It's The Aseity

Our modern metaphor for Republicans who wear their frustrations on their sleeve is Bob Dole, as Jonathan Martin points out. Just what about John McCain's past two weeks are so irksome to the political class?

HUCKABEE: Well, I think he missed an opportunity. Instead of having some fun with it and showing sort of a buoyant 'hey, do what you've got to do, let Obama go play basketball, I'm solving problems.' Do it with tongue and cheek.

Frankly, I thought he looked more like Bob Dole in the last days of the 1996 campaign saying 'look at the record, look at the record,' and there was some anger and sense of frustration there.

To be fair, McCain's campaign tried this, giving their press corps a "junior varsity" pass and joking about the media's captivity.  But "anger" and frustration"  mean that McCain is letting us see him sweat. He 's wearing his discomfort on his sleeve.  The McCain brain trust is reconciled to the fact that the rest of the campaign will be about Obama. They're encouraged by public and private polling showing a fairly close race; they're encouraged that the political class is pressing Obama on the surge; they're convinced that Obama has nowhere to go but down as more and more voters are exposed to his thin resume and unearned self-confidence.

There are two main criticisms of the McCain campaign right now. They both follow the premise that McCain will win only if uses the next 98 days to espouse a unified, coherent message that simultaneously lifts McCain above Obama while highlighting Obama's profound inexperience.  One line holds that McCain is too reactive and angry, that his campaign's contempt for Obama manfiests itself too obviously, and that McCain seems small.  The other is that there is nothing in McCain's portfolio right now that reminds voters of the guy who capitivated millions in 2000. Instead, it seems like every day the campaign is forced to explain for McCain what they think McCain ought to stand for.

Many successful campaigns generally are internally directed. They do not let outside events determine their strategy. When they screw up, they don't talk about it.  There's a lightness of being... or at least the apperance of one. They possess the property of aseity -- a sense of self-containment -- that voters pick up on.  I use the theological term because it's apt: good campaigns exist necessarily and do not require a steady stream of outside events to justify them.  Put Obama aside. Why is McCain running? What are his first principles? And why can't he articulate them?