It happened. Here's what I posted at MotherJones.com....

So who's a real American now?

With his decisive triumph over Senator John McCain, Senate Barack Obama made obvious history: he is the first black (or biracial) man to win the presidency. But the meaning of his victory--in which Obama splashed blue across previously red states--extends far beyond its racial significance. Obama, a former community organizer and law professor, won the White House as one of the most progressive (or liberal) nominees in the Democratic Party's recent history. Mounting one of the best run presidential bids in decades, Obama tied his support for progressive positions (taxing the wealthy to pay for tax cuts for working Americans, addressing global warming, expanding affordable health insurance, withdrawing troops from Iraq) to calls for cleaning up Washington and for crafting a new type of politics. Charismatic, steady, and confident, he melded substance and style into a winning mix that could be summed up in simple and basic terms: hope and change.

After nearly eight years of George W. Bush's presidency, Obama was the non-Bush: intelligent, curious, thoughtful, deliberate, and competent. His personal narrative--he was the product of an unconventional family and worked his way into the nation's governing class--fueled his campaign narrative. His story was the American Dream v2.0. He was change, at least at skin level. But he also championed the end of Bushism. He had opposed the Iraq war. He had opposed Bush's tax cuts for the rich. He was no advocate of let-'er-rip, free market capitalism or American unilateralism. In policy terms, Obama represents a serious course correction.

And more. In the general election campaign, McCain and his running mate, Sarah Palin, turned the fight for the presidency into a culture clash. They accused Obama of being a socialist. They assailed him for having associated with William Ayers, a former, bomb-throwing Weather Underground radical,who has since become an education expert. Palin indirectly referred to Obama's relationship with the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, who once preached fiery sermons denouncing the United States government for certain policies. On the campaign trail, Palin suggested there were "real" parts of America and fake parts. At campaign events, she promoted a combative, black-helicopter version of conservatism: if you're for government expansion, you're against freedom. During her one debate with Democratic vice presidential nominee Joe Biden, she hinted that if her opponents won the White House there might come a day when kids would ask their grandparents what it had been like to live in a free country. At McCain-Palin rallies, supporters shouted out, "Communist!" and "terrorist!" and "Muslim!" when the Republican candidates referred to Obama. And McCain and Palin hurled the standard charges at Obama: he will raise your taxes and he is weak on national security.

Put it all together and the message was clear: there are two types of Americans. Those who are true Americans--who love their nation and cherish freedom--and those who are not. The other Americans do not put their country first; they blame it first. The other Americans do not believe in opportunity; they want to take what you have and give it to someone else. The other Americans do not care about Joe the Plumber; they are out-of-touch elitists who look down on (and laugh at) hard-working, church-going folks. The other Americans do not get the idea of America. They are not patriots. And it just so happens that the other America is full of blacks, Latinos, gays, lesbians, and non-Christians.

McCain, Palin and their compatriots did what they could to depict Obama as the rebel chief of this other un-American America. (Hillary Clinton helped set up their effort during the primaries by beating the Ayers drum.) Remember the stories of Obama's supposed refusal to wear a flag pin or place his hand over his heart for the Pledge of Allegiance? The emails about Obama being a secret Muslim? The goal was to delegitimize Obama, as well as the Americans who were moved by his biography, his rhetoric, and his ideas. It was back to the 1960s--drawing a harsh line between the squares (the real Americans) and the freaks (those redistribution-loving, terrorist-coddling faux Americans).

It didn't work.

I voted early Tuesday morning. I took my daughters with me. And as I watched them watching me cast a vote, I realized that this election will tell us who the real Americans are--at least for the next four years. Barack Obama and John McCain represent two very different American narratives and two very different constituencies. Having attended rallies for each--including Obama's final campaign rally, which he held in Manassas, Virginia, on Monday night--I remain struck by how different the McCain and Obama crowds look and how different the supporters of each candidate talk and think about the issues, the country, and the world. There are two Americas. And one will win today, and its citizens will have a president who represents their vision of the nation. It's a winner-take-all situation. So those on the losing side will have to contend with frustration, loss, and alienation. (This is my country?) Largely due to the campaign waged by John McCain, this race has been divisive along political-cultural lines. But the returns will show how large the gap is between these two Americas and, more important, which one is ascendant.

I am off to Chicago. Next time I "see" you, we will know.

This time it's personal.

Then again, it was personal in 2004.

In September 2003, I published a book immoderately titled, The Lies of George W. Bush: Mastering the Politics of Deception. Its contention was a simple one: that Bush had gone beyond the normal boundaries of presidential spin in using falsehoods and misrepresentations to skew the public discourse on many fronts: stems cells, global warming, tax policy, and, above all, the invasion of Iraq.

At the time, this was not--in certain circles--a well-received argument. Conservative pundits, pointing to my book and others that came out at the time (Al Franken's Lying Liars, Molly Ivins' Bushwhacked, written with Lou Dubose, and Joe Conason's Big Lies), declared a new phenomenon was at hand: rabid, irrational Bush hatred. MSM commentators, ever looking to reside within the comfortable, above-it-all middle, observed that the left was now mirroring the extreme rhetoric of the Limbaugh-crazy, Coulter-loving right. I noted some examples of this dismissive reax in a recent Mother Jones essay. The New York Times' Matt Bai, citing my book, wrote, "the new leftist screeds seem to solidify a rising political culture of incivility and overstatement." Conservative columnist David Brooks proclaimed that "the core threat to democracy is not in the White House, it's the haters themselves." (Yes, I was more dangerous than George W. Bush.) What few of these commentators of the center and right bothered to do was to evaluate the case I (and the others) had put forward. That is, to confront the facts I had presented. Their aim was to discredit the very idea of anyone going so far as to call the president of the United States a liar. And National Review editor Rich Lowry opined, "I don't think the public is going to buy the idea that [Bush is] a liar."

