Seems McCain has been offered a couple of venues to "pump em up".. First the Evangelical Faith Q&A..in which rapid reply McCain had his answers down pat..and the VFW venue with the Mac Attack. Republicans have the art of Attack down to a fine....ART.

Bush used similar "scare'em" tactics in 2004. The Fear Factor is in full bloom. People vote on emotion NOT facts or what is most logical. McCain represents another 4 years of Bush..Now THATS scary.

Check out Chuck Robb, under a maelstrom attack about hotel rooms and playboy bunnies as he crushes Ollie North.  

Suck it, Jailbird!

And powerful attacks can be delivered with powerful cool.  Remember Jim Webb's famous "the fish rots from the head down" attack?  Pure genius, delivered beautifully, and with Obamaesque cool.

it will be all "fear" all the time at this year's RNC.

...and 9/11.

While August has been bad for Democrats in the past, one thing is different this year. We have the Convention at the end of August. Kerry got killed in August after the convention. Nothing to get the momentum back.

It'll be different this year.  

It's the victory with a mandate for change.

It's a campaign that telegraphs the direction of the future with emotional clarity and a powerful era-altering moral compass.  

Objects in motion tend to stay in motion, and public opinion is moving in a direction we, as a nation can't afford.

And Obama should call him on it. The indictment is out there waiting to be written.

McCain has done an effective job of turning the debate to whether Obama has enough experience to be president. Regardless of whether you think he does or not, this is not a favorable discussion for Obama.

The discussion should be about how John McCain sold out every principle he ever had in order to get the nomination for president. The discussion should be about how and why the "straight talk express" veered off the road.

McCain needs to be put on the defensive. Starting today, Obama should question McCain's integrity in every speech. There is a plenty of factual support for doing so. The Democrats will never have as much attention paid to them as they will this next week, and they should use this opportunity to define McCain as a fraud and a liar, .

I can't take another election cycle of waiting for the national media to do its job and then spending the next four years bemoaning their failure to do so. Obama needs to force the press to ask McCain about these issues, or they will not do it. His campaign needs to punish reporters and news organizations who do not do so. This is SOP for the GOP.

Win or lose, let's put it out there and let the chips fall where they may. I'm not saying to lie or to "Swiftboat" the guy -- merely to go on the attack with fact-based arguments that contradict the public's perception.

that Dems should be on the attack, I am betting that Obama is waiting to nominate a VP so the VP can attack for him.

I question whether Democrats want to go after McCain's integrity. But I think they should, because I think the case is out there to be made that the public's perception of McCain is at odds with the facts.

McCain will get mad. So what? Let him get mad. The media will say, "How dare you?" Don't fear that. Force the media to confront McCain.

I think we saw this when Clark first questioned whether McCain's POW experience was a qualification to be president. The media was very aggressive in questioning Clark's temerity for questioning the applicability of this aspect of the McCain bio, but the Obama camp lost its nerve at this media swarm and did not maintain the attack long enough to force them to ask McCain just what relevance his POW experience has to his qualification to be president.

Force the media to do this, and every time McCain cits his POW experience afterwards, the media will write, "...although some have questioned the relevance of this experience..."

Our national media is not so much biased as it is intellectually weak, lazy and conventional and risk averse, among other things.  

I see no reason to wait for a VP, Obama should do it himself for the very reason that it shows strength.  Again, one of the worst memes against Democrats is that "if they can't even defend themselves, why should I trust them to defend the country?"  That's exactly why Obama should be the one HIMSELF to hit McCain hard.  That's also why Dem's should kick Lieberman's sorry ass out of the caucus NOW, not after the election. Stop acting like wimps and the American people will start respecting us.  Or not.

If I was Obama, I would be answering those pushes with shoves. It's just an old dusty strategy to look pristine as the President and have the VP fight. I think it has to end. I am just betting his advisers are asking him to not sully his own hands.

Keep the talk on mccain, and how he is a clone of bush.

Thats the message.

Courtesy of Open Left:

Two new national polls, from NBC and CBS, both show Obama up by 3%, down from 6% in both a couple weeks ago. Obama continues to lead, but McCain continues to catch up.

I agree with Josh: it's time for Barack Obama and the Obama campaign to really "get in the game."  Look, the ground game's good, the use of technology is good, but the messaging and advertising...awful, lame, flaccid, weak.  Fire whoever's doing the traditional media and hell, turn it over to the netroots...their YouTube videos have been better than anything the campaign has produced.  Finally, rip McCain several new ones, stop pussyfooting around, make it clear that the past 8 years have been a disaster, that this is NOT a fluke, that this is PART AND PARCEL of everything conservatism represents.  If not, we not only WILL lose, we'll DESERVE to lose.  And no, that was no fun to say.

