Imagine yourself in the bleachers of an arena observing a crucial competition between two challengers.

“La-dies and gentlemen, we are in for a treat tonight. The winner of this contest will be declared the leader of the free world.

In the right corner, our first contender, wearing red shorts, is a war hero who survived five years in solitary in a prison camp. He weighs in with twenty five years in Congress and is an expert in national defense.

In the left corner, in blue shorts, we have our second contender, weighing in with a mere three years in the U.S. Senate, eight years as a little-known state senator and … time as a community organizer (Jack, is this script right?).

Gentlemen … on my count … ready? May the contest begin!”

DING! DING! DING!

(Thud)

“And the winner is … the guy in blue shorts??”

Does this sound like an unlikely scenario? It’s not at all. Here’s how the more experienced, more seasoned competitor could get knocked out by the guy who many regard as a lightweight. All that has to happen is for red to follow the following keys to defeat.

Losing Strategy #1 - Do what she did.

Hillary Clinton is intellectually brilliant, politically mature and fiercely determined. She and her husband created a powerful political machine and, in the wake of the Democratic disasters of 1980, 1984, and 1988, should really be credited with saving their party from extinction. Her toughest competitor turned out to be a guy who wasn’t even out of high school yet when her husband started his first term as Governor of Arkansas. He came to the U.S. Senate only three years ago, was an obscure state senator for the eight years before that and held jobs as a college professor and community activist for the nine years before that. Many people from all political perspectives are still scratching their heads trying to figure out how she lost to him.

Here’s a partial explanation of how it happened. Clinton surrounded herself with a set of highly paid advisors from the party establishment - very smart people who knew how to win elections back in what feels like a long time ago. She didn’t establish a simple message that resonated with either her target audience or the public at large. And then she eventually alienated one of her most loyal constituencies, without which her party has not won a national election in decades. For all her talent and effectiveness as a politician, she took a lot of bad advice from people who didn’t understand what voters really wanted as much as they thought they did. And, unfortunately for her supporters, this is one of the reasons why she lost to the kid.

So, here’s the first way that McCain can lose. He can ignore his own instincts and follow the advice of the highly paid advisors from his own party establishment, the ones who knew how to narrowly win elections against less popular competition in years less hostile to Republicans. He can fail to establish a simple message that connects with the average voter. And he can alienate - or fail to connect with - the Republican Party’s most loyal constituency, Evangelical Christians and “values voters,” without whom the party has not won an election since 1972. For all his experience as a war hero and a respected legislator, he can also lose to the young man from Illinois.

Losing Strategy #2 - Depend on negative campaigning.

Simply put, John McCain and his supporters cannot win by spending all their time telling the American people why not to vote for Barack Obama. They need to spend time telling people why to vote for John McCain.

I know that we all hear from the political commentators that negative campaigning works. And it certainly works to some extent - except when it backfires. But it works best on willing victims - those who either help out their competitors by acting the part of the caricature the opposition painted them as - or those who don’t do anything to defend themselves.

In 1964, President Lyndon Johnson seemed determined not just beat his Republican rival, Barry Goldwater, but also to humiliate him. The Democrats charged that Goldwater was a warmonger who wanted to start a nuclear war (capped off with the infamous “Daisy” ad). They called him a racist. And they not so subtly implied that he was .. eh .. not all there psychologically. It would have been tougher for these attacks to stick if Goldwater himself didn’t help the cause by joking he’d like to lob a nuke into the men’s room of the Kremlin, that he wanted to saw off the Eastern seaboard of the U.S., and saying things like “extremism in defense of liberty is no vice.” His own words made the job of Johnson’s “5 o’clock club” - his opposition researchers - a lot easier.

Just four years ago, in the 2004 contest, the “Swift Boat Veterans For Truth” launched a vicious public attack on the Democratic nominee. As the group gained more and more attention and their charges damaged Kerry more by the day, he did something quite unexpected for a Vietnam combat veteran who came under fierce fire. Absolutely nothin’! Many people think that his campaign’s slowness in confronting the attack may have cost him the election.

But Obama doesn’t say all that much that gets him in trouble. He’s a very good talker and can talk his way out of trouble. And he’s not afraid to fight back. Last summer, he seemed to be intimidated at the prospect of making eye contact with Hillary during the debates. But the long warfare with Hillary has made him a stronger candidate and he’s now pretty darn good at the counter punch - much better than you’d expect from someone so new to politics. I don’t think he’s going to just sit there and take a lot of shots. Not these days.

So, another way McCain can lose is to have his team overcommit to attacking Obama and making the campaign about just why he shouldn’t be President instead of giving a lot of reasons why McCain should be. It would work better if Obama were a goofball or such a pacifist that he refused to fight back. But he’s neither.

Losing Strategy #3 - Take too much advice from the establishment.