Lowry got it wrong. By Election Day 2004, polls showed that a slight majority believed that Bush was not honest and trustworthy. Still, Bush managed to best John Kerry in an election that was something of a referendum on Bush's first term. But that election came too early. Had it been held a year later--post-Katrina--any Dem would have thrashed Bush and Cheney at the polls. And now about seven out of ten disapprove of his presidency, and most of the public agrees with the premise that Bush deliberately misled American citizens about WMDs and the threat supposedly posed by Iraq. Bush is heading toward the door widely regarded as a failure: Iraq, Katrina, the financial meltdown. He has become the vanishing president. Hardly seen. Barely relevant.

Bush's style of politics, his policies, his political party--it's all been discredited. Whatever happens in the presidential race, the GOP is poised to take a beating in congressional races. He has led his party to ruin. The battle over the W. story has been won by his critics--at least in the short run. The view that Bush has been a dishonest president and bad for the United States has become the majority position in the United States. If McCain somehow manages to win, it will be in spite of Bush.

Many presidents are elected as reactions to the previous president. George W. Bush's (faux) victory in 2000 was a reaction to the Bill Clinton soap opera. And a Barack Obama triumph would be the natural reaction to the W. years. Obama is the most progressive (or liberal) Democratic nominee since FDR ran for reelection. He is black (or biracial). He is an intellectual. He is no child of privilege. To sum up: he is the opposite of George W. Bush. Not only has Bush started two wars he couldn't finish, presided over a government that lost a major American city, and did little as a financial tsunami hit the nation; he has (I am guessing) created a yearning among many Americans for a non-Bush. And within the realm of conventional U.S. politics, Obama is about as non-Bush as it gets. No wonder Obama has a strong chance of becoming president. He spoke (endlessly) of change; he is an antidote to the Bush presidency.

Sarah Palin calls Barack Obama a socialist. John McCain equates Obama's appearance at a dinner for a Palestinian scholar with hanging out with neo-Nazis. At McCain-Palin campaign rallies, members of the audience call Obama a communist, a Muslim and a terrorist. Is there no doubt that the GOP ticket has the edge on extremism? Do you hear Obama referring to McCain as a war-monger? Do his supporters scream out "fascist" when Obama mentions his opponents?

And the McCain-Palin attacks are particularly hypocritical. McCain is board chair for the International Republican Institute, and the IRI gave nearly $500,000 to a group co-founded by the abovementioned Palestinian scholar, Khalid Rashidi. And Palin spreads the wealth of Alaska by sharing with every state citizen a slice of the state's oil revenue.

But for McCain and Palin, facts--as Ronald Reagan once said--are stupid things.

This has been a rough and tough campaign, but the dirtiest plays have come from the McCain side. On MSNBC this week [correction: it was CNN], McCain aide Michael Goldfarb pointed to Obama's association with Rashidi to claim Obama pals around with anti-Semites. (Rashidi is no anti-Semite.) This was a low moment of the campaign, but because it came late in the game, amid so much last-week hurly-burly, it received not much attention. But it was a good indicator of the McCain strategy: throw mud, see what sticks.

The McCain camp has shown a disregard for facts that extends beyond the S.O.P. of political campaigns. It has tried to deligitimize Obama and his supporters. Palin notes that only certain parts of the country contain "real Americans." A top McCain aide dismissed northern Virginia--where Obama is strong--as not being "real" Virginia.

McCain and his gang have tried to whip up fear and division and exploit both. If he gets whipped on Tuesday, it will be bad news for others who would practice the politics of hate.

I've listened to Sarah Palin several times in the past few days. (It's my job--what I get the big bucks to do.) And as she whips up the crowds that come to her rallies, her biggest argument against Barack Obama is that he WILL RAISE YOUR TAXES. Did you get that? Oh, you missed the nuance. HE WILL RAISE YOUR TAXES. And her case is built on two facts. But they are not facts--or not full facts. And though these attacks have been debunked repeatedly by mainstream media factcheckers, Palin and John McCain keep using them. Call me naive, but I still find it surprising that they believe they can get away with such serial misrepresenting (or lying). So for the last time--I hope--let's look at these two claims.

Claim 1: Obama voted to raise taxes on people making as less as $42,000.

Here's how Factcheck.org evaluated that charge:

So Sarah Palin is a "brainiac." That's what Elaine Lafferty proclaims. And the reason her proclamation is the least bit interesting is that Lafferty is a Democrat and the former editor-in-chief of Ms. magazine, the feminist journal. In a piece she posted yesterday, she notes she has "worked as a consultant with the McCain campaign since shortly after Palin's nomination" and has traveled with Palin on her "cramped" campaign plane.

