McCain's Opening?

That's how Dick Morris sees the Democrats fascination with George Bush in their convention.

Many political campaigns run against the wrong candidate. The opportunity to pick on a vulnerable target is so tempting that they are lured into attacking someone who isn't running.

In 1992, the Republicans unleashed their convention barrage at Hillary Clinton and left Bill unscathed. In 1996, Dole still ran against Clinton the liberal and ignored the changes in his political positioning. Campaigns go after the flaming red cape, so glittering a target, and leave the matador alone.

That's what the Democratic convention has been doing in Denver. They are so anxious to run against Bush, their animosity is so pent up, that they persist in running against a man who is not seeking a third term. In speech after speech, the Democrats knock the Bush record and then add, lamely, that GOP candidate Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) is the same as Bush. Or they call the McCain candidacy Bush's third term. It was no accident — or Freudian slip — when vice presidential nominee Sen. Joseph Biden (Del.) spoke of John Bush instead of George in his litany of attacks.

This pattern of shooting at the decoy, not the duck, gives McCain a bold strategic opportunity. He can nullify the impact of the entire Democratic convention simply by distancing himself from Bush.

Morris goes onto point out that McCain is the Republican most unlike Bush. He points out that the claim that they voted together 94% is out of context since most of those votes were procedural or ceremonial, like recognizing the NBA Champions.

Morris goes onto list a plethora of stances upon which McCain differs from Bush. I believe there are two issues which McCain can point out that will not only show his independence from President Bush, but it will endear him to the conservative base.

Iraq.

Remember, it was McCain that four nearly four years said that the Rumsfeld strategy was failing. He continued to criticize that strategy while no one else in the party dared. Imagine what would have happened had the President adopted McCain's strategy from the beginning. In fact, the surge's success only underscores how successful we could have been if it had been followed from the beginning.

We took a country nearly on the brink of total chaos and in less than two years turned it around and have it on the brink of near total victory. Just imagine if that strategy was followed from the beginning. We might not have an argument about timetables because there might not need to be many troops left now.

Spending.

The biggest failure of the Bush domestic policy is the enormous spending spree that he and the Congress went on for a full term and more. This spending spree was opposed by McCain as a lone wolf. It is a spending spree that lead in large part to the meltdown of the Republicans in 2006. This issue is the best way to get the base fired up. It is an issue that puts John McCain at odds with George Bush.

These are the two ways that I would make sure that John McCain distances himself from George Bush.