According to a Real Clear Politics article by Bob Novak, John McCain is finding himself under unwanted pressure from President Bush, Karl Rove and others to pick former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney as his running mate.

The Democratic Party would love nothing more than to paint the candidacy of John McCain as one that would lead to a third Bush term. Although Obama has targeted McCain with this tag line, the reason it hasn’t totally stuck is because Senator McCain has earned a reputation of taking orders only from Senator McCain. He is well known for refusing to simply fall in line to obediently do the bidding of the party establishment. However, if it becomes perceived that he is being coerced by important members of the current Administration to pick someone acceptable to them against his own wishes (and against the wishes of a significant portion of the Republican electorate), he will give legs to the theory that a vote for him is a vote for Bush. If this happens, those legs will kick everyone involved away from the Executive Branch of the government come this November.

Losing Strategy #4 - Either tolerate racial politics - or - simply concede the black vote

The very worst thing that the Republican National Committee could do in facing off against Obama is to tolerate any hint of racial politics. Failing to do so will do more than simply alienate the small percentage of black voters who do vote for the Republican Party. It will also alienate many white voters as well. Most people of all ethnic groups do not want to be associated with racism. Tactics such as the ad run against Harold Ford in 2006, the infamous Willie Horton ad, and anything like it, sadly may have worked in years past and in certain areas. But will lead to lingering disaster for the GOP if repeated in 2008. Disaster not just in this election but in many elections to come. Hey, wait, TVV. Are you saying we can’t say anything bad about Obama because it will look racist? Of course that’s not what I’m saying. His record, his associations and policies are subject to scrutiny and criticism just like anyone else’s would be. But there’s a difference between campaigning against a candidate who happens to be black and running against “the black guy.” Choosing to do the latter will do much more harm than good - for the Republicans, for the Democrats and for the whole country.

Another key component to losing tip #4 is to simply assume that black voters are going to vote for Obama. I’m black. I’m very proud that a black man has earned a major party nomination for the Presidency. Am I planning to vote for Obama? No! He seems like a nice guy, but he’s way too liberal on social issues like abortion and marriage. And contrary to what many people assume, most black voters are not liberal. The reason most black voters vote for the Democrats is because: a) there has been a 48-year rift between the GOP and African Americans and b) even today, most Republicans don’t bother to ask for our votes. So, if McCain’s folks really want to up the chances they’ll lose the election, they need to tear out a page from the old Republican Playbook and just assume that we won’t vote for them and that they shouldn’t make a serious effort to ask. (It should be noted that in the key swing state of Ohio, where Bush wrapped up his victory over Kerry, he did better than his national average among black voters. The difference between his share of the black vote in Ohio over his national average accounts for one third of the margin by which Bush defeated Kerry in that state and won re-election.)

Losing Strategy #5 - Tick off your most loyal constituency

Every election in recent memory that a Republican has won the White House (which is pretty much every election in recent memory), which group has been the backbone of the Republican coalition? Is it the guys on Wall Street? The crew on Fox News? The Club for Growth? Well, those folks are all definitely important. But I’m going to think for a minute and try to figure out which group of Republican voters have been the most faithful and without whom the party is doomed on Election Night. Oh - I know. It’s the faithful.

If Evangelical voters stay home this fall because they’re discouraged, feeling neglected, or not actively sought out, it very well may guarantee a Democratic victory. Remember of course what happened in both 1996 and 2000 when Evangelicals stayed home? Dole lost the first contest and Bush would have lost had Al Gore carried his home state (which is something that even Walter Mondale did in 1984 and Mike Dukakis did in 1988). In 2004, Evangelicals came out in force, voted for the Republicans and that is of course the reason why the Republicans did not lose (the most common “most important issue” for voters was “Moral Values”).

So, how can McCain and the GOP blow this thing big time? They can refuse to adequately reach out to values voters. And I don’t just mean reach out with words and appearances. I mean reach out by balancing the ticket with someone who understands the issues that are important to us. Contrary to what many people believe, most of us don’t actually want a Theocracy and aren’t trying to use the government to push our beliefs on others. However, many of us have firm beliefs of when life begins (this backed up by science), the importance of family, and don’t want our kids to be taught propaganda and shown trashy content all the time. Many of us respect everybody but want to be given a little respect as well. If Mike Huckabee becomes John McCain’s Veep, the party will avoid one more way that they can lose on Election night. Of course, Huckabee helps as well because he also appeals to some Fiscal Conservatives (you know, the ones who actually like the idea of a 0% Income Tax), many blue collar workers who otherwise might vote Democratic, and conservative African Americans.

It’s a tough year for America and for Americans. The race could certainly go either way. But one way to almost guarantee that it won’t go McCain’s way is for him to conduct himself according to any of the above.