I have no idea how a onetime feminist activist, a former journalist, and a present Democrat came to be working for an antiabortion, media-blasting Republican vice presidential candidate. But Lafferty wants us to know that Palin possesses "a mind that is thoughtful, curious, with a discernible pattern of associative thinking and insight. Palin asks questions, and probes linkages and logic that bring to mind a quirky law professor I once had."

This is troubling. Why? Because I had assumed that some of the idiotic and false statements Palin had made on the campaign trail were due to a certain amount of ignorance on her part. If she is as smart as Lafferty says, then she would be more dangerous if elected. No intelligent person would say some of the following things, unless she was purposefully trying to fool people.

* To boost her foreign policy cred, Palin said "you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska," and she maintained that she had experience dealing with trade delegations, presumably those from Russia. But according to her calendars, she never met with a Russian official and rarely met with any foreign officials to discuss trade or anything else.

* Palin repeatedly said she opposed the Bridge to Nowhere--even though many news organizations reported she had been a supporter of the project before Congress soured on the project. Why would an intelligent person keep repeating the same mistake?

* Palin said Barack Obama has been "palling around with terrorists"--using the present tense and the plural to hype Obama's past casual association with just one ex-radical. Her intelligence certainly did not motivate her to be precise.

This is rich. Today, while campaigning in Florida, John McCain declared that Barack will say "anything to get elected."

I read this as a cry for help. A quick run-down of McCain self-contradictions and say-anything moments:

* McCain initially opposed the George W. Bush tax cuts, claiming they gave too much to the rich. Now, when Obama wants to reverse those tax cuts, the McCain campaign brands it socialism.

* McCain attacked robocall attacks in 2000. Now he perpetuates them.

* McCain said he doesn't care about a "washed-up terrorist"--meaning Bill Ayers--but he still makes Obama's past association with Ayers a key part of is campaign. (See the robocalls.) And Sarah Palin accused Obama of palling around with terrorists, using the plural form of the word. Putting Ayers aside, name another one.

* In an interview NBC is promoting today, McCain dismisses the elites who hang out at Georgetown cocktail parties. McCain has been a participant in many such gatherings over his decades in Washington.

* McCain stood by a campaign ad saying that Barack Obama pushed for teaching "comprehensive sex education" to kindergartners Obama did not.

* The McCain campaign claimed that Obama's use of the old lipstick-on-a-pig cliche was a direct, misogynistic swipe at Palin. It was not.

* McCain has insisted that Obama, if elected, would push everyone into a government-run health care system. That ain't true.

* McCain said he would skip the first debate unless a Wall Street bailout deal was reached. You know how that turned out.

You know that old joke: there are two types of people in the world--those who divide the world into two types of people, and those who don't. Well, in previous weeks, I've been dividing Republicans and conservatives I know between two types: those willing to acknowledge (even if only privately) that Sarah Palin was not--shall we say--the best pick John McCain could have made, and those who claim she is indeed qualified and will be a fine veep and a capable (should it come to that) president. My rough survey of the Rs and conservatives I have encountered on the street, at political events, and in green rooms at TV studios is that about one half to two-thirds will admit they believe is that Palin is either a misguided error on McCain's part that can be overcome or an act of blatant misjudgment that has led to a freakin' disaster.

When McCain announced her selection it did seem possible the choice would help his campaign. And his campaign did not appear to mind all the attention she drew. But in my recollection, I cannot recall a veep candidate who has so dominated the post-convention story of the election. Not even Dan Quayle. And in Palin's case, the news keeps getting worse. A new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll finds that 55 percent of registered voters believe she's not qualified to serve as president. That's up 5 percent from its last poll--suggesting that the more people see of Palin the less they are impressed. And her negative approval rating for the first time exceeds her positive approval rating, 47 percent versus 38 percent. Moreover, voters told these pollsters that McCain's selection of Palin was their top concern about McCain's candidacy.

The latest neocon to turn tail on John McCain is Kenneth Adelman, a former foreign policy official in the Reagan administration. Adelman is most famous--or infamous--for having predicted in February 2002, 13 months before the invasion of Iraq, that "demolishing Hussein's military power and liberating Iraq would be a cakewalk." Explaining his decision to vote for Obama, Adelman recently told The New Yorker:

"When the economic crisis broke, I found John McCain bouncing all over the place. In those first few crisis days, he was impetuous, inconsistent, and imprudent; ending up just plain weird. Having worked with Ronald Reagan for seven years, and been with him in his critical three summits with Gorbachev, I've concluded that that's no way a president can act under pressure."

And he said of the Sarah Palin pick:

"That decision showed appalling lack of judgment. Not only is Sarah Palin not close to being acceptable in high office -- I would not have hired her for even a mid-level post in the arms-control agency. But that selection contradicted McCain's main two, and best two, themes for his campaign -- Country First, and experience counts. Neither can he credibly claim, post-Palin pick."

He sounds so reasonable, right? But I remember the days when Adelman sounded more like the mad McCainiacs I recently encountered at a McCain rally. In fact, I once wrote about Adelman's use of extremist rhetoric, and that kept him from obtaining a spot on the board of a prominent Washington advocacy group.

From a Nation magazine column (not on-line) I penned in 1988:

It's official: John McCain has exhumed the body of Lee Atwater and breathed life into it.

Atwater was Karl Rove before Rove was Rove. (Actually, he was a mentor for Rove.) As the GOP's top strategist in the 1980s, Atwater--accused often of relying on unethical and dirty tricks--perfected the mean and nasty politics of resentment and, thus, helped elect George H.W. Bush president.

