The following is a response to a post by JD's Handsome Son:

You are right that Republicans shouldn't get over optimistic. But you can't start out the campaign with a pessimistic attitude either. John McCain is going to need to have a broad based message. I know that the conservative side of the Republican Party wants him to move more to the right, but if he goes away from the middle, he risks losing independent voters.

Let's face it, people like Rush Limbaugh are always going to dislike John McCain. If this election gets fouled up it's going to be the right-wing of the party that's responsible. John McCain has a long history of being able to reach across party lines and work well with left, right, and the center. This is where the American people are right now.

Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are two of the most liberal members of the Senate. If McCain is allowed to run as a right to center candidate he'll have a better chance in November. But some people on the right keep beating him over the head for working with Democrats. Yet, Barack Obama claims that he's the 'Change' candidate in this race that can reach across the aisle to get things done. But the record shows that he's never done that during his time in the Senate.

You say that there's no fight in John McCain. I really don't know what you want from him. It's way to early in the process to start pulling out the big guns a blast away at the Democrats. Don't you think that Hillary and Barack are doing a good enough job killing each other by themselves? There's plenty of time for McCain to go after the Democratic candidates records, after the Democrats finally settle on Obama or Clinton.

I just don't know what you want McCain to say about Obama since he's not the nominee yet. What's the point of shadow boxing. Now is the time for McCain to get the American people to get to know more about who he is. There's a lot of people that don't know McCain's story. Once Senator McCain gets people to understand who he is, then he'll be able to attack the Democratic candidate.

In politics it's important to define yourself before your opponent does it for you. Right now Hillary and Barack are busy defining each other and you can see the damage its doing to them. So Senator McCain is traveling around the country and introducing himself to people in hundreds of town hall meetings. In the meantime, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are having to defend themselves because of all the negative news that's in the media about them.

So, please don't be so defeatist. The campaign hasn't even started yet. I'm sure that when the time is right the gloves are going to come off, and McCain will do all the fighting that he has to do to win the Presidency in November.