It has been no secret that the McCain campaign has been quite judicious in it’s use of “truth stretching” tactics this election, but what many don’t realize is just how far the Senator has gone to make himself look like the perfect candidate. In fact with the recent economic crisis looming, McCain’s campaign is having a hard time holding on to the false sense of hope they had just a mere few weeks ago just before the RNC.

What is coming back to haunt the campaign repeatedly are several occassions in which the Senator seems to say one thing, then just days, and sometimes less than days, later retracks, and tries to go another direction. The official political term for this behavior – “waffling”.

Here are some vivid examples of this behavior.

Just hours before it was announced that three major financial institutions lay on brink, McCain announces to the world that the economy is “sound”. Later that day he’s telling anyone who will listen that what he really meant, was that our workers were the backbone of America, and then went on to denounce the “greed” of Wall Street and how it needed to be regulated more (this from a Republican?).

While trying to run his campaign on “less government waste” and fiscal restraint, he is now pronouncing huge tax cuts that even Alan Greenspan has denounced as unreasonable.

On several occassions over the years Senator McCain has expressed candidly and openly that economics is not his strong suit and that he is far more capable with foreign policy issues. Yet now the McCain campaign is trying to portray McCain as the only one with economic experiences as a result of his seat on the Commerce Committee.

Seems to me if he had such a high position in government related to the economy, why didn’t he do something about this financial crisis when the mortgage bubble first began?

His greatest weakness at this point is the obvious 90% in which McCain followed in tow, the same Bush policies that many believe are what led to this disaster to begin with.

Adding more fuel to the fire, in January of this year McCain argued that the economy was better off than it was eight years ago, but just a few months ago the Senator changed his position, indicating in an advertisement and in TV interviews that now we were worse off than we were four years ago.

It didn’t help when one of his top economic advisors was quoted as saying that this country was in a “mental recession” and was a “nation of whiners”.

His words now appear to be reaching many deaf ears. How can one be both in favor of limited restriction on capital and business, as Republicans typically are, while at the same time championing several tax cut measures and even requesting funds to help bail out millions of mortgage holders.

How does a McCain campaign break away from the fact that these are exactly the type of economic issues affecting the American worker that Republicans have for years been out of touch with. Not to mention, it is a bit difficult to appear truly understanding of typical workers when you yourself own at least seven homes.

And given the recent treatment the McCain campaign has played with the media, they are now paying him back in kind. Today’s favorited headlines from blogs around the world – “McCain says he helped develop the Blackberry”. Not exactly the type of message his campaign would like when they are trying to pull back from blunders made regarding the current economic crisis.

At this point in the campaign, it doesn’t appear that platitudes or lipstick are going to save him. Senator McCain will have a difficult time defending his continued waffling as he rides the very fine line between what he perceives as the truth, and what the reality actually is.