One of McCain's latest ads would make Atwater proud. The main line of the ad, which features Joe the Plumber, is this:

Obama raises taxes on seniors, hard working families to give "welfare" to those who pay none.

At Wednesday night's debate, McCain accused Obama of engaging in class warfare. But this is real, diehard class warfare, with McCain trying to persuade middle-income Americans that Obama will take money away from them to dole out to those on welfare. You can do the racial math yourself.

Here's my take on the final McCain-Obama duel, first posted at MotherJones.com....

A political campaign can be like a rock slide. At some point, it's just going to continue in the direction it's heading--and not much can stop it. After the final debate between Senator Barack Obama and Senator John McCain, it may well be that the 2008 presidential contest has reached not the tipping point, but that rock slide point. This is not a prediction of a pro-Obama avalanche on November 4--though that's a possibility. It's merely an observation that the campaign may be done in the sense that there are no major inputs to come (barring a bolt-from-the-blue event) that will affect the final tally. Polls will show that there are still some undecided voters out there. (Who are these people?) But whatever's going to determine this election--economic concerns, a desire for change, racism, you name it--is probably already in place, and the candidates may not be able to alter this, at least not in a proactive manner. Certainly, at any time, either can turn the race upside down by saying or doing something particularly dopey.

Neither got dopey on Wednesday night. McCain even had his best (or his least unsuccessful) debate performance, but it was no--damn, I hate this cliché--game changer. McCain was more aggressive than in the previous face-offs, and he finally dared to challenge Barack Obama directly on the--drum roll, please--Bill Ayers Question. But there was this: viewers watching McCain's reaction shots during the evening could have easily wondered if the Republican presidential nominee would make it to the finish without his head exploding, for he seemed to be in the midst of an exercise in anger control.

Prior to the debate, there was much chatter about whether McCain would play the Ayers card. Judging from video of his recent rallies, it appeared that his base was demanding blood on this front. But polls indicated that these sorts of attacks have been hurting McCain with in-the-middle voters. So he faced a tough decision: ignore Ayers and upset the diehards or accuse Obama of being a pal of a domestic terrorist and alienate the indies.

McCain and his strategists came up with a hybrid approach: take a shot on the Ayers front and combine it with a traditional political assault. "I don't care about an old washed-up terrorist," McCain huffed, but then he went on to say, "we need to know the full extent of that relationship." Huh? If you don't care about Ayers, why do you care about the relationship? And why repeat the false claim that Obama launched his first political campaign within Ayer's living room?

This was essentially McCain's love letter to the GOP base. ("Now get off my case, okay?") More important, he attached it to his true attack of the night: Obama will raise your taxes. After quickly running through his Ayers index cards, McCain noted, "My campaign is about getting this economy back on track...I'm not going to raise taxes the way Senator Obama wants to raise taxes." In what was probably the last big moment of the campaign before Election Day, McCain offered this meta-argument: Obama is a liberal tax-and-spend Democrat, and I'm a conservative. (He left off the Republican part.)

Repeatedly, McCain accused Obama of wanting to throw money at problems and of yearning to raise taxes. When Obama maintained he would give tax breaks to the bottom 95 percent--and more tax relief than McCain would to this large slice of the American public--McCain replied: hey, this guy wants to raise taxes. And, by the way, he wants to spend your money.

Remember when Bill Clinton in 1996 pronounced "the era of big government is over"? Liberals were incensed that a Democratic president would bolstered Conservative Talking Point No. 1 and would accept the fundamental tenet of Reaganism.

Well, it turned out Clinton was sure wrong about that. Today, Big Government is on the march, with a Republican administration spending hundreds of billions of dollars to bail out Wall Street and to partially nationalize banks. So while we wait for the final presidential debate of 2008, here's a question to ponder: is Reaganism dead? Short answer: you betcha. From Bloomberg:

Crunch time for McCain? Perhaps--for on Wednesday night at his final debate with Barack Obama, John McCain has a do-or-die decision to make. To Atwater or not to Atwater--that is the question. (If you're too young to get the Atwater reference, look it up.) And whatever his answer is, McCain is poised to disappoint--perhaps alienate--one of two crucial blocs of voters.

The Republican party's base wants blood. They cannot believe that a former community activist (read: Socialist!) with barely a moment's experience in Washington who is a secret Muslim and quasi-Black Panther is close to the presidency. For them, the association game--tying Obama to former, bomb-throwing radical Bill Ayers and extreme-rhetoric-hurling Jeremiah Wright--ought to be a fundamental part of the McCain campaign, for these connections reveal the real Obama. Obama, they contend, is fooling the voting public by coming across as a mainstream, composed, confident politician who reasonably talks of consensus-building and change. In their view, he is both the embodiment of the evils of the 1960s and Islamofascism. A sleeper agent. A Manchurian candidate from Mecca. But he is so skilled at keeping his true loyalties covert, he can only be exposed via his ties to Ayers and Wright. This is not guilt by association or the petty politics of personal destruction. It's the key to decoding Obama. Its what must be done so the Republic does not fall into the hands of an internal enemy.

And it was only a few days ago that McCain and Sarah Palin were on the Ayers trail. She accused Obama of "palling" around with domestic terrorists. (She used the plural.) McCain promised a supporter he would raise this connection at the final debate.

