John McCain’s real running mate this year will be Richard Nixon – or, to be precise, the strategy that Nixon pioneered for Republicans in 1972: Make your opponent unacceptable to the Silent Majority.

That’s the attack McCain’s Karl Rove-trained team has leveled against Barack Obama for weeks now. It is taking hold.

Thirty-six years ago, Nixon’s campaign set the Silent Majority against the elites – and their spoiled children.

The same year, Jesse Helms’ slogan in his race against Nick Galifianakis, who was Greek, was “He’s One of Us.”

McCain’s best chances to win follows that old road map.

America’s population may be headed toward “majority minority,” but it’s not there yet. Tricky Dick’s tricks may have one or two more election cycles in them.

McCain can’t afford to raise Obama’s race directly. But race is there anyway. Often it is dressed up as concerns about Obama’s supposed ties to Islam – or his membership in a black Christian church. Or his inexperience in public office. Or the fact that Europeans love him. Or that young people and black people love him.

It’s about race: He’s not one of us.

That is why Obama’s big speech in Berlin may have been a mistake.

Obama also showed his vulnerability in the Rick Warren forum. While he’s smart and thoughtful, he can sound weak, windy and indecisive.

Another historical analogy could be Ike versus Adlai in 1952 and 1956. Ike was the straight-talking military hero. Adlai was the tribune of the “thinking people.”

That didn’t work out so well for Democrats.

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