John McCain may have one chance left to win this election, the Chairman of ConservativeHQ.com, Richard A. Viguerie, said. "He must free Sarah Palin to go after Barack Obama and the liberal Democrats, or he will almost certainly lose."
"The McCain campaign has put this 'pit bull with lipstick' on a leash. The campaign has surrounded her with people from the Bush administration. And as we can see from the wreckage of the Bush presidencies, these folks don't have the slightest clue how to make a case to the American people."
"McCain has to get rid of these Bush people around Palin, along with the lobbyists and the folks from the Washington PR firms, and replace them with principled conservatives who have experience making the case for conservatism."
Nationalizing the election along liberal-conservative lines is McCain's key to victory, Viguerie said. "America is a center-right country. So, for four decades, when elections break along the liberal-conservative fault line, the more conservative candidate wins."
"But the liberals are making this election about the record of the Bush administration and the GOP leadership in Congress - ironically, a record of cronyism and Big Government. That's why they're ahead."
Viguerie noted that, "John McCain has not been willing and able to cast this election as a choice between one side that is center-right and the other that is extremely liberal. Only Governor Palin can do that. She brings together all the types of conservatives - economic conservatives and religious conservatives, libertarians and 'values voters,' and people who are simply fed up with Washington's culture of corruption - and she appeals to millions of Americans in the center."
That, Viguerie said, "is why the Left hates her so much. And that is why she represents McCain's last, best chance." He said McCain must "remember why he picked Governor Palin, and unleash her to do what she does best."
NOTE TO EDITORS: Richard A. Viguerie pioneered political direct mail and has been called "one of the creators of the modern conservative movement" (The Nation magazine), one of the "conservatives of the century" (The Washington Times), and one of 2008's "top 25 influencers" among Republicans (NewsMax magazine). His latest book is Conservatives Betrayed: How George W. Bush and Other Big-Government Republicans Hijacked the Conservative Cause (Bonus Books).
