Has John McCain Been Watching His Ads?

It's a rainy day here at the beach, so I'm catching up on the (non-Olympic) news. This exchange in McCain's interview with NPR is--uhm--remarkable, and makes me wonder who that guy is who keeps saying he's John McCain and he approved this ad:

So, to move on to domestic questions, Steve Schmidt, who is running your campaign, has said something kind of simple and understandable. He said that a campaign needs one positive message about its candidate and then one good, strong negative message about the opponent. Your camp —

I never heard that statement, and I'd have to know who attributed it to him before I would agree with that. We're not sending any negative message in our campaign. We're drawing differences in positions between myself and Sen. Obama, which are significant. He wants to raise taxes; I want to keep them low. He doesn't want to drill offshore or have nuclear power; I want both. I've never heard Steve Schmidt say we need a negative message in the campaign.

I'm quoting The Wall Street Journal here.

I've run many, many campaigns, and I have never believed that we need a strong negative message. And I've been in –-