Its been almost six weeks since Senator McCain taped Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin as his vice presidential nominee. Since then we’ve seen the first attempts at character assassination which were turned into sympathy, the excellent performance at the convention, the disastrous interviews, and the mediocre debate. Some people have hailed her as a huge boon to the ticket. She brings the Republican values, the female vote, and a youthful presence that was missing from the campaign. Others hate her with an all-consuming passion. She’s a religious fanatic, setting back the fight for women’s rights, and making a mockery of the experience argument McCain supposedly cares so much for.

The truth is almost always somewhere in the middle — but this isn’t a science fair project. This is an election. In this arena, the truth means nothing. Here, its all about appearances. I haven’t decided yet whether she was a good pick or not.

Since winning the nomination, McCain has been tacking to the right to appease the more extreme elements in the Republican party and to energize his party base. The nomination of Palin was yet another move further to the right to try and solicit more support from right-wing activists. Here’s the problem: The traditional way to win an election is to start out appeasing the base and then move center, not start out appealing to the center and then moving to the base.

A candidate wants to get the support of his party and then moderate his views to appeal to the center, for a number of reasons. For one, partisan voters tend to make their decisions very, very early in the election cycle. Once they’ve decided to vote for the candidate, contributed money to the campaign and started to proselytize for the party, the candidate doesn’t have to worry about them defecting. Non-partisan people tend to either be less politically active and start paying attention to an election much later in the cycle or fence sitters who can change their minds as the election draws near. McCain’s decision to start as a maverick center and move right is rather bass ackwards.

That said, McCain had to do something to quell the back bench revolt he was experiencing with hard-right Republicans. He needed to either 1) move right or 2) find someone to move right for him. Palin is the perfect fit for the second option. The problem with his strategy is that he did not pick one. He picked both. Instead of making one move to the right and one move to the center, McCain has chosen to move twice to the right.

McCain has either erred in his pick or erred in his strategy. At this point in the campaign, he should be differentiating himself from his party, playing up the maverick reputation, and reaching for every vote he can get (and the only votes left to get at this point belong to the ignorant and the hesitant). With the pick of Palin, McCain should be focused on making himself look more independent and tackling the two issues that leaners care about: War and the economy.

Instead he’s retreating from the economy, taking a beating on his tax stance without firing back, remaining silent on foreign policy issues, and going after someone Obama may or may not have any real connection with. At this point, voters don’t care. McCain needs to step up his game. At this point, he’s just giving it away. There’s just under a month till the election. He left the convention dead even with Obama. Since then he’s dropped 6-8 points on the national level and the electoral map is not looking pretty at all.

Mr. McCain, if your segregates are listening, you did so well as a maverick. You’re doing a heck of a job, Johnny. Everything, and I mean everything, is stacked against the Republican party this year. You had closed the gap. Now you’ve dropped all pretense of breaking from the party and started towing the line. You’re proposing new programs and supporting bail outs. You’ve forgotten that what made you so appealing was your approach to fiscal matters and your inexorable, unflinching defiance of extremists of both parties. You’ve rolled over.

Find your center, call out Obama on his economic policy, point out his inexperience, call bullshit on his latest attacks against you, and for the love of god, get back to basics. Time’s ticking. The election is slipping away from you. The moment of truth is here. Put up or shut up.