But recent polling has indicated that McCain's attacks on Obama have lost him support among voters. More voters see McCain as the more negative of the two candidates and less concerned with issues than Obama. McCain's assaults are simply not working--especially when tethered to McCain's erratic moves regarding the economic crisis. So if he goes all Ayers (or Wright) on Obama, he faces a real risk: pissing off indie and uncommitted voters. But, then, if he holds his fire on this front, he will anger the die-hard conservatives who want to see him pummel Obama and expose the true Obama to the entire world.

John McCain offers his newest lurch today.

In a speech he is scheduled to give in Virginia Beach on Monday, McCain says 17 times that he will fight for America, according to his prepared remarks. He repeatedly calls himself a "fighter." And he's an experienced fighter who won't--like you know who--have to study up on issues before making command decisions.

Over and over in this new stump speech, McCain says he is ready to fight--for the country, for change, for a new direction, for the future, for the children, for justice for all. Seriously.

Times are tough, McCain notes, but America is worth fighting. It needs a fighter like John McCain, who is a real fighter who has always been a fighter for America.

In other words, vote for the fight guy. Here's how the speech ends:

The other day a Republican strategist shared an intriguing anecdote with me. Several years ago, he said, he was talking to Steve Schmidt, who now is the day-to-day manager of John McCain's campaign, and Schmidt said that he hated McCain to such an extent that he would vote for Hillary Clinton instead of McCain if such a choice ever presented itself. "He really said that?" I asked my source. "Beer was involved," this source replied.

These days, Schmidt, who was a senior operative for the Bush-Cheney 2004 campaign, is responsible for getting McCain elected to the White House. No wonder there are problems in McCainland. I'm not suggesting that Schmidt is sabotaging the McCain campaign from the inside. He's a fierce political pro who cares mightily about getting another notch. He doesn't want to be burdened with a loss. But this tale underscores a fundamental reason for McCain's up-to-now failure. His campaign is being run by traditional Republican ops who are using the traditional Republican playbook which relies on the good ol' political tradition of hate-mongering. Which is not how McCain ran for the presidency in 2000.

Many of the folks in charge of the McCain campaign don't really care that much for him. Worse, they are treating McCain as a generic Republican candidate--smothering whatever once was special about him. And McCain has allowed this to happen. He has emasculated himself.

Look at those recent McCain rallies. His supporters are shouting "terrorist" when McCain mentions his opponent. And does McCain chastise them for doing so? No. In fact, he has been pushing the Obama-hangs-with-terrorists theme. Sarah Palin did so explicitly a few days ago by accusing Obama of "paling" around with terrorists--note the plural--a reference to Obama's past association with William Ayers, a former Weather Underground member who became a much-respected education expert. And on Thursday, McCain promised an angry supporter at a rally that he would bring up the Ayers link at the next debate. (Kudos to Joe Biden who, at a Thursday rally, slammed McCain for not having the guts to have done so to Obama's face at Tuesday nights' night. Nice touch: Biden took off his coat as he challenged McCain, noting that in Biden's old neighborhood if you had something to say about a guy, you said it straight to him. It looked as if Biden was preparing for a street brawl.)

My take on the second debate, first posted at MotherJones.com....

Last Thursday, during a McCain campaign town hall meeting in Denver, one participant stood up and challenged the GOP presidential candidate: "When are you going to take the gloves off?" His fellow McCain supporters in the downtown hotel roared with approval. "How about Tuesday night?" John McCain replied, referring to his second debate with Obama.

How about not? The McCain campaign in recent days has pumped up its effort to delegitimize Barack Obama, with its top strategist apparently calculating that McCain cannot vanquish Obama if the election is about issues. At a recent rally in a California suburb, GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin declared "Our opponent...is someone who sees America, it seems, as being so imperfect, imperfect enough, that he's palling around with terrorists who would target their own country." (This was a reference to Obama's past association with Bill Ayers, the former Weather Underground radical who became an education expert). And on Monday, McCain delivered a blistering attack on Obama that was loaded with inaccuracies and distortions. So one expectation among the politerati was that McCain would continue swinging--or thrashing--at the second debate. Work in Bill Ayers. Refer to Jeremiah Wright. Depict Obama as shifty and untrustworthy.

That did not happen. McCain, trailing Obama in the polls, mainly trained his fire on policy matters. He did continue to hurl misrepresentations at Obama. (As the debate proceeded, I received 40 emails from the Obama campaign making this point.) For instance, McCain once again claimed that Obama has voted 94 times to raise taxes, a charge that has been widely debunked by various factchecking outfits. But there was no frontal assault on Obama's character--and only one or two slight digs on his qualifications. The debate was more high-minded than anticipated. But it demonstrated a tough reality for McCain: he is out of sync with his own campaign. He cannot pull the trigger, when his advisers seem to believe a machine gun blast is needed.

Obama and his campaign are fully integrated. He calls for a break from the past eight years on both domestic and foreign fronts and famously urges fundamental change. As a new face--and a black man--he sure does represent change. He is his message. And his campaign for over a year and a half has not had to go through any strategic lurches or had to reconfigure either its candidate or its core pitch. That's not true on the McCain side. His campaign has been nothing but lurches. And the most recent one--a turn toward even more negative campaigning--undercuts his old and now practically worn-out reputation as a straight-talking maverick. So come Debate II, McCain was confronting a tough choice: damned if he does (go negative) and stalled if he doesn't.

