McCain has spent the last several weeks making a focused, concentrated argument that Obama is not qualified to be president. That the arguments he’s been using have been either ridiculous, dishonest, or both does not change that. Based on the polls, McCain has been at least somewhat effective with those tactics.

But notice what Obama has been doing (or rather, not doing) during this time: As was predictable, based on the way he responded to thematically similar, though less-awful, treatment at the hands of the Hillary team during the final months of her campaign, he has mostly been staying above the fray. He has been failing to respond in kind, failing to point out the many ways in which it’s actually McCain who, for a host of reasons, is not especially qualified to be president.

Imagine a world, though, in which Obama was willing to engage in the same sort of negative campaigning as McCain. What might he be bringing up? Would he be able to present similar arguments to the ones McCain has been presenting? Would those arguments have any more basis in fact than the ones McCain has been presenting?

To my way of thinking, the answers are yes and yes. Take a look at the case that Rex Nutting makes here, for example: Why McCain would be a mediocre president.

A careful look at McCain’s biography shows that he isn’t prepared for the job. His resume is much thinner than most people think.

This entry was posted by jbc on Saturday, August 9th, 2008 at 10:58 am and is filed under Barack Obama, John McCain, the_usa. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.