"DRIVING THE DEBATE"???

The WaPo claims that McCain "has demonstrated a knack for driving the daily political debate" and I just don't understand that claim. It seems to me that Obama has also been a driving force and at least equal to McCain in influence. The Wapo does point out a couple of fundamental problems for McWAR:

Allies complain that the campaign has offered myriad confusing themes that lurch between pitching McCain as a committed conservative one day and an independent-minded reformer the next, ...

...and poorly timed comments that undercut McCain's reputation as a maverick.

Here's a killer quote:

Another Republican strategist, who worked for a rival GOP campaign during the primary and has ties to Bush's political team, said the McCain team has "not really figured out" how to present McCain to voters: as an experienced conservative leader or a reformer who wants change.

"To them, McCain is inevitable," the GOP strategist said. "They are good on the opposition research side of forcing the agenda. But who John McCain is and what he stands for -- it's a little hard to connect all the dots."

The identity problem isn't coming from the McCain campaign staff, it's from McCain himself!