State.

Tom Foreman: Let me start off by asking you a basic question: For all of the concerns about Georgia, for all of the saber-rattling right now - you've been there and you've done that - how worried should we be about the relations between the U.S. and Russia right now?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, I think we should be very concerned and it's not just the U.S. and Russia. This is really about NATO. It's about the U.S. leadership role in Europe and how European countries respond to the United States. So, we need to be focusing on not just a U.S. - Russia bilateral relationship, but we need to be focusing on Transatlantic unity in- and using that Transatlantic unity to shape the behavior of Russia. That's one of the areas in which I think the administration has frankly not been as effective in the last seven years as it could've been, because there's been a lot of emphasis on U.S. unilateral relations with Russia and elsewhere and not enough emphasis on Transatlantic unity.

Four years and a couple of months ago, I read on one of the lefty blogs I read (possibly TPM, a very different site back then) about the Senate candidate from Illinois who would be delivering the keynote at the 2004 Democratic National Convention. Everything I read about Barack Obama said he was a thrilling speaker and a man with a serious political future.

Freaking out. Freaking out. Freaking out.

Ohio looking good, Florida looking totally uncertain, I hear exit polling with Kerry 1 point up, but reported precincts show a 10% lead for Bush (don't panic yet, lots of votes to be counted, including Miami-Dade, which should be big for Kerry). Have they counted early voting there yet? Pennsylvania is going to be ours. Kerry wins the first swing state, New Jersey, which really isn't a surprise.

Also, no surprise here, but Barak Obama won his Senate race super-handily. But nonetheless, I think the future President of the United States' winning his first national race is big news.

So now, Democrats own many principles but without the labeling necessary to communicate those principles, they'll never get credit for them. So I think that starting now, and for the next four years, we have to start owning our words. And I think there are four words that the Democratic party must control (and four labels they must use, but I'll get to that in a bit). And those words are "Honesty", "Unity", "Responsiblity" and "Values". Yes, that's right, we must take "values" back. I'm sick of people associating anti-gay, anti-choice, anti-minority, anti-education, anti-science opinions as opinions of value. Frankly I'm offended that someone can claim to be a person of "greater values" than me. We can take this word back by returning its meaning to how we knew it before. I think this passage from Barack Obama's inspiring keynote speech at the Democratic National Convention sums this concept up perfectly:

For alongside our famous individualism, there's another ingredient in the American saga. A belief that we are connected as one people. If there's a child on the south side of Chicago who can't read, that matters to me, even if it's not my child. If there's a senior citizen somewhere who can't pay for her prescription and has to choose between medicine and the rent, that makes my life poorer, even if it's not my grandmother. If there's an Arab American family being rounded up without benefit of an attorney or due process, that threatens my civil liberties. It's that fundamental belief -- I am my brother's keeper, I am my sisters' keeper -- that makes this country work. It's what allows us to pursue our individual dreams, yet still come together as a single American family. "E pluribus unum." Out of many, one.

These words reflect precisely how I feel, and I'm absolutely sick of being told I am not a man of values because of that. I want this word back. The other three words -- honesty, unity and responsibility -- are there for dual purposes. First because they reflect what should be the driving principles behind the Democratic party. However they also represent the greatest differences in governance from the Republicans of today and more specifically from the current administration. 

When 2008 rolled around, I found myself wavering at first between who I would support in the primaries. My brain said "Hillary Clinton", because she had money, phenomenal support, a legacy. But in my heart, I wanted Barack Obama. It wasn't until Iowa and his huge win there that I let myself truly get on board. After that, there was no looking back.

January 3, 2008: Man, Iowa is cold. You know, gosh, this first primary (ok, caucus, whatever) has wiped me out. I don't know what I was thinking getting into another Presidential run. I'm old, I'm rich and Jon Stewart likes me. What do I need to be President for? Whew, looks like I dodged a bullet though, since Huck won. Hell, even Mittens beat me. Fourth place! With any luck I can get out of this in a couple weeks and go hit the craps tables for some R&R.

