Right now, the number one issue in America is obviously the economy – a fact that causes conservatives to wince when they remember that they had not one, but two chances to put Mitt Romney on the Republican ticket. Yet instead of economic knowledge, their presidential nominee’s specialty lies mostly in foreign policy and their veeps’ chief draw lies in her status as the Obama of the Right.

Thankfully for the Republican nominees, their Democratic counterparts are equally inept at dealing with economic problems. Thus, the primary battle in this election has been fought about domestic issues that are more loosely related to the economy. The three main ones are health care, energy and the federal deficit. Obama is doing well on the first two issues, so conservatives need McCain to do well on the last one to stand a chance at winning the election. Luckily for them, McCain began to focus on domestic debt in a smart way during Tuesday night’s debate.

McCain’s underused but potentially winning argument is that rhetoric on domestic spending does not matter, but the record does. Emphasizing the unimportance of rhetoric is a good way to remind voters that campaign-trail promises oftentimes fail to come to fruition. This is a smart argument for the candidate from Arizona, because it not only is true as a general principle but is directly applicable to his opponent.

Obama says that he plans to use a “scalpel” to precisely cut out certain government programs to make way for his new ones. This is unrealistic. Chances are, Congress would gladly send budgets to a President Obama that have his proposals accounted for but also contain numerous extra programs. Given that presidents can’t reject a small part of a bill without rejecting the whole thing (a power known as the line-item veto that some governors possess), Obama would either have to send us further into debt for his proposals, or reject the bill in its entirety. Such a rejection would not only shut down government, but would also stop Obama’s programs from getting passed.

Furthermore, Congress will never allow the president to have the power to line-item veto legislation, because it would allow the president to shape bills to an overly large extent. Thus, cutting out congressional proposals from the budget with Obama’s “scalpel” is simply out of the question.

So then, when Obama proposes new spending, it is important to realize that its cost will not be covered by the reduction of other areas in the budget. And not only does Obama propose more new spending than McCain, his record shows how truly unthrifty he is with taxpayer dollars. All in all, deriding Obama’s new spending and his ridiculous promises is a great line of attack for McCain. He needs to use it more.

While we’re at it, there’s another spending-related argument McCain needs to make. He needs to make it known that his promises to veto pork-laden legislation are feasible – he has respect on Capitol Hill and a GOP minority that would side with him. After all, what minority party wouldn’t want to look like heroes against “corrupt” Democrats? Sure there’s a chance such a fight could fail, but it is a risk with little long-term downside to the American people. Obama has already to begun to argue that there are greater problems contributing to domestic debt. He’s right, but what is his solution – get line-item veto powers?

If that was Obama’s response, then his rhetoric would merely look emptier. So McCain has a new three-part theme to work with if he chooses to do so. Focus on the new spending Obama proposes, his empty rhetoric and McCain’s simple promises, and voters might start to trust the Arizona senator more on domestic issues in general. Such trust combined with the argument that McCain is more experienced could allow McCain to form one last stand against the far-left liberalism that Obama has disguised as “Hope” and “Change.”

Let’s just Hope McCain makes this Change in his campaigning before it’s too late.

Dan is a sophomore in political science who might just be the only Detroit Lions fan on campus