VIDEO: Gramm-pa McCain's brother blasts campaign strategy

By GottaLaff


When your own brother blasts your campaign, you know you're on the wrong track (understatement):

In a new shot across the bow of Arizona Sen. John McCain's lagging campaign, the Republican candidate's younger brother is blasting the campaign's top management and desperately pleading for a change of course.

Joe McCain, in an e-mail sent late Monday night, called on top campaign aides to allow more press access to those who know the presidential nominee best. He said loosening the tight message control was needed because it had become "counter-productive" and was "causing gangrene."

Reflecting apparent unhappiness with the way his brother is being portrayed, Joe McCain also said the campaign needs to make new "ads that show John not as crank and curmudgeon but as a great leader for his time."

"Let John McCain be John McCain," he wrote, criticizing unnamed campaign managers for slamming the door shut to reporters eager to interview those who know the candidate best.

The outburst echoed a highly critical newspaper column this week by Republican strategist William Kristol, who called on McCain to "fire his campaign." [...]

With three weeks until the election, Joe McCain, 66, portrays himself as a sailor ringing a warning bell "at this last moment," while his brother's campaign steams toward treacherous waters. [...]

Joe McCain, a fierce supporter of his brother who has campaigned for him around the country this fall, recently got himself into hot water when he jokingly described the closely contested Northern Virginia suburbs as "communist country."

The McCain brothers inherited at least one common trait: Bad judgment.