Also, you know this Obama kid seems pretty cool. I guess it wouldn't be so bad if he won. Certainly better than that creep Rudy.

January 4, 2008: WTF?!! For some reason the jokesters on CNN and Fox are saying that I had a good night! Are they nuts? This is what I get for cozying up to the press for so many years. Sheesh!

January 8, 2008: Aw, crap! I won New Hampshire! After my victory speech, I mentioned to Ricky D that maybe we should lay low and let the other guys duke it out. He didn't take the bait, he was all "Senator, it'll look like you're trying to lose! You're in enough trouble with conservatives as it is, you've gotta look like a fighter!"

He's right though.. I gotta figure out how to blow this thing without looking like I'm trying to blow it.

I told him maybe keeping a low profile would be "mavericky". He told me he could spin that. Spin, my ass!

February 5, 2008: DAMNIT! Super Tuesday... more like Stupid Tuesday (LOL). I let these guys have every opportunity to beat me, and the only one who hasn't managed to knock his own ass outta the race is Huck! Jeez, Mitt, you're up against Huck, a fella that thinks 30% and 23% are the same number, and me -- a guy that is barely running and that most conservatives don't even like... and you lost to both of us!

Ricky D said "Huckabee's putting up a good fight, but it's pretty much impossible to lose now, Senator. You're going to be the Republican nominee for the President of the United States!"

Lame. I wish Nevada would have another caucus.

March 17, 2008: I'm getting good at this "blowing it" thing... Someone asked me if I though condoms prevented AIDS and I pretended I had no idea. I swear, I was this close to asking if condoms were causing the subprime crisis. Hopefully the cable channels will pick up on this... Well, not Fox, of course, that's too much to hope for. I'm pretty sure I could wrap a bible in the American flag and beat a kitten to death with it, and Hannity would say it was "bold" and ask why O is so lenient on kittens. Much better than my Sunni/Shia gaffe, which it turns out is a bit to esoteric for voters... or reporters. I wish Mean Stevens hadn't said that "series of tubes" nonsense, that's a great line. He'd be my hero if he was kidding.

April 30, 2008: Ricky D was nagging me about a running mate, since I've clinched the nomination (yippee, whoo-hoo, let's throw a fuckin' cat through a window and sing zippidy-doo-dah!). I told him we should wait until Hillary chooses her nominee.

I hope I didn't look too happy when he said it was probably gonna be that Obama kid.

Also, I mentioned I'm computer illiterate (as if!), I hope that gets picked up in the mainstream press. Good news on that front, though, the boys on the bus are beginning to feel left out. It's about damn time. I tell you, I figured letting them see how lavish my damn "cabin" is would get them to realize I'm fucking rich as hell, but I made the mistake of feeding them and letting them play on my tire swing, and apparently that's enough to buy these lemming's love. Yo, Obama? Wanna win this thing? Put some Kraft EZ-Mac on the bus, watch your press coverage go through the freakin' roof.

May 9, 2008: Nothing new to report, except Rush seems to be backing off of his claim that I'm worthless scum. Grow a spine, you draft-dodging drug addict!

May 18, 2008: Just got back from dinner with Hagel. Dude is smart, he figured out I wasn't "really" running. It felt so good to finally tell someone. Then I begged him not to endorse me. He was like, "John, I wasn't going to endorse you even when I thought you were serious."

me: "Well, why not? You're one of my best friends!"

Chuck: "You just begged me not to!"

me: "That was before I knew you weren't going to... Now I want it!"

Chuck: "OK, I'll endorse you."

me: "You do, and I'll kick your ass, surrender monkey!"

We laughed. I guess you had to be there.

