Memo to McCain: You Still Can Win

Re: Tonight's debate and the next 20 days

Senator, I joined thousands in St. Paul last month who heard your acceptance speech call. "Fight with me!" you asked, and we cheered our willingness.

Now I join millions more who wonder what happened to the tough, disciplined man we admired and the sharp, smart campaign we expected.

Your final debate opportunity against Barack Obama is tonight, and it seems your only hope is to do what you so unwisely telegraphed to a hungry crowd this week when you told them you would "whip his you-know-what."

Just to settle this: The cries you have heard from the faithful to get tougher on Mr. Obama have been a call for heavier artillery against his poor judgment and thin record, not for playground taunts you probably cannot live up to.

I have no idea whether you should try to rhetorically wrap unreformed terrorist Bill Ayers around Mr. Obama's neck tonight. Frankly, I don't know if you can do it skillfully enough to defuse criticisms that you are bringing this sudden concern to the campaign too late.

Some were surprised when you sought to stifle supporters who actually had the misgivings about Mr. Obama that your ads sought to create. It was probably a good idea to tap the brakes on the more over-the-top comments ("I don't trust him, he's an Arab"), but when you said we have nothing to fear from an Obama presidency, it made people wonder if you had sprouted multiple personality disorder.

Your intent was noble. You sought to distance from those who envision President Obama setting up an al-Qaeda cell in the West Wing. But at the political and policy level, there are indeed things to be feared from an Obama presidency, and tonight is the time to focus on them.

Handing Iraq over to terrorists. Insufficient toughness and experience in dealing with world tyrants. Socialist-style redistribution of wealth. A crippling tax increase for countless small businesses. More activist justices on the Supreme Court.

I would have thrown in ballooning federal spending, but your sad support of the bailout and even more disillusioning endorsement of government rescues for individual mortgages obliterates your ability to preach from that pulpit.

It also weakens your support in the GOP base, as voters wonder this: If you sold your soul to the bailout devil, how strong will your spine be when it comes time to offer up Supreme Court nominees who will honor the Constitution?

I even hear from people who wonder about your ability to maintain the war while staring down two hostile houses of Congress. On this, and perhaps only on this, my faith in you is unshaken.

But it is my faith in something else that leaves me still thinking you can win: My belief that Barack Obama is unelectable.

I have faith that America will not turn in these serious times to a candidate so wholly unfit to lead the free world. Your campaign's flaws are playing out in an arena that will be more forgiving as Nov. 4 approaches.

The Obama ride has been historic and scintillating. His political gifts are vast and his campaign skillfully run. But when it comes time for voters to determine who will take the oath Jan. 20, an appreciable number will realize that showering him with adulation on the campaign trail is one thing; handing him the keys to the Oval Office is quite another.

You will win not because your voters are actively thrilled with your agenda, but because they are sufficiently repelled by his.

This is every bit as valid a basis for victory, and you will then have a clean slate on which to write a legacy that I hope is more coherent and compelling than your campaign has been.