We have been saying over and over that the negative campaigning of the McCain/Palin ticket is hurting them more than it is the ticket of Obama/Biden.  It is too the point now where the campaign is losing the support of some of those who were McCains biggest supporters in the primaries.

And he is losing support from those on the right and those more to the middle as well. Michigan Gov. William Milliken was one of McCain’s biggest supporters, but now he is not so sure. Why? Because the McCain campaign is focusing on personal attacks instead of talking about the issues.  He has not gone as far as to say he would vote for Obama, but others have.

Former Republican Senator Lincoln Chafee, Rhode Island, is one who has said he will vote for Obama.  His reason is that, in his opinion McCain, who campaigned for Chafee in 2006, has swung too far to the right, alienated the middle of the road Republicans.  And Palin would not have been his first choice either.  Why would he vote for Obama? Because the way he handled the campaign convinced him that Obama had the ability to lead.

Maybe the most surprising of all is Christopher Buckley, son of conservative commentator William F. Buckley JR. is switching his support from McCain to Obama.  Why? In his opinion the campaign has changed McCain and McCain is snarly, incoherent, changing positions and promising things he could never deliver like a balanced budget by the end of his first term. And those are some of the nicer things he said. As for his support of Obama, on of the positive things he said was that Obama has a first class temperament. In other words, very little negative campaigning and focusing on the issues.

With just three weeks to go until the election and the gap between Obama and McCain getting larger every day, the only chance he has, and it is a slim one, is to focus on how he is going to handle the problems facing the country.

Next Wednesday is the last of the Presidential debates. It is McCain’s last chance to discuss the issues with Obama.  Will he do it?  I doubt it.  He is so focused on bring up things about Obama’s past that we all know about and making like he discovered them, that he will probably stay the track.  In all of the Presidential campaigns I have seen – and there have been a lot of them – I have never seen a candidate go through the whole campaign without giving a blueprint of what his administration would be like.  Obama has purchased air time on the major networks, half hour blocks. He will use the time to lay out his plans.  McCain would be wise to do the same.