Deciding to forego the nasty stuff, McCain relied on policy differences to hammer Obama. The problem: Obama's policy prescriptions are not unpopular.

I don't often make political predictions. But I will issues this one: the presidential debate on Tuesday night will show if John McCain has any soul left.

I admit it: I used to be one of those liberal reporters/saps in Washington who fancied McCain in the late 1990s and during his 2000 presidential run. In those days, he was about as enjoyable as a senator came--and about as publicly candid. And it was fun to watch him poke the GOP in the eye on campaign finance reform and tobacco. It's not as if I believed he was worth voting for in a general election; he was still archly conservative in important ways. But he was indeed a different type of Republican and provided entertaining company in the Green Room or on the campaign trail.

Those days are long gone. McCain leveraged his soul at the end of the 2000 campaign at the GOP convention, when he gave a speech sucking up to George W. Bush, whose campaign had maligned him viciously during the primaries. It was as if a switch was flipped, and McCain realized his only true path to greater power was to make nice (generally) with the Republican establishment and the GOP base. It was a calculation with some logic to it, as 2008 proved. But it meant he had to jettison his best parts.

So we're left today with a fellow who still appears to believe he is a straight-talking maverick--when he is actually just another pol who will say practically anything to get elected and who has turned his campaign over to the sort of whatever-it-takes political operatives he once derided.

Look at his speech from Monday. It was chockfull of misrepresentations that are hard not to call lies. From The New York Times' analysis:

The McCain campaign is naked.

The news is out that the McCainiacs do not believe they can win a fair fight against Barack Obama. Their strategy: slime him. And here's how it works. This past weekend, Obama blasted McCain's health care proposal, which relies on tax credits. He called it "radical." And the McCain camp was outraged at Obama's use of the R-word.

But rather than do battle on policy grounds, the campaign issued a statement slamming Obama for having once served on a board with Bill Ayres, a former Weather Underground bomb-thrower who gave up his radical ways and became a respected education expert:

On a day when new reports have surfaced about Barack Obama's long association with a domestic terrorist, our Democratic opponent had the audacity to call John McCain's health care plan "radical." The American people know radical when they hear it, and John McCain is not the candidate in this election they should be concerned about.

It seems that whenever Obama criticizes McCain's policies, McCain's response will be, "Bill Ayres, Bill Ayres, Bill Ayres." Or, I suppose, it might shift to "Jeremiah Wright, Jeremiah Wright, Jeremiah Wright." I wonder how McCain is going to follow this strategy in the debate on Tuesday night. His running mate, Sarah Palin, looked quasi-foolish trying to change the subject so many times during her face-off with Joe Biden. If McCain is asked about the fact that Obama's tax proposal offers more tax cuts to the bottom 99 percent of taxpayers than his own, will he say, "That's just the sort of plan that a pal of Bill Ayres would propose. And let me tell you about Bill Ayres...."?

Meanwhile, let's pretend that reality matters. McCain's health care proposal is "radical." Or so suggests Jane Bryant Quinn, the not-at-all-radical economics writer for Newsweek. She writes:

How uninformed is Sarah Palin? I don't mean to suggest she is dumb in the sense of intelligence ability--though she may be. But despite the fact she has good campaign skills--which could be on display during her debate with Joe Biden--Palin is dumb in the sense of don't-know-much-about-history or anything else. Ignorance, you might call it. Sure, she must know plenty about Alaska issues, but she seems to be awfully unfamiliar with anything beyond that.

Take the latest clip from her interterview with Katie Couric. What drew the most attention was her inability to name any other Supreme Court decision other than Roe v. Wade. It may be elitist to say this, but she looked the fool, trying to answer the question ("What other Supreme Court decisions do you disagree with?") without citing any specific decision. (Dred Scott, anyone?) The subsequent chortling among commentators and bloggers was warranted.

But what struck me was this exchange:

Couric: Do you think there's an inherent right to privacy in the Constitution?

Palin: I do. Yeah, I do.

Couric: The cornerstone of Roe v. Wade.

Palin: I do. And I believe that individual states can best handle what the people within the different constituencies in the 50 states would like to see their will ushered in an issue like that.

As my colleague at MotherJones.com, Kevin Drum, pointed out, many conservatives do not accept that the Constitution contains a right to privacy and argue that it's judicial activism to see such a right in that grand ol' document. Is Palin breaking with this traditional conservative position?

I doubt it. She probably didn't know better. But her convoluted explanation of her position demonstrates she doesn't understand the basics of the Constitution. First she says there is an inherent right to privacy in the Constitution, then she adds that this right is dependent on what "different constituencies in the 50 states would like to see."

A federal right is not dependent on the "will ushered" in the 50 different states. Otherwise, what good are any of the rights outlined in the Bill of Rights? Sometimes a state may act in a way that is seen by some as a restriction on a constitutional right--say, imposing gun control measures--but then the matter goes to the federal courts for resolution. In the United States, a right guaranteed in the Constitution is not open to 50 different interpretations.

Palin is running for a position in which, if she wins, she will have to take a vow to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution" (per Article II, Section I of the Constitution). Is it too much to expect her to understand that document and its history?

