Source:  http://www.411mania.com/politics/columns/85830/The-McCain-unbounce.htm

The McCain unbounce
Posted by Andrew Tobolowsky on 09.21.2008

A possible explanation of why McCain lost his lead

If anything, it is the true brilliance of George W. Bush's 2000 and 2004 campaigns for president that's being highlighted by just how easily it is to have the same thing backfire on you.

For the last three weeks, the McCain campaign has been running an ad campaign specifically designed to keep the media from talking about them. Isn't that strange?

Literally, since the elevation of Sarah Palin has run ad after ad and tried trick after trick to keep news stories about her from happening. It's like they knew before we did just how much the Palin bounce would fade. After trying to bury them in an avalance of "sexist", they then went to "how disrespectful" when that didn't work. Think I'm off the mark? Here's my favorite, from Carly Fiorina last week about the Tina Fey-SNL Palin sketch, moments before she was quietly killed by the McCain campaign for saying he couldn't run a business:

"The portrait was very dismissive of the substance of Sarah Palin, and so in that sense, they were defining Hillary Clinton as very substantive, and Sarah Palin as totally superficial," Fiorina told MSNBC earlier Monday. "I think that continues the line of argument that is disrespectful in the extreme, and yes, I would say, sexist in the sense that just because Sarah Palin has different views than Hillary Clinton does not mean that she lacks substance."

Not unique, not surprising. Particularly clumsy, but nothing else. They think the sexist line is working, so they go for it everywhere. The argument Fiorina is making here, if I can restate it, is that it was sexist of SNL to suggest that, while some women have a lot of substance, all women are not equally substantive.

But what McCain is missing is that you can use commercials to make people more afraid of what they're already afraid of, or what it hasn't occurred to them to be afraid of-the Bush way, but the Obama way too, if you haven't somehow missed the "More of the same" blitz—but there's finesse to that. The McCain campaign seems to be lacking the characteristic Republican finesse.

There was an ad campaign by some shaving company, couple years back, I don't remember the brand. The tag lines were "Guys hate to shave! They'd prefer to set their shorts on fire! They'd prefer to eat dirt!" There's a reason I don't remember the brand name.

You can't tell people what to think if it never would have occurred to them. You can allege, you can stretch, you can distort a blue storm. Hell, the Dems are. But you can't just make things up and expect to sell it. Maybe in Wasilla, Alaska, but not on the national stage, when people are actually paying attention and journalists have all kinds of fancy tools.

On the other hand, I wonder what they would do if I just ignored a federal subpoena. Possibly more than the nothing they're doing with ol' Palin and Mr. Rove before her.