Senator McCain, most of your followers are puzzled. They want to know why you don’t get angrier. They want you to take off the gloves and they are frustrated when it seems that simply is not going to happen.

But I think I understand you, Senator McCain. I think you are living in your own past. I do not mean that as a rebuke, for it is more than understandable. You were the diplomat. You were the one who reached across the isle, even to colleagues who vehemently disagreed with you. Obama may have promised change and Obama may have spoken about reform. But the true reformer and the authentic change agent was not Obama. It was Obama’s opponent, John McCain, the man who could get Democrats and Republicans working together, something Obama had never even tried.

That is your heritage. That is your reputation. It makes you proud. You have a right to be proud.  When the election began, you drew upon these credentials as your wild card. That was how you stole the subject of change and made it our own.

Senator McCain, I very much respect what you are trying to do. But please listen carefully:  Everything is different now!  The rules of the game were chucked during half time. A whole new set of rules were ratified while you were returning from the hot dog stand. No, I’m not talking about the economy. That’s an important, but separate subject.

What has changed is the premise. What has changed is the vision of your former Democratic friends. You were likeable to them when you supported their causes and opposed their enemy, George Bush. But now you are their enemy. Can’t you see that? They want to put Obama in the White House and only one thing stands in their way: you! They will not allow you to take down their champion. That’s why you experienced such culture shock when you suspended your campaign and returned to Washington offering help. They did not want your help. And they never will again.  Your political objective is the good of the country and you place a premium on mutual cooperation as a means to an end. Their objective is to win and if they need to destroy you in the process, they will do so at once without losing any sleep at night. Senator McCain, you must believe me.  It’s time to stop worrying about what Nancy Pelosi and The New York Times might say. You are not the darling of the media any more. They have a new hero. They have rejected you. Keep wooing these people and they will grind you up and spit out so fast, you’ll never know what hit you.

I wish this were not so. It’s a tragedy, something you do not deserve after your many years of unselfish service and personal integrity. Former friends have done nothing less than stab you in the back. They are traitors! It is something to grieve over but now is not the time for grief. Please, I implore you, do not cling to the past. That ship has sailed. Indeed, that ship exploded along the way. Do not try to salvage the ashes. Mark my words, the Democrats have not only robbed you of a diplomatic future, they also rewrote your past in the fine tradition of  a George Orwell/ Benedict Arnold collaboration. The economy has enabled them to sell their Marxist style version of history; a version that does not teach right and wrong, but instead, inspires strife between rich and poor. And so, Senator McCain, even though you want to sell yourself as the uniter and the man who runs a clean campaign, that strategy simply will not fly anymore. You need a new gang plan. You need it fast. You are running out of time. Your real friends will know the truth and remember you for what you were. But you already have their votes. You must go after some other votes now. Please do not misunderstand me. I am not asking you to compromise your standard. I am, instead, suggesting that sometimes in life, a new situation calls for a new standard, a standard just as ethical, but new nevertheless.

And so, Senator McCain, please listen carefully because I am going to tell you how to win the election without having to compromise or reinvent yourself.  In addition to your record of diplomacy, you also have a reputation for courage. You are known as a maverick. (I believe I heard you mention that once or twice in the campaign)  Well, a true maverick breaks the mold. A true maverick levels with the people and explains to them why his strategy needs to reshape itself when necessary.  A man of courage does what is best, even if polls and focus groups say that this is not the way to behave in a campaign, even if his campaign advisers try to resurrect the older, irrelevant rules from the wastebasket.