My favorite campaign spin of recent days comes from conservatives who fancy Sarah Palin. Much of the reality-based world--which even includes a few conservative commentators, such as George Will, David Brooks, Kathleen Parker, and David Frum--has rendered a verdict on Palin: she's not up to the job. Many voters seem to agree. McCain's post-Palin bounce is gone. Her approval rating in Alaska has dropped.

Blame Palin's fall on Katie Couric--if not Palin herself? No, declares a group of Palin fans on the right: blame it on the Bushies. That is, McCain campaign operatives--most of whom are veterans of the past Bush campaigns--who supposedly are not letting Sarah be Sarah. Here's Bill Kristol:

McCain needs to liberate his running mate from the former Bush aides brought in to handle her -- aides who seem to have succeeded in importing to the Palin campaign the trademark defensive crouch of the Bush White House. McCain picked Sarah Palin in part because she's a talented politician and communicator. He needs to free her to use her political talents and to communicate in her own voice.

I'm told McCain recently expressed unhappiness with his staff's handling of Palin. On Sunday he dispatched his top aides Steve Schmidt and Rick Davis to join Palin in Philadelphia. They're supposed to liberate Palin to go on the offensive as a combative conservative in the vice-presidential debate on Thursday.

Apparently Kristol believes that Palin's "political talents" can trump--or distract voters from--her lack of experience and knowledge (as she demonstrated with Couric). Shouldn't he loose his Official Public Intellectual Card for putting rhetoric ahead of substance?

Then there's Richard Viguerie, chairman of ConservativeHQ.com and a longtime strategist for the conservative movement. He's released a statement chiding McCain:

He must free Sarah Palin to go after Barack Obama and the liberal Democrats, or he will almost certainly lose.

The McCain campaign has put this 'pit bull with lipstick' on a leash. The campaign has surrounded her with people from the Bush administration. And as we can see from the wreckage of the Bush presidencies, these folks don't have the slightest clue how to make a case to the American people.

McCain has to get rid of these Bush people around Palin, along with the lobbyists and the folks from the Washington PR firms, and replace them with principled conservatives who have experience making the case for conservatism.

If only more conservatives would lobby the McCain camp to set Sarah free. And if only the McCain camp would listen. I'd like to see an unhandled Palin. (So would Tina Fey.)

No doubt, Palin is a talented campaigner. That's been proven in the past few weeks when she appears at rallies. But she cannot handle basic questions. This no surprise--especially since she cannot name a single magazine or newspaper she reads regularly. (Not the Weekly Standard?) Palin has not spent much time in her life pondering such matters as foreign policy or economic national policy. That's the reality, and a month's worth of cramming is not going to change that and get her up to speed. The public witnessed the real Palin in the Couric interview.

Kristol and Viguerie seem to think that Palin can hide her ignorance behind slashing attacks on Democrats and liberals. But it may be too late for such a strategy of obfuscation.

A review of the first Obama-McCain debate, originally posted at Mother Jones....

No memorable exchanges. No historic zingers. No gotchas. The much-anticipated first face-off between Barack Obama and John McCain resolved little. Neither candidate strayed from their usual briefing books. The talking points were recycled. McCain blasted Obama for being a rookie in the ways of national security. Obama questioned McCain's judgment, notably his initial support for the Iraq war.

They both played it safe. Especially when it came to the hot topic of the night: the $700 billion bailout plan for Wall Street. It was no surprise that moderator Jim Lehrer would lead off with the issue, even though the focus of this debate was supposed to be foreign policy. And in his first question, Lehrer asked each candidate to state where he stands on the "financial recovery plan." Neither would get specific. Obama cited the need to move "swiftly" and "wisely." He called for effective oversight of the plan, taxpayer protections, and guarantees the money spent would not reach the pockets of CEOs. He pointed to the current meltdown as evidence of the failure of economic policies supported these past eight years by George W. Bush and McCain. It was standard fare.

McCain noted he was heartened by the bipartisan negotiations under way in Washington. He, too, cited the need for accountability. He mentioned the possibility of adding a provision to the package that would allow the federal government to offer loans to troubled institutions rather than buy their bad paper. Neither one, though, fully endorsed the plan--or raised any objections. Asked if he would vote for it, McCain said, "I hope so." It was a strong signal he would not be mounting any from-the-right populist crusade against the proposal.

But each candidate exploited the bailout queries. Obama tried to tie McCain to Bushonomics. McCain hailed his own efforts to curtail pork-barrel spending on Capitol Hill. Obama slapped him for focusing on $18 billion in earmarks while supporting $300 billion in tax breaks for corporations and wealthy individuals. McCain accused Obama of being a tax-hiker. Obama countered--correctly--that his tax plan provides far more relief for taxpayers making less than $250,000 a year than does McCain's proposal.

It was as if they were eager to talk about any economic issue other than the details of a gargantuan bailout that may or may not work and that may or may not be popular come Election Day.

On foreign policy, the candidates dished out the expected lines. McCain touted the surge in Iraq and slammed Obama for having ever doubted the wisdom of the wonderful General David Petraeus. Asked for the lesson of Iraq, McCain said, rather inelegantly, "You cannot have a failed strategy that will then cause you to nearly lose a conflict." Obama assailed McCain for supporting Bush's grand distraction and having failed to recognize that the job in Afghanistan ought to have been finished first. He connected the ongoing Iraq war bill--$10 billion a month--to the nation's current economic woes.