The following is a dialogue captured on tape:

(Ring ring)

Electoral College: Hello, Electoral College here.

Punditocracy: Hi, this is media and outraged Democrats. We are going to ignore the fact that you are the way to elect a president, not national polls.

Electoral College: Why would you do that? That makes no sense.

Punditocracy: Because, it's easier to track and talk about huge national numbers that mean nothing rather than focus, in detail, on states, and the formulas needed to reach 270 electoral votes.

Electoral College: Well, I feel ignored. Didn't my cousins -- the Democratic primaries/delegates -- teach anyone that national polls mean very little other than to create useless babble?

Punditocracy: No. Again, we're going to ignore you until Election Night. You don't matter. We're going to analyze every national poll that comes out every day and talk ourselves into a dizzy tizzy. Thank you, but we need to go now and re-rehearse our standard lines about the huge importance of national polls. Goodbye.

On both pollster.com and fivethirtyeight.com, Obama has seen his state numbers deflating almost by the day for the past two weeks as his bland messaging is getting knee-capped by McCain's constant assault.

Serious erosion in his polling numbers in Ohio, Colorado, Florida, Indiana, Oregon, Minnesota, New Hampshire, and Missouri. Only Virginia and North Carolina and Iowa amongst the states in play appear to be holding steady.

If Obama doesn't use the Convention to really stick it to McCain (like the Republicans did to Kerry in 2004) as he more fully introduces himself to the nation, then we are in for a very close race and a potential loss along the lines of 2000/2004.

fivethirtyeight.com has seen the race go from almost a 3:1 lead for Obama about three weeks ago to a toss-up, slightly leaning McCain now. That's a big, flashing warning sign -- and  the game starts tomorrow or Friday with the VP announcement.

This is not funny.  This is serious.  The worst of the onslaught hasn't even begun, and we're officially behind.

Come out swinging, or stay home and let the Republicans continue to ride America into the land of former greatness.

My point is to encourage everyone to talk Electoral College and not national polls. National polls don't matter. These states matter and those of us in battleground states must help. Again, ignore ignore ignore national polls. Lazy reporting and lazy commentary.

If you look at the state polling updated on 538 today, you'll see that the battlefield states and a couple Kerry states slipped dramatically 10 points or more to McCain. The Warren Forum and weak response to McCain is killing us.

We, the Democrats, believe that this race was ours for the taking. Maybe it got to our heads. No, we need to fight. We need to show guts, courage, and spine. We can do it without dragging the campaign into the dirt but it's high time we took the fight to them. Prove to the average American that the Democratic Party will stand up for them, no questions.

National polls matter a great deal, as state polls usually follow the national polls with a lag.  It's definitely not "lazy," by the way, as we look at all the national AND state polls and both trends are not looking good right now for Barack Obama.

... and as Susan Estrich wrote in the last paragraph of a recent column:

Of course, it's not being held today (the election). That's the problem with these horse race polls. And it's not being held at the end of next week, at the conclusion of the Democratic Convention, or at the end of the following week, at the end of the Republican Convention. It's still two debates, and countless ads and events, away. And the people who will most likely decide it are watching the Olympics right now.

Focus on the states; that's the only way to win. We don't have a national election, per se.

Here's the latest state by state map, courtesy of Chris Bowers:

By the way, according to Bowers, who is one of the most astute/brilliant political observers around - watches all the state and national polls very closely, is quite aware that the election isn't held today, that it isn't a national election, etc., etc. - Barack Obama's strategy right now point blank "isn't working." I agree.  If you disagree, please take Chris Bowers' argument and refute it point by point, state by state, poll by poll. If not, I'm sticking with Bowers, Josh, and my own analysis/gut feel on this race.

...I'm not saying Obama's strategy is necessarily working, but again, it's also August and many things can change or have yet to be fleshed out. My larger point, again, is to not focus on the horse race polls...too much weight is put on these things. There's no true national election, as we all know, so let's focus on the states.

And BTW, lots of astute/brilliant political observers are often wrong.

is more the super tracker on the side where poll estimates have dropped below the neutral line to a McCain positive. Not since May has McCain been preferred over Obama. That was in the final days of the race with Clinton. No, this is a real August slump. It's relatively normal. Obama will still need a strong push to knock out the competition.

If he really wants to win, he'll hit back with facts and a pleasant voice but be sticking it to McCain. America will listen.

I'm having trouble understanding statements like "Obama needs to stick it to McCain." What does that mean? Will fireworks go off if he "sticks it" to McCain the right way? I'm not criticizing you directly, but I've heard some version of this argument for a few days now and I'm really confounded by what it means.

Remember, Barack is trying to run a different type of campaign. He needs to emphasize that more than anything because I believe that really helped him against Hillary.