Call a press conference or buy some airtime as Obama is doing.  Look out at the country and tell them, “I was honest when I said I wanted to work with the Democrats. My record speaks for itself. But the Democrats are no longer working to serve this country. They are working to exploit the problems of our economy by taking more power. I’m sorry, but somebody had to say it, so that somebody may as well be me. If I want to be your president, then I may as well start now by refusing to mince words. Therefore, I am going to explain to you exactly what they did to our banking industry and I am going to explain it in a way that a Third Grader can understand, instead of tossing out words like Freddie and Fannie, which mean no more to the average household than Frankie and Annette. We are in this mess because, in the name of Politcal Correctness and compassion, banks were bullied into giving out bad loans. They were threatened with the charge of racism. These banks caved in and financed people who did not qualify. Such paper mortgages poisoned the market and spread like a Trojan Horse computer virus. It is just that simple and when I spoke out against the practice years ago, the Democrats blocked the matter from coming up in a vote.  Yes, there were compounding factors, but essentially, this is what happened.  And while we are in the neighborhood of explanations, I am now going to talk candidly about my opponent, because he has some explaining to do before he becomes president. He needs to explain why he supported these sub-prime loans and now wants to blame it on George Bush. He needs to explain his racist pastor and his terrorist associate. He needs to explain his vote for infanticide. He needs to explain how tax hikes will not drive our bad enconomy into Great Depression Two: Attack of the Clones. He also needs to justify a matter that has not come up much in our campaign but which would be a deadly chilling part of his presidency. Barrack Obama would suppress free speech. Did you know that? If you do not believe me, ask him why he already used his power as a Senator to pressure an organization that produced a video, critical of his terrorist ties.  Yes, he used political power to frighten them off the air. But that’s just the recent past. Ask him about the future. Ask him about the Fairness Doctrine. Ask him about Hate Speech Legislation. Both bills are in congress and both bills, he would sign.  Do you know what the definition of Hate Speech is? Any speech that disagrees with Liberals.  Who is he going to turn to for advice on what is hateful?  Jeremiah Wright?  William Ayers?  I may lose the election for saying these things. I tried to be friendly. I tried to be civil. When an independent source first put out a commercial about Rev. Wright, I condemned it. I said that did not belong in my campaign. Obama, after all, assured us he was unfamiliar with Wright’s hateful rhetoric. I chose to give him the benefit of the doubt, even though he did attend that church for 20 years.  I overlooked the racist pastor. Obama responded to my generosity by offering a similar explanation for his terrorist associate. And then there is the explanation for the criminal who got him a house. And that Palestinian activist who hates Israel, supposedly is another of Obama’s friends of whom he was “not really that close." These things just keep dropping like flies. Lately new information has come forth about ex-terrorirst, Bill Ayers and this spotlight shows Obama’s earlier explanations to be either lies, gibberish or horrible lapses in judgment. I still had the decency to not confront him in the middle of the debate last week, as it seemed out of context, and, again, I tend to cling to my naive hope that this can still be a civil campaign. But Senator Obama complained about that as well, saying I didn’t have the courage to confront him to his face. Well, Senator Obama, allow me to be just as clear as I possibly can and I will say this to your face during our final debate. If my misplaced diplomacy was mistaken as a sign of weakness, I can promise that you will not misunderstand me again. Fellow Americans, watch the debate next week. Watch me insist that he answer the real questions. Some will call me mean spirited. So be it. Anyone who would be less concerned about a man who associates with terrorists and more concerned about the man who challenged such an association, is a person whose vote I do not need or want. I don’t desire to come across as harsh but the Democrats are going to portray me as a racist or a hate monger or a cranky old man no matter what I do and no matter what I say, so I may as well just speak the truth. I always did, but this Wednesday, you will hear it in a more confrontational way. I may indeed sound angry. We can use an angry person or two when a friend of terrorists is running for public office. Yes, I will be angry, angry enough so that Obama will either have to answer or look like a guilty defendant for not answering. Obama pundits will call me a racist the very next morning, this from the people who promised to run a "post racial campaign." Let them do it. Let them try. People see through such tired tactic. They realize that if Obama sneezed and I said,  “God Bless you”  they would find a way to call it a racist response. The truth, is we have never played the race card and they are disappointed because they desperately wanted us to play the race card. This is obvious and nobody is buying it anymore. Yes, the rules of the game have changed. The new rules were written by Obama and the Democratic Party. The new rules say, “We have a right to call George Bush a Nazi and we have a right to claim McCain is just four more years of the same. But you do not have a right to say one negative thing about us and if you do, we will immediately suck the oxygen out of the air by screaming “racist.” Well, ladies, and gentlemen, I say let them scream!”

That is the speech you should give, Senator McCain.  I know it is unusual for a political speech and I know it sounds harsh. But we live in harsh times. It may call for you to get into the gutter. If only that weren’t necessary. But Senator McCain, to quote an older saying, “Our enemies crawled out of the sewer. So maybe the gutter is where we should be!”

No more talk about bi-partisanship. For the moment, at least, bi- partisanship is dead. The Democrats have no intention of cooperating with any bi-partisan efforts unless you agree to do everything exactly their way and call it "bi-partisanship."  They would rather see the country fall, than lose their power over the country. That is the plain, sad, simple truth. We need a man who will stand up and speak the plain, sad, simple truth. Do this for us and we will follow you. Return to the diplomacy and you condemn us to four years of Obama, Reid and Pelosi, a combination lethal enough to turn the United States of America into the United Workers of America.

You can still win, Senator McCain. But first you must re-read the new rules. It’s not Uncle Wiggly any more. The game now, is Risk.