To hear the McCain campaign tell it, Barack Obama is just wrong. He’s offering the wrong solutions and he’s asking the wrong questions.<\/p>\n
It’s curious, then, that McCain has taken to emulating Obama’s campaign<\/a> so carefully.<\/p>\n The general election is now in full speed — just check out the competing slogans.<\/p>\n Republican John McCain has transformed rival Barack Obama’s slogan of “Change We Can Believe In” into his own line, “A Leader We Can Believe In.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n “Transformed” is an interesting euphemism. After over a year of seeing Obama run on “Change We Can Believe In,” the McCain campaign’s decision to run on “A Leader We Can Believe In” seems kind of cheap.<\/p>\n It’s almost as if there was a staff meeting at McCain campaign headquarters, and someone said, “We could probably use a campaign slogan.” Someone else said, “Well, Obama’s doing pretty well. Why don’t we just appropriate his?”<\/p>\n Someone at the same meeting may have also suggested that it’s time for a new logo. Obama uses white letters against a blue backdrop. McCain now uses<\/a> white letters against a blue backdrop. Obama’s logo shows a blue sky, with red and white stripes under a sun on the horizon. McCain now uses<\/a> a logo with a blue sky, with red and white stripes under a sun on the horizon.<\/p>\n What a remarkable coincidence. It’s not like McCain, with no real ideas or core convictions of his own, would just try to copy the inexperienced candidate he disdains, would he? “This is, indeed, a change election. No matter who wins this election, the direction of this country is going to change dramatically. But, the choice is between the right change and the wrong change.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n In all, McCain used the word “change” 33 times<\/i> in a relatively brief speech.<\/p>\n Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, but this is ridiculous. McCain is supposed to be the experienced candidate, who’s been around forever, and who’s seen and done it all before. McCain’s his own man, running his own campaign on his own terms.<\/p>\n And he’s doing so while copying Barack Obama as closely as he can? It doesn’t speak well of the McCain campaign’s confidence in the candidate’s abilities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" To hear the McCain campaign tell it, Barack Obama is just wrong. He’s offering the wrong solutions and he’s asking the wrong questions. It’s curious, then, that McCain has taken to emulating Obama’s campaign so carefully. The general election is now in full speed — just check out the competing slogans. Republican John McCain has […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15782","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15782","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15782"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15782\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\nFor that matter, McCain isn’t just borrowing Obama’s slogan, branding, and logo, he’s even trying to borrow Obama’s theme. From his now-infamous green speech<\/a> near New Orleans this week:<\/p>\n