June 12, 2008: You know, I was checking up on some Twitterers that I like to keep up on and one said "McCain has flip-flopped way more than Kerry did, why don't teh media lamerz call him on it?" and you know what? He's right! I went out of my own way to flip-flop. Hell, I even said that I wouldn't vote for my own goddamn immigration bill! I flip-flopped on fucking TORTURE! You know, I hated to do that, it hurt like hell. But, look, after Iowa, I went and picked up "Dreams From My Father" on my Kindle, and I gotta say, I think a man with the sort of experiences O has had, and the intelligence and introspection he's shown while examining how his own story fits within a larger American and global story... I don't want to stand in the way of that. Plus that speech he gave after Jeremiah Wright hit YouTube, well it just about brought tears to my eyes. And this is coming from a guy that voted against MLK day (why hasn't that bitten me in the ass harder, too? Seriously, do I have to wear a hood?)

June 25, 2008: Ughh... I'm glad I'm not in this thing for real, or my feelings would really be hurt. The one sincere policy proposal I made was for a $300 million dollar prize for revolutionary battery technology, and everyone is laughing at it! Be careful what you wish for huh?

The thing is, the prize wasn't really about electric cars per se (I still think Hydrogen fuel cells are the way to go, the infrastructure problems are actually a great opportunity to jump-start the economy when you think about it)... it's actually that I was able to get a pre-release iPhone 3G a few days ago, and it's definitely a big improvement over the first gen product. But, man, the battery drains way too fast, especially when you're browsing the web a lot (#2 in my Yahoo! Fantasy Baseball league, take that Hagel! But who knew Kucinich was so good? Maybe the aliens are helping him). Plus I have a cool craps game on it, and that's as close to the tables as Schmidtty let's me get nowadays. Speaking of which, I can't wait for November 5th and I can be just another wannabe. Apparently the Mandalay Bay has a topless pool, and I've got enough player points to get a full RFB comp there. Plus I'm rich as a mother fucker, so they'd comp me anyways (Thanks, Cindy!*)

* (also, sorry for calling you that thing I called you. And also, sorry for secretly posting about it on Kos, but the story doesn't do me any good unless people know about it.)

July 15, 2008: So, those scrawny ad kids Rove hired showed me some tv spots. One nearly made me spray my yoohoo through my nose, it was so bad. It had Brittney Spears and that other hussy, whatshername... Paris Doubletree or whatever. No, wait... Geneva Doubletree... Anyhow, the ad called Obama a "celebrity"! Man, this ad is so bad. I love it. That asshole Rove must have popped a brain vessel or something, he's lost his mind. Oh, yeah, pointing out how much people like my opponent is REALLY smart. How about we point out how handsome he is next time, out, huh?

Thank god I don't really want to be President or I'd be pissed at these lozerz. They tell me that if O gets a big crowd in Germany, they'll cut in footage of that. YES!! Point out that he's not just popular here, but around the entire goddamn planet! Let's do it, baby!

August 4, 2008: YOU'VE GOT TO BE FUCKING KIDDING ME!!!! The ad is working? The ad that compares a brilliant, accomplished candidate for the Presidency to Madrid Holidayinn is getting traction? I pulled up Pollster on my Blackberry, and then checked RCP and then checked out my RSS feeds from Gallup and they all say the same thing: The ad works! I figured this one was going to be laughed off the air, but apparently some people were like, "huh, never thought about it that way. Hey, are we out of PBR?"

Sorry, O, I was tryin' to do you a solid on that one. I'll make it up to you in the debates... (heh, heh... maybe I'll call you "that one"!)

August 19, 2008: Check it: I decided on a running mate. I haven't told anyone yet, because I want Mittens and Joe the Cranky Senator to think they've got a shot. Joe, mainly because it's kinda funny to see those droopy eyes, but Mittens is the big prize. Dude's gonna blow his top. Speaking of his top, how the hell can you lose the nomination with hair like that? Huh, Mitt? It's gorgeous, it's better than John Edwards' hair. It's like JFK hair.  Hair like that doesn't grow on trees (trust me, I know!).

