Here’s Karl Rove with some advice for John McCain. Some of it sensible, some of it not. In the ‘not’ category comes this:
Mr. McCain is the most private person to run for president since Calvin Coolidge in the 1920s. He needs to share (or allow others to share) more about him, especially his faith. The McCain and Obama campaigns are mirror opposites. Mr. McCain offers little biography, while Mr. Obama is nothing but.
To claim that John McCain offers “little biography” is extraordinary. To no small extent his political career has been based on his (remarkable) biography. As for the fact that Senator McCain doesn’t want to “share” (ugh) more of his faith with the electorate, I can only say, thank heavens. A man of the old, and much missed, school, he appears to understand that faith is best treated as an essentially private matter. The airwaves are already overfilled with politicians’ public protestations of piety, their dreams of building the Kingdom here on earth, and all the rest of it. McCain’s reticence in this respect makes for a refreshing contrast and may even prove to be electorally advantageous. One messiah in this campaign is quite enough.