McCain still has time, but needs a message

By John Whitesides, Political Correspondent - Analysis

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - With 25 days until the U.S. election, Republican John McCain still has time to revitalize his lagging presidential campaign. What he needs is a compelling message to help him do it.

As the global economy teeters on the brink of collapse and the savings of millions of Americans vanish in an epic Wall Street meltdown, McCain has focused on attacks on Democratic rival Barack Obama's character and questions about his association with former 1960s radical William Ayers.

So far, that does not appear to be the path to reversing McCain's steady slide in opinion polls ahead of the November 4 election to succeed Republican President George W. Bush, analysts said.

"This is far from over. It could flip and flop again several times -- but not on the basis of attacks about William Ayers. It looks like desperation and flailing," pollster John Zogby said.

"Centrist voters have been telling us they want a problem-solver and a competent manager who can find a way out of this," he said. "What McCain is doing is a dramatic example of what voters have been saying they are tired of."

Republican strategists said McCain needed to make lingering doubts about Obama's character and experience part of a broader message encompassing a more coherent argument for why he would be better on the economic crisis than Obama.

"There is still a real opportunity for McCain to grab hold of this economic issue in a way that engages the voters, and plenty of time," said Dan Schnur, director of the Jesse Unruh Institute of Politics at the University of Southern California and a McCain aide during his failed 2000 presidential bid.

But McCain's proposal this week for the government to buy troubled mortgage loans took a back seat to his attacks on Obama over his service on a Chicago community board with Ayers, a member of the radical 1960s Weather Underground group.

"The danger is that in talking about domestic terrorists he is overshadowing his economic message," Schnur said.

Republican consultant Joe Gaylord said McCain, a veteran Arizona senator who at 72 would be the oldest person to assume the U.S. presidency, must make the race "about big arguments."

"It can't be a little bits and pieces campaign. He needs to nationalize the campaign with a big theme about the economy and why he is the answer," Gaylord said.

Obama, 47, a first-term Illinois senator who would be the first black U.S. president, has made steady gains in national polls and in key states in recent weeks as the Wall Street crisis intensified.

McCain fumbled his first two debate showdowns with Obama, who was judged the winner of both in polls.

OBAMA LEAD GROWS

A week of McCain campaign attacks on Obama and his association with Ayers has not halted Obama's poll growth.