Oh, yeah, back to my running mate. Well, I don't wanna spoil the surprise, so let's just say that as soon as I saw the wikipedia page for her this person, I knew that I'd found a surefire way to lose this sucker. Just hope O doesn't pick a woman for his running mate or Schmidtty won't go for it.

August 22, 2008: Sometimes I'm some sort of genius. "How many houses do you own?" "Hell if I know lady, it's tough to count that high at my age!" Whooo!!!!!

Aaaaannnndddd... O is announcing his running mate tomorrow. Please be Biden! Please be Biden! Please be Biden! Come on, come on....

August 23, 2008: YES! Biden! Foreign policy street cred up the wazoo and enough foot in mouth disease to permanently steal the crown of Maverickness from my head. Careful, Joe, heavy weighs the crown of media narrative. Also, we're matched-up next week in Fantasy Baseball... You can beat me in the campaign, but you can't take down my pitching staff!

We're "vetting" my pick right now, by which I mean I assigned an intern to read her press releases and circle any swear words. So far she's coming up clean. I mean, uh... my candidate is... aw, fuck it, it's a her. Like that narrows it down a lot.

Hey, you want another hint? The only other person who thinks this is a good idea is some kid blogging from his mom's kitchen. I'm taking political advice from someone who very recently spent the first two hours of each day looking forward to recess.

More later....

Sometimes I sit back in astonishment that this race is even slightly competitive. Barack Obama's campaign, purely from an organizational and execution standpoint, is a thing of beauty. They're effecient, media savvy and tasteful. They're the Apple Computer, Inc. of political campaigns.

The McCain campaign, on the other hand, is like the company Dilbert works for. It barely seems run by grown-ups, let alone professionals playing a high-stakes game.

I wondered about the giant screen that displayed pictures of... stuff... behind their speakers. I kept expecting to see a 3-D pie-chart and densely worded bullet points to suddenly appear behind Sarah Palin.

And then we find out that for McCain's speech -- the single most important speech he will give during this entire two-year campaign -- they put a picture of a random North Hollywood middle school behind him.

Why? Because it's "Walter Reed Middle School", and the only logical explanation is that some bozo tried to find a picture of the Walter Reed Medical Center and failed miserably.

And no one, not even John McCain, who has been there, caught it until show time (if then).

And before you go thinking that this is a ludicrous explanation, ask yourself if there is any reason to put a picture of Walter Reed Middle School during the Republican National Convention's main event. A school that is in the troubled Los Angeles Union School District, a school from permanently blue California and famously liberal L.A. County. A school that no one who hasn't attended, taught at or sent children to would know about.

Yeah... and then, regardless of whether that photo was intentional or accidental, it's simply a terrible photo to use in this situation photographically.

The photo itelf is fine, it's dramatic, pretty and uncluttered. But no one thought to ask themselves whether their candidate would look good in front of it on camera. The entire bottom half of the photo is a green lawn, which means that when he's filmed, he'll be alone against a bright green background. The picture will almost never be seen in its entirely, just the lawn.

Either their genius media consultants didn't know or didn't care that this would happen. After taking a great deal of public ridicule for standing their candidate against a nearly solid green background only a couple of months earlier, McCain's people have done it again!

Later they switch out the photo for a picture of an American flag waving in the sky. Again, a very pretty picture in its entirety, but the camera will only see the vast swath of blue behind McCain.

They put their candidate against a bright, solid wall of the color most closely associated with his opponent's party. The color that is the dominant color of his opponent's website. The color that they least want to see on maps of this country come November 4th.

Brilliant.

And best of all? With a solid green or a solid blue background, it's trivial to take some video of McCain's acceptance speech and composite it against whatever hilariously ironic backdrop they want. In other words, they've made the lives of anyone who wants to have a little creative fun at McCain's expense so much easier.

Why didn't they consider this? Why, when Stephen Colbert already invited his audience to do make these sort of mocking videos with McCain's last conveniently green-screened speech, did the solid green and blue backdrops seem like an acceptable idea? And don't say they want the exposure. Publicity is publicity, yeah... but you don't want to actively encourage people to treat your campaign like a punchline.

