Hi everybody. I'm here in Hemptead, Long Island reporting from the site of tonight's debate at Hofstra University.
Everybody is talking about whether or not John McCain should bring up Bill Ayers at tonight's debate. I think that is missing the mark. Bringing up Ayers by itself probably isn't going to do McCain much good. For McCain to really be effective he would need to implement a "connect the dots" strategy. In other words, if you're going to bring up Bill Ayers then you would need to bring up Jeremiah Wright, Tony Rezko and ACORN too.
You see, if you want to make the bad judgment and character case then you can't have one toe in the water. McCain has yet to make the succinct case by rolling all of them into the character issue. Yes the campaign has run ads on Rezko and Ayers but McCain himself has yet to take all of the above mentioned associations and "tie it in a bow" for voters. He hasn't crystallized it. That seems to be his main challenge tonight.
Watch for my debate analysis later tonight.
Comments?