Friendly Memo To Democrats: McCain Is The Candidate; The Economy Is The issue

Sarah Palin's record is important fair game, but John McCain is the GOP presidential nominee, so his record is issue number one.

That means focusing on his self-declared 90%+ support for the Bush administration - - eight years of war, obsessive secrecy, collapsing financial institutions, a plunging stock market, disappearing home equities, right-wing judge and Supreme Court justice appointments, record residential foreclosures, rising unemployment, exploding gasoline prices, New Orleans' drowning, and more.

Drop that sex, drugs and graft scandal unfolding now at the US Interior Department involving oil leasing officials right at McCain's door.

You want more of that seedy environment, a not-surprising sequel to the secret Cheney energy policy, the Tom DeLay/Jack Abramhoff corruption playbook and Rovian negativity?

Vote McCain.

He's the GOP standard-bearer. Let him defend that record and don't let him pretend that he's some sort of Republican lite.

McCain gets to be a maverick only of that means flip-flopping on everything from risky oil drilling to abortion rights, which means he stands for nothing except partisan advantage and electioneering opportunism.

Pretend it's 1992 again, when James Carville said it best: "It's the economy, stupid."

Democrats need to get back on offense, and make McCain defend his support for George Bush's policies and Republican corporate self-interest that have the country teetering on the edge of financial ruin, with millions of American families already there.