Here's what I think happened: They showed John McCain some photos and asked him which he'd like behind him. He picked these two out. A brave soul tried to ask him to consider maybe other photos. He received a withering glare and an animal-like growl from McCain. And thus the decision was made. 'Cuz he's a maverick.

Someone, possibly McCain himself chose that sickly green background a few months ago. Someone, possibly McCain himself, chose an inexperienced, unvetted unknown to be his running mate. And someone, possibly McCain himself, stuck him in front of a background that subtly reminds people of his opponent and his opponent's party.

No one on his media staff are any good at their jobs.

How the hell did he even get the nomination with a team that could let things like this happen? Oh yeah... His fellow candidates were all ridiculous.

First, I gotta 'fess up to calling the VP selection, and the date of the announcement, entirely wrong. But it's nice to see that Obama can still surprise me, even if it wasn't a surprise to anyone else.
At any rate, I haven't gotten my text message yet! I got the confirmation one when I first signed up, I texted back my ZIP code after they asked, and eagerly awaited my VP Text for the last week. And now I find out everyone else has gotten it, but I haven't. What up?
But that got me thinking... what's the point of this whole text message thing anyways? Then it hit me: Nov. 4th!
They've got my cell-phone number and my zip code. Imagine on election day, they send out millions of text messages reminding people to vote, and more importantly, reminding people to remind their friends to vote (since anyone who signed up to get a text message regarding Obama's VP announcement is presumably not going to forget about election day).
So that's cool, it's distributed GOTV on a massive scale. It's brilliant, really. But the zip code thing is almost fiendishly clever. 
Imagine it's election day, and Obama's field office in Ohio realizes that a couple of districts aren't going as well for them as they were projecting because it's raining and a major freeway is jammed up with a big accident. They can send out a message to thousands of supporters in those districts saying: "We really need your help in Ohio. Please call everyone you know and remind them how important it is that they vote today. And if you're worried about traffic, we've posted alternative routes at www.barackobama.com/ohio."
Obama can send out thousands of these in the time it takes to phone a single voter with that same message. And a traditional phone call is wasted if the recipient isn't at home. That text message will reach nearly all of their intended recipients even if they're at the gym, at the supermarket or at work, and it'll reach the growing class of people that don't even have a traditional land-line anymore.
That's why they encouraged people to get their friends to sign up for the text messages. That's why they asked for your zip code. And that's why they didn't announce his VP pick until the last possible moment: The longer they waited, the more people signed up. The last two weeks of frenzied media speculation on his VP pick have surely driven millions more people to get in on the text message scheme.
It's easy to imagine that if texting were as widespread in 2000 as it is today, and Gore's campaign had the savvy and foresight to use it, he could have more than made up those few hundred critical votes in Florida. 
I noticed during the primaries that Obama's team clearly understood electoral tactics. This let them get a delegate win in Texas despite losing the popular vote there by a pretty substantial margin. I think we'll see that the primaries were just a preview. They've got a ground-game operation going that's not only better than McCain's, it's revolutionary.
In other words, this is a very bad year for the GOP to be fielding a candidate who doesn't know how to send an email. The difference between Obama's ground game and McCain's is the difference between rocket ships and golf carts.

