So far the Democrats have been hitting McCain on three fronts.
1) Lobbying ties
2) George Bush ties
3) His age

Is it working? Frankly, it doesn’t seem to be. While the two remaining Democratic candidates are spending their time and energy destroying one another, McCain is running around looking, dare I say, presidential. As for the three arguments. It is hard to hit McCain on lobbyist ties when Obama and Clinton are surrounded by lobbyists themselves.

On George Bush ties, it works well with Democrats but Republicans, not so much. Yes, it might sound crazy to liberals but many Republicans still like the president. What they don’t like about him is that he is too liberal on some issues, not that he is too conservative.

Meanwhile independents and moderates have an example of how Democratic leadership will look different, the Democratic Congress. This Congress might well be the biggest albatross around the candidates necks right now. A do nothing, cannot end the War, cannot use its purse strings, bumbling collection of media whores that look awfully similar to the other collection of bumbling, cannot use its purse strings, cannot end the War, collection of Republican media whores controlling Congress before 2006.

Finally McCain’s age. While Obama talks a good game about the politics of hope and substance, Democrats are taking every chance they can to remind voters McCain is old. Yes polling continually tells us voters don’t want an ancient president, but does that mean they don’t want John McCain? Do they see McCain as someone who will be too busy getting up to goto the bathroom at 3AM to protect America? I don’t think so.

So what else are Democrats going to throw at him? The sad thing for the party is that the arguments they have left that are substanative, don’t really play well with the electorate. Will they remind voters McCain wants to lower their taxes, ban them from having abortions, not give illegal immigrants drivers licenses, stop gun legislation or blow up people around the world who hate America?

What about the reverse charge, that McCain is a closet moderate who is actually pretty liberal? We know that many Democrats revere the man, they like him, they think he is actually more of a liberal than he really is and more of an independent then a Republican loyalist. That line might only help him.

Today The Hill reports that Democrats are pouring over government documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act to find something, anything, they can use against the Senator. Maybe they will find it but unless Democrats can learn to tie it to a larger idea that American’s dislike, I don’t know if it will play.

The race for the White House is barreling toward a General Election, in many ways we are already there. Democrats need to stop thinking about this race in terms of appealing to Democrats and the small sect of anti-War moderates and conservatives. They need to think big, figure out what the electorate truly wants and find a way to give it to them.

In the last two elections, to be honest, I can barely tell you what the Democratic platform is. I still don’t know, aside from a quasi-not-quite-but-maybe-universal-health-care desire, it seems pretty vague. So in short, Democrats should start learning from the mistakes of the past, put together a message and figure out something other than “he is old” to hit their opposition with.