We're Calling It The Mitt Romney Gambit

Well, it's Monday so John McCain (who is a mavericky POW by btw) must be revamping his campaign. Seems calling your opponent a terrorist loving baby killer when people asked you what you were going to do about jobs, wasn't quite the answer voters were looking for. Fickle. Voters are just fickle. Anyway, on to McCain version eleventy seven.0.

Three weeks before Election Day, John McCain is unveiling what his aides call a more forceful new stump speech in which he portrays himself as a scrappy fighter on the comeback trail against an opponent who’s already “measuring the drapes” in the Oval Office. "We still don't have a plan for the economy," said one aide who asked not to be identified. "But we're much more feisty about not talking about that."

“The national media has written us off,” McCain says in excerpts released by the campaign. "My friends, we’ve got them just where we want them. Way behind in the polls with less than a month to go, no coherent plan or message and a running mate that makes a box of rocks look like a room full of rocket scientists. My friends it doesn't get any better than that.”

Allies are calling this “hitting the ‘panic’ button” on the campaign, with McCain reemerging after a long Sunday nap with a feisty tack that uses candor and humor, at a time when his rallies have become known for raucous rage and clumsy attacks. "And by 'candor and humor' we mean pleading and begging," said one highly placed campaign official.

"Let me give you the state of the race today,” McCain says in his new speech. “We have 22 days to go. We’re six points down. …

Uh...ten points down Senator.

"Ten? OK, we're behind in the polls."

Well, 12 points in the Research 2000 poll.

"Twelve? Did you say twelve?"

Yeah. It was 13 at one point.

"My friends, that's not change I can believe in. What America needs in this hour is a fighter; someone who puts all his cards on the table, except for his ace in the hole, who will give you the shirt off his back, and isn't afraid to go against the grain. Someone who wasn't born yesterday, and knows idle hands are the devils' workshop. Someone who will leave no stone unturned, and knows which side his bread is buttered on. Someone like me, who calls a spade a spade. Oh, wait. That was last week's strategy."

Over the weekend, McCain advisers said he planned to announce new economic policies, including tax cuts designed to encourage contributors to give him money. But after a tense strategy meeting on Sunday, McCain still could not say 'fiscal responsibility' without laughing. "We really don't get this economic stuff," said one McCain aide who had attended the meetings. Hey, anybody want to come to a barbecue?"