Prominent Repug strategist blasts the McCain camp's "insane" Rovian turn toward partisan attacks.

[jefferson_dem]

McCain Second-Guessing Watch

A "prominent Republican strategist" blasts the McCain camp's Rovian turn toward partisan attacks in an email to Marc Ambinder:

"Insane. The GOP base vote is not in play. That's why we call it the base. has it all; it is a generic vote and not candidate driven. Show me a Prez election where the key outcome driver was partisan base intensity. It is a myth. The winning vs. losing outcome is whether he can get the others he needs to win; and a pure partisan approach -- let alone a nagging and off-putting tone -- is exactly the way not to get them. They have the strategy of a Congressional candidate running in a base suburb, and barely even that."

And this comes from a person who is sympathetic to McCain!

Is that you, Mike Murphy?

http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/the_plank/archive/2008/07/28/mccain-second-guessing-watch.aspx

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

1. Sounds like Mike to me. He vowed to leave the McSame camp if Obama

won the primaries. He forshadowed the Rovian tactics and probably couldn't stomach the hateful, racist rhetoric this time around. What I don't understand is that the same tactics were used against McSame in 2000. And also against Hillary. For him to do the same to Obama is really disgusting.

[americanstranger]

2. I thought it was Mark McKinnon who said he'd leave.

McKinnon was Bush's ad guy, and he announced that he wouldn't do McCain's ad work if Obama got the nomination.

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2008/02/mccain-adviser.html

McKinnon's absence shows. McThuselah's ads are Grade-A crap.

My guess is the strategist is Mike Murphy. He's one of the smarter GOP strategists, but McCain seems to have the GOP equivalent of Mark Penn working for him.

- as

[Jane Austin]

3. Yes, it was Mark McKinnon,

not Mike Murphy, who vowed to leave the campaign if Obama won the primaries.

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

4. I get the two confused. Thanks for the correction...