Elected Democrats, if you don't change any other tactic for the duration of this presidential campaign, at least please stop saying, "John McCain is a friend of mine." It dulls the impact of your attacks, it makes you appear submissive, and it's irrelevant.
It's too late to stop this trend at the DNC, unfortunately. Too many elected Democrats who spoke about McCain buried the lede, saving their most effective attacks until after they'd opened with a series of compliments.
Our opponent has been repeatedly framed by our party's leaders as a great guy who's on the wrong side of most issues. Meanwhile, the Republicans have framed -- and will continue to frame -- our candidate as an inexperienced asshole, regardless of how he fares on the issues.
We're giving undecided voters an excuse to vote for McCain, while the Republicans are giving those same people an excuse not to vote for Obama.
We must have short memories, because we lost at this same game two years ago.
After Joe Lieberman lost the Connecticut primary, every Senator who appeared on every news show "supported" Ned Lamont by prefacing their criticisms of Lamont's opponent with this: "Joe Lieberman is a good friend. But..." This essentially defanged any criticisms of him that followed.
And we're doing it again.
Do you think for a minute that Republicans are going to show any respect for us or our candidate? Do you remember how they filleted our party's war hero, four years back?
I know, we're a different kind of party than they are. Many of us deal more in nuance and can understand how someone can be a likable person and yet still be wrong on, well, pretty much fucking everything.
But we can't assume all voters appreciate such nuance. And we know for sure that those who distribute our message to the masses, the media, can't handle it.
We can't afford to insert too much complexity, and we can't leave our statements open to interpretation. When we do that, we force the media to actually do some work to excavate our real message. They're terrible at that. If we leave them any room to replace our own preferred headline with theirs, it will happen.
Democrats, make the media's job easy, and make our message to undecided voters clear. Attack John McCain. Relentlessly.
Until Wednesday, November 5, he is not your friend.
PS: You can cut the crap about McCain being a hero and an honorable man, too. If he is those things, let his party tell us. You are under no obligation to do their work for them.
UPDATE: I just wanted to say thanks to everyone who's joined the discussion. One of the reasons I love this site -- and this party -- is because there's room for multiple points of view. Those of you who disagree with this post make a strong case, and I like that you want our party to be respectful to its opponents. Me, I'm ready for Obama's surrogates to go caveman on McCain. But honestly, I think we're going to win in November, either way.