Wherein I take undeserved credit for influencing television's best political coverage and potentially changing the course of human history forever:
Last Sunday, I suggested a strategery for beating John McCain: paint him as a real-life version of Grandpa Simpson.
Some commenters with an even better recall of Simpsons quotes than me mentioned Grandpa Simpson's semi-famous line "So I tied an onion to my belt -- which was the style at the time...".
I figured this was the perfect example of what I was aiming for, so I stole their idea and decided to call this strategy "Onion-Belting". It's got a nice ring to it, don't it?
48 hours later, The Daily Show leads with a nearly perfect example of serving McCain a huge can of Onion-Belting. At first, I was like, "wow, they had the same idea I had." But towards the end, it becomes almost unnervingly (though hilariously) similar to my suggestion.
Don't believe me? Watch Jon Stewart totally onion-belt John McCain's nostalgia-thon and tell me it's not freaky.
A rational person would conclude this, delightful though it may be, nothing more than a simple coincidence easily explained by both current events and 20 years of The Simpson's consistent popularity. I choose to presume that Jon Stewart personally read my post and said "Staff!!! Get on this now!!!"
And further, I assume this will be the pivotal moment of this election. McCain's Waterloo, if you will. You're welcome, Barack. I expect a cabinet post out of this, "Secretary of Snark" sounds about right.
(seriously, though, it is just a coincidence. An awesome one, but a coincidence nonetheless)

Firedoglake has released an articulate, concise and well-reasoned complaint to the FEC regarding McCain's shenanigans with having his public funding and eating it too. It's definitely worth a read and probably worth your support.
And like the more exhaustive complaint filed by the DNC on this matter, I hope it fails. In fact, I think it's very important that McCain be given a free-ride by the FEC to break the very finance laws he himself helped write.
Why? Because winning this FEC thing isn't the haymaker it appears to be. Presuming Obama is the nominee, a win here actually cedes ground he can hold for the primary and possibly equalizes Obama's biggest advantage over McCain: Fundraising.
The problem is this: McCain's public financing quagmire is simply too complex for the public-at-large to understand fully and the media wouldn't even bother to try anyhow. That means this battle isn't really about courts and commissions, it's about spin.
Should McCain take a beating here, it'll cost him money. That's gonna hurt him, yes. But it's not a knockout blow because it gives his campaign incredible leverage to paint Obama's campaign as attempting to stack the deck in his favor.
It doesn't matter that not one word of their claim is true. The "Obama is stacking the deck" talking point will be repeated over and over by every blowhard and freeper until November. Any attempt by the Obama camp to point out that McCain acted illegally will come off as kicking a guy when he's down, which people expect of every politician except Obama.
Repeated enough, Obama's fundraising will begin to take a hit as people feel less comfortable furthering what they hear is an already unfair advantage. McCain, on the other hand, will see increases in fundraising (as will his 527s) when his supporters start getting letters like this:
"Don't let Barack Obama steal this election!
"John McCain has spent his career as a champion for fair elections, creating FEC regulations that guarantee a level playing field. Now Barack Obama has shamelessly used a technicality in those regulations to give himself a hundred-million dollar advantage. 
"This is the same sort of snake-oil lawyering he used in Florida and Michigan to block the revotes that would have sunk his campaign. 
"Obama's 'Politics of Hope' are really the politics of a stacked deck. If this is how he runs his campaign, how will he run his presidency? That's why we need your support to show America that John McCain is the man to yadda, yadda, yadda...."
See? Nothing brings in cash like an underdog fighting a well-funded machine. McCain and company will use Florida and Michigan (regardless of how that situation is resolved) along with an FEC smackdown to pretend like Obama's campaign is some evil Nixonian bulldozer. Yes, it's all a lie and yes, Barack Obama and his campaign has literally nothing to do with anything they'd be accused of. None of that matters in the spin room.
And what would Obama get? A victory the public doesn't understand and a brief widening in the money gap between their two campaigns. The money is a hollow victory, McCain will surely make it up in free press coverage and the types of fund-raising letters I just mentioned. Worse still, it's a completely unnecessary victory because both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are already winning the money game. In fact, they're trouncing McCain as it is. The last thing on earth we should want to do is upset that dynamic.
But imagine it swings the other way: The FEC drags their feet or simply dismisses the complaints with a sternly worded letter. Yeah, Obama will then have a smaller initial lead monetarily, but that lead will still be huge, and it will get even larger as his campaign and the DNC start sending out this letter:
"Don't let John McCain steal this election!
"John McCain has a well-known reputation as a maverick. But now we see that 'maverick' is just a nice way of saying he has the same sneering disdain for the rule of law as President Bush and Karl Rove do.
"John McCain shamelessly broke the very FEC laws he himself helped write, and the Bush-appointed FEC let him get away with it! 
"This is what we're up against and this is why Barack Obama desperately needs your support. Together, we can show McCain and Bush that no matter how many laws they break, how much power they try to grab and how little they respect the democratic process, America is ready for change."
I like this fund-raising message a lot better. Not only is it in support of my guy, it's also actually true.
This FEC thing has legs, and it's something we've got to use to our advantage (if for no other reason than the irony of it all). But using it to our advantage means making sure we win the spin battle, even if it means bunting on the regulatory aspect.
[ed: This one is the readable one. Sorry for the double post, TPM's blogging tools are a bit touchy.]

