Rick Davis Flashes Some .PPT

In true Romney-esque fashion, McCain campaign manager, Rick Davis, has posted a PowerPoint laying out the campaign's strategy for winning. It could not come at a better time, as concerns among some Republicans about the still-prepping state of the campaign continue to grab ink. Just today, both William Kristol and Robert Novak have columns ruminating on the problems.

But Davis, as can be expected, sounds optimistic notes. As a Republican, he calls this election year "one of the worst in our party's history," but notes that McCain polls ahead of the Republican brand in "favorability" and even slightly ahead of Barack Obama in "favorability," though, I would add, different polls show different things with regards to the latter. Davis also lays out an early electoral map strategy, which takes significant solace in the fact that Obama struggled badly against Hillary Clinton in eastern Ohio and western Pennsylvania. Davis announces that the economy "will be the battleground in this election," and says "we need to reach out to independents and disaffected Democrats." He also comes clean with the current head count of staff in the McCain campaign: 250, a number that can continue to give Republicans pause, since Obama employs somewhere in the neighborhood of 700 or 800 people.