Worst Campaign Ever? Yup …

We thought the light had finally dawned on GOP presidential nominee John McCain three weeks ago when he announced – to great fanfare – that he was suspending his presidential campaign and returning to Washington to deal with the nation’s economic crisis.

Here, we thought, was McCain’s moment … a chance to take control of the one issue that his opponent Barack Obama has owned in the polls from the very beginning, not to mention strike a blow against the Obama talking points that have been “killing McCain softly” for months.

Six little words …

“Failed policies of the Bush administration …”

Sound familiar? And if you don’t have this condensed “Gospel of Barack” memorized yet, just wait, because there’s still three weeks left for Obama’s multi-million dollar TV machine to drill them into your skull.

“Failed policies of the Bush administration …”

These are the six little words that are sinking McCain’s campaign, and the fact that we’re still hearing them eleventy kabillion times times a day from Obama is a direct result of McCain’s failure to seize a “once-in-a-campaign” opportunity.

Let’s rewind …

First, President George W. Bush proposes an unprecedented, unconstitutional $700 billion bailout of America’s troubled financial sector … or at least the worthless assets dragging down some of Wall Street’s biggest firms.

The largest intervention of the federal government in our free market economy since the Great Depression, it’s precisely the sort of “command and control” approach to the economy that Democrats love, which is why they rushed to put their stamp on (i.e. take some ownership of) the Bush bailout from day one.

And here’s where McCain blew it.

Simply put, McCain’s advisors couldn’t have drawn up a bigger – or better – issue on which to have their candidate live up to his “maverick” reputation, and much more importantly draw a huge distinction between himself and the president who is single-handedly drowning his election prospects.

Already hammering away at “corporate greed” despite the clear government roots of the crisis, McCain could have struck a decisive blow by dispensing some sorely needed straight talk.

“We do need to ‘do something.’ We need the government that caused this crisis to take a step back, not a step forward. We need to let the market determine the true value of these assets, not force the American taxpayers to pick up the tab. We need the President, the Congress and my opponent Senator Obama to recognize that their big government prescription not only fails to solve the problem, but will ultimately make things much worse for our economy.”

Of course that’s not what McCain said. It’s not what anybody said.

Not once did anybody remind Americans of our country’s founding wisdom, to say nothing of the wisdom of Ronald Reagan, who warned us that in times of crisis the nine most dangerous words in the English language are “I’m from the government and I’m here to help.”

In a Washington world of truth-averse, blame-shifting sycophants, if a straight-talking maverick isn’t going to level with us, who is?

But McCain stood on the sidelines with his big government pom-poms, and of course, voted for an amended version of this “mother of all boondoggles” in the U.S. Senate, along with Obama.

Which is why McCain will never be able to deliver this knockout punch …

“When it comes to an economic crisis fueled by government incompetence and corporate greed, I stand with the taxpayers and the principles on which this nation was founded. My opponent has chosen to stand with what he himself refers to as the ‘failed policies of the Bush administration.’”

Worse still, after missing his window and facilitating the passage of this ill-advised bailout, McCain has only compounded his problem by letting Obama continue to score hits with the whole “failed policies” litany.

As veteran S.C. political consultant Bob McAlister points out this morning, McCain hasn’t defended himself with the facts … or with much of anything, to be honest. For example, why isn’t he waving in Obama’s face the letter he sent years ago warning of the impending crisis – which, incidentally, Obama and his Democratic allies refused to address.

“John McCain was prophetic,” McAlister writes. “He anticipated the failure of Freddie and Fannie. He offered a solution. The Democrats, Obama included, ignored him.”

But Americans are ignoring that because McCain’s campaign has been totally ineffective at making it an issue, due in no small part to the fact that McCain and Obama (or “McBama” as our founding editor calls them) are both on the same page with respect to the socialist prescription for what ails our national economy.

Sad, sad, sad … and sadder still is knowing that eight years ago McCain would’ve never allowed himself to turn into such an equivocating, institutional apologist.

But that’s what he’s become, and that’s ultimately what’s burying his candidacy.

The moment came, people … and John McCain flat out missed it.

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