The mainstream media pretty openly hearts McCain. We can attack that particular bias directly, but we won't make too much headway. The whole "maverick" narrative is so entrenched in the coverage of the campaign as to have become a postulate.
It's what I call a Pop-Truth: Once a characterization of someone has become the base assumption of their identity in the minds of the public-at-large and the media, it cannot be changed.

Thus Gore the Serial Exaggerator. Thus Kerry, the pedantic flip-flopper... And thus Bob Dole, the curmudgeon in 1996.
So it's safe to assume that from now until November, it will be impossible to change these three perceptions of McCain:

1. He speaks his mind.2. He's politically unpredictable.3. He's old. 

To me, this means one thing: It's time for some aikido. Attacking McCain's Pop-Truth effectively doesn't mean trying to change these perceptions. It means using these perceptions against him. It means giving the media a narrative that extends rather than defies their perceptions of him and letting them repeat it enough that it becomes assumed rather than debated.

I think we need to show him to be the Grandpa Simpson of American politics: An ornery, forgetful man flummoxed by modern America. In other words, a man quick to both confusion and anger.

The opening for this lies in the Iran/Sunni/Shiite/Al Qaeda gaffe he made a couple of weeks back. We know that it's not so much a gaffe as a scary misunderstanding he actually held, but that's beside the point. Viewed through the lensing of Grandpa Simpson, a simple gaffe is as damaging as  being consistently and entirely wrong.
Then there's the great condom stumble. This is even more damaging because unlike the political alliances of various Iraqi factions, everyone knows condoms prevent HIV. Everyone. Including McCain unless I'm massively overestimating him.

This wasn't so much a lack of knowledge on a commonsense issue, as it was political unpreparedness, a sign that he's not a maverick. But it's useless to use this to prove his non-maverick-ness, that's his Pop-Truth. Instead, go Grandpa Simpson on him: He admits to being stumped on whether condoms prevent HIV, needs someone to literally dig up his stated position on it (which isn't even his), and tentatively defers to Bush's position on it despite admitting not actually knowing for sure what that position was. 

All this on an issue that pretty much everyone knows: Condoms prevent HIV.

Then there's his "you little jerk" comment at someone who asked if he was too old. Personally, I thought that was funny, and I think for the most part, that's how he meant it to be. But it could also be read as cantankerous, ala Grandpa Simpson.

Start digging through YouTube and coverage of press events, I'm sure we'd find plenty more examples of where his maverick straight-talk can be read as the rantings of a grouchy, poorly informed old man. That goes doubly for the various flip-flops he's made to gain the nomination. Paint them as "political expediency" and we won't make any headway. Paint them as "makes stuff up so people will listen to him", you've got Grandpa Simpson.

Beating McCain means not attacking his strengths head-on, but turning them against him. For anyone who is justifiably concerned that this would be too undignified, remember why I'm advocating it: The media refuses to give McCain the critical eye they've set on every other candidate, Republican and Democrat, in this campaign. This is the best way I can see to get them to focus on his flip-flops, his poor understanding of world affairs, his very conservative social views and his outrageously hawkish foreign policy. It's the best way to show America the real John McCain.