What I want John McCain to say tonight

John McCain has some high heels, er, uhm, make that big shoes to fill after Sarah Palin's roof-raising, bring-down-the-house whammy of a speech last night. He can do it, and I have these ideas as to how:

1) He needs to shed his well-known reservation about talking about his POW experience. The American people need to be reminded - first hand - of the tyrrany we face in the world. His trials, torture, and suffering at the hands of the enemies of Liberty need to be tied to his unquenchable, indefatigable love of Nation and belief in the greatness of America and how those convictions allowed him to survive what was truly an unimaginable ordeal to any but those who lived it with him. We need to be reminded again - and again, and again, and again - that there is evil in this world that seeks to destroy us and we must defeat it.

I'm reminded now of some dialogue from an episode of TNT's The Closer. A CIA agent is reminiscing that 65 years ago, our enemies quoted from "Mein Kampf" as they marched their victims into gas chambers. During the Cold War, the Communists would quote Marx and Lenin as they shot people in the head. Today, the Koran is misused to justify violence. He concludes his train of thought with: "Same people, different books."

2) He must reject liberal premises on the issues. We will never solve anything by being "Democrat Light".

3) Policy Red Meat: continued and deeper tax cuts, energy independence (starting with "Drill baby, Drill!", and going through nuclear power, clean coal, build pipelines, build refineries, etc.), free market solutions for health care, actually, make that free market solutions for everything.

4) ATTACK. Attack, attack, attack! Do not hold your positions! Slam the New Soviet Man to the ground, and do not let him up. Expose the left for the un-American, capitalist-hating, abortion-loving, anti-family neo-Marxists they are.

5) Repeat (4) above with respect to the media. THEY ARE NOT YOUR FRIENDS, JOHN MCCAIN!

6) Attack some more. There are so many options!

Finally John McCain, if he can, must show that he is what Barack Obama and Joe Biden have absolutely no capability to be: just like us. Why does Sarah Palin resonate with us? Because we look at her and our family and we do not see a politician; we see ourselves. Should I meet her in person, my attitude may be different, but right now I'm comfortable referring to her as "Sarah", "our Sarah", et al. for just that reason. She's one of us.

As I saw in one article on line today, she is "Sarah America".

John McCain, well right now he's "Mr." or "Senator" and he - in the eyes and hearts of America - needs to become "John".

I hope he does it.