Though he’s had the nomination wrapped up for four months (about the same amount of time as between now and Election Day), McCain has shaken up his campaign to put Steve Schmitt in charge so that he can craft a message. I think it’ll be a pretty tall order for a number of reasons. One is that the fundamentals so favor Democrats and the public is so against Bush, that no matter how skilled a political operator is, it would be difficult to craft a winning message for any Republican candidate. McCain has to appeal to independents while trying not to anger the conservative base too much; he must distance himself from Bush, but can’t throw Bush under the bus. It’s a real high wire act. But the biggest obstacle to consistent messaging is the idiosyncratic personality of McCain himself. By nature, he’s not very scripted, and that’s one of the very things that makes him appealing to a lot of voters. It’s also not clear that he has any sort of clear ideology that ties all of his various positions together. I mean, how does somebody try to talk about free markets and limited government, have a good record of fighting pork-barrel spending, and yet want to go after CEO pay, support the re-importation of price-controlled Canadian drugs, and regulate political speech? So, no matter what Schmitt does, at the end of the day, McCain himself will always be the message.