Government Dirt

Without a smoking gun to link Ayers and Obama, it's much more difficult for the McCain campaign to simply point out the association between the two and assume that voters will instinctively be turned off from voting for the Illinois senator.

Recognizing that difficulty, the McCain campaign -- in their new web video and in a series of recent statements -- is focused not on the Obama-Ayers relationship per se but rather on Obama's unwillingness to acknowledge the depth of that relationship. It's the old "cover up is worse than the crime" strategy.

In the Web video, the narrator offers these crucial lines: "But Obama's friendship with terrorist Ayers isn't the issue. The issue is Barack Obama's judgment and candor."

Those words echoed what McCain told Fox News Channel's Sean Hannity during a recent sitdown when the subject of Ayers came up. "I don't care much about an old terrorist and his wife who are still unrepentant," said McCain. "It's not about them, it's about Senator Obama being candid and straightforward about their relationship."

McCain's campaign knows full well that it cannot win this election by simply running ads that make note of the fact that Obama and Ayers had a relationship -- the depth of which remains disputed. To make Ayers stick, it has to be part of a broader attack on Obama's judgment, candor and truthfulness. It may be part of the answer when trying to determine how McCain can come back but it is not the only answer.