But if someone can define what sticking it to or fighting against or something similar means, I'd appreciate it because it's fuzzy. He's out there every day making strong statements.

Isn't McCain going to "stick it" to Obama at the RNC? Won't undecideds notice that, too (except maybe NFL fans because McCain's speech is up against the Giants/Redskins opening night game).

Maybe I'm too jaded about positioning and posturing that's analyzed waaaaayyy too much by the punditocracy. I think we should just trust Barack and his team -- they've been extremely good for a long time now.

There's a simple narrative that explains all of McCain's flip-flops and position changes and misleading statements and outright lies -- the man will literally say and do anything to become President. The campaign he has been running for the past four weeks while the Obama campaign went on cruise control is the essence of Rovian politics -- attack them for being weak where your weakness lies (the quest for celebrity, elitism, being out of touch), and then lie through your teeth about what you actually stand for (the Original Maverick, etc.).

Let's be crystal clear here -- John McCain has adopted all of George W. Bush's regimes most egregious, reactionary, and corporatist policies, and has hired all of Rove's disciples and the who's who of Washington lobbyist insiderdom to try and sell this shit sandwich to the American people by muddying the waters and confusing the less informed of the populace. It is straight, flat, out and out lying and deception. And yet Obama's team can't seem to make one straight ad calling bullshit on this tactic. And in every speech, Barack Obama hails John McCain's character. It's maddening.

I hope you're right, I hope this post-primary, pre-convention phase was all just a gigantic set-up for the butt-whooping that's about to come, but I think we all should be concerned until it actually happens.

Obama's campaign was never about being a polite campaigner -- his message is that he'll govern differently and with a much different set of priorities. If he can't explain the essence of that change while simultaneously calling out the lies, well, then he'll never get a chance to put any of it into practice.

John McCain backs every single failed policy of George W. Bush, and would double down on these policies to the complete detriment of our country for the next four years. He's a hothead that is bellicose and belligerent and lacks the temperament and judgment to be President, and would probably get us into at least another war that is against our national interest. He's an out-of-touch elitist that will do and say anything to get the Presidency, and then will pursue the policies that his lobbyist backers get paid to have enacted. Don't listen to what he says now, look at his record during the Bush Presidency and his words to obtain the nomination -- that's the real John McCain.

That's the message. It needs to be distilled down, but that's how you take the man down -- with the unabashed truth.

If Obama's campaign doesn't want to go down that road, then we're in big, big trouble.  

At no time in recent political history has the Dem's VP choice been so critical.  If Obama picks Kaine just because they like each other without a care for the message it sends that a lackluster governor is a heartbeat away from being president then Obama loses badly in November.  If he picks HRC or Clark, then it shows he knows that his image of being charismatic without much experience or substance has to be converted to an image of being bold and inclusive.  

Picking Kaine will mean that Obama chooses a cheerleader over someone that undecided voters, particularly women who will feel disenfranchised, can get fired up about.  HRC fills that slot.  Clark will settle concerns about Obama's total lack of military experience. Most voters will not care how many military advisers the president has, Clark will be a symbolic reassurance that Obama realizes we are in a worldwide battle against extremists and we will have the mettle to fight that fight wisely.

Obama cannot afford to attack McCain in any shape, form or fashion regarding military issues.  Do not underestimate how his refusal to be freed  by N. Viet Nam captors until his buddies were released resonates with Americans. Clark can outshine him in the global sense with authority but attacking McCain on military issues, integrity or his age will distance undecided moderate voters and that is why Obama's political advisers have wisely counseled against that tactic. McCain, by default, is filling the vacuum of the "who do you know, who do you trust?" segment of voters.  

Obama's threshold answer to that rhetorical question will be how and whom he picks for VP, it is a test of his smarts and leadership ability,period.

The next couple of days decides the election. Without HRC or Clark Obama gets no sustaining bump from the convention, with HRC being the biggest bump-sustainer (if that is a word).    

on his judgment as a potential commander in chief.  I presume that wasn't what you were referring to when you said "Obama cannot afford to attack McCain in any shape, form or fashion regarding military issues."

Don't people ever get tired of waiting for someone else to come along and win an election for them?

Strategically-speaking, Obama's hope is apparently to hold onto enough cash for the "general" election phase, where McCain is restricted to public financing.  If he's able to dramatically and decisively outspend McCain post-convention, he'll be able to drive the conversation in a direction beneficial to him.  But that means that while McCain has to blow through every dollar he's raised for the primary right now, Obama has to reserve resources.

Strategically, this phase benefits McCain.  The last weeks of the election should strategically benefit Obama.  Hence I'm not feel panicky yet.  Do I feel like the resources that are being used now are being used to their best effect?  Not especially.