It's been a rough couple of weeks for John McCain - first there was the cancellation of his speech from an offshore oil platform (canceled due to hurricane), then the "houses" question, and a couple of other minor gaffes, then being smothered by a really well-played Democratic Convention - and his big bump-stomper, Sarah Palin was starting to turn into a mud-slinging free-for-all. Oh, and another hurricane mucking up the start of the RNC convention... It was looking like the wheels were coming off of the Straight Talk Express.

Now, to be fair to Senator McCain, you can't stop the weather, and he recovered his footing fairly well after both storms. The "houses" question was a MBJ (mugging by journalist). The DNC exceeded all expectations with their TV time. And with all of the mud being thrown at Sarah Palin, surprisingly little is sticking (to be explained in another piece...).

All-in-all McCain is weathering this rough patch well and is holding his own in the polling, and is actually making gains in some polls, but the execution of the campaign is not looking like the precision military exercise that you would expect from some one of McCain's caliber. So, what gives?

Now, in keeping with editorial policy, we do not endorse any particular candidate, but we do report what we observe. And this is what we are observing:

John McCain came into this presidential race as the man to beat and as the media darling of those candidates positioned on the right. He was not a favorite with the conservative base of the party, but mainstream media pushed his maverick image and his appeal to independents, and in many ways got him to this stage of his career - being the nominee of the Republican Party. Once that was locked up the media went off and found a new darling in Senator Obama. At first, the mainstream media pretty much swooned over Obama and largely ignored McCain, instead turning on Hillary - who was the immediate threat to Obama. With Hillary dispatched and the nomination safely delivered to Obama, McCain was now the enemy. The first couple of times that the media bit McCain, he didn't seem to expect it, and went on as if they were still his ally. Then they started drawing blood, and it seemed it confuse McCain as to why they were treating him badly all of a sudden. He moderated his answers to questions, took too long to think, and self-censored in a way to allow the media to cast him as "out-of-touch" or "doddering". This has seemed to come to a head over the last couple of weeks - the clear, concise John McCain became afraid of giving the "wrong" answer, and gave no answer - hence, the hemming and hawing over how many houses he owns. The McCain that people were used to would have taken a "Gotcha!" question like that and blown it off with humor - "Gee - I'm not really sure - my wife collects them, and I try not to interfere in her hobbies..." or "Seven, on four properties - only in America could that happen, we have such opportunity here".

The zing of his Veep pick came close to having the air let out of the rest of the campaign by making a show of canceling Day 1 of the RNC convention. It was overreaction to being afraid of looking "uncaring" (a la Bush) to the mainstream media. How much the better if he did everything that he did do - go to consult with the governors, put together the relief network, fly back the delegates who needed to go home, and do the disaster tour as a matter of course. He could have then done a live feed from the area on Night 1, explain what he was doing, promote the relief effort and reassure the convention and the nation that help was getting to the affected areas, and that it was the duty of the delegates to continue the business of the convention. He is not required at the convention before Thursday. It would have been the more Presidential approach.

We do not advise political campaigns, but we can't help but wonder if John McCain might not do better by going back to not caring what the mainstream media thinks of him. The McCain who put the world on notice in 2000, said what he thought, unapologetically - was clear and concise, principled, and if he didn't have all of the facts handy - he would get them. The appeal of the Straight Talk Express was that it actually was straight talk, not some formulaic mumbo-jumbo to placate the press and confuse the electorate. That is the John McCain who needs to step up if this campaign is going to fully right itself.

RLB