On Iran, McCain derided Obama for wanting to hold talks with President Ahmadinejad (whose name he mispronounced a few times before getting it right), claiming such a move would practically send a signal that the United States approves of a second Holocaust. Obama defended his policy of engagement, noting that there were other Iranians to speak to besides Ahmadinejad and that the Bush administration has recently broadened its diplomatic approach when it comes to the ol' Axis of Evil. McCain claimed Obama had been indecisive at first in reacting to the conflict in Georgia. Obama echoed McCain's tough stance against Russia, but cautioned that the United States could not revive a Cold War approach because it still has to deal with Russia on the pressing matter of loose nukes.

In talking policy, both men came across as knowledgeable. McCain truly perked up when he got the chance to discuss the strategic importance (as he sees it) of the Caucasus region. Obama demonstrated confidence in his ability to challenge McCain on the strategic importance of the Iraq war. But, indubitably, many viewers of the debate would score these exchanges in accordance with their preexisting opinions of the two candidates. As for those knotty undecideds, there was no specific assertion that an analyst could point to and say, "This is going to stir them."

Once the debate ended, the television commentators immediately tried to assess the impression each conveyed. McCain did come across as somewhat condescending. He barely looked at Obama and almost seemed annoyed to have to be talking foreign policy with that other guy. He tried to put Obama down by charging that Obama did not know the difference between a tactic and a strategy. He slapped him for not supporting funding for the troops. (Obama voted against an Iraq war funding bill that did not have a timetable for withdrawal--just as McCain voted against a funding bill that did.) And McCain sent one straight shot at Obama, saying, "I don't believe that Senator Obama has the knowledge or the experience" to be commander in chief.

That was no knockout punch. And Obama kept his now-famous cool. He did not swing too hard at McCain. Several times during the debate, Obama said that McCain was "absolutely right" about the point under discussion. Obama did question McCain's temperament, noting that McCain had threatened extinction for North Korea and had once jokingly sung a song about bombing Iran. But McCain, in response, pointed to his opposition to Ronald Reagan's deployment of Marines in Lebanon as proof he can be trusted to make prudent decisions about war. (That is, he's no warmonger.) McCain noted he wears a bracelet honoring a U.S. soldier killed in Iraq as a reminder of his pledge to that soldier's mother to do all he can to insure her son's death was not for naught. Obama replied that he, too, wears a bracelet--given to him by the mother of another fallen soldier who asked him to make sure no other parent loses a son in vain. He was calm; McCain was pugnacious. How that plays is hard to assess. It's truly a matter of taste.

There was much buildup for this debate. For weeks, members of the politerati looked forward to it as a defining moment in the campaign. The big question: would Obama be able to display commander-in-chief cred? Then McCain's shenanigans--pulling out, jumping back in--added to the drama. The big question: would he be prepared? And would Obama be able to take advantage of the last-minute shift to economic matters? But the debate ended up a straightforward affair, with no twists, no turns. Commentators could score it any way they wanted. Obama held his own on national security affairs, so give him the nod. McCain did the same on economic matters, so maybe he won over the 27 American voters who have yet to decide. You can look at it this way: given that Obama has been ahead in the recent polls, McCain lost by failing to beat him to a bloody pulp. Or this way: McCain survived what many analysts considered to be a bad week for him.

In any event, it's on to the next main attraction: the Biden-Palin duel on Thursday. Then there will be two more Obama-McCain debates. But who knows what other crises will hit between now and November 4 that will force the candidates to react to the real world? In fact, this past week demonstrates that the candidates' responses to events beyond their control may be more important in determining the outcome of this election than the debates. Fancy that: reality trumping political theater. It happened this past week. And in the next six weeks, it could do so again.

Once McCain said game on, I posted this item:

We must meet as Americans, not as Democrats or Republicans, and we must meet until this crisis is resolved," John McCain said on Wednesday, explaining his decision to suspend his campaign and not participate in the first presidential debate. A McCain aide told Reuters, "If the package is reached and the country is saved, there will be a debate. But if there's no deal, how can you get on a plane...for a debate?"

On Friday morning, McCain's campaign released this statement:

"He is optimistic that there has been significant progress toward a bipartisan agreement now that there is a framework for all parties to be represented in negotiations, including Representative Blunt as a designated negotiator for House Republicans. The McCain campaign is resuming all activities and the Senator will travel to the debate this afternoon."

Note the adjustment in standards. First, the McCain camp said deal or no debate. Two days later, the position was, negotiations are under way so let's debate. Was this change an act of decisive leadership or a necessary political flip-flop? Maybe Jim Lehrer, the moderator of Friday night's debate, can ask him that."

What's kinda amazing--okay, it's not really amazing--is that the McCain camp thinks it can get away with this. Or with
this. Or with its falsehood-ridden attack ads. Or with McCain's new Osama-like stance toward holding press conferences. Or with its claims that Sarah Palin is ready-to-go on Day One. The John McCain of 2000 used to deride the usual BS of politics: spin, stunts, and sleaze. Now he bathes in it. There seems no bottom yet to his descent into situational politics. Forget the debates, I want to see him back on The View defending himself and the campaign he heads.

There's no crying in baseball. And there's no time-outs in presidential campaigns. Yet John McCain is asking for that. On Tuesday afternoon, he called for putting off the first scheduled presidential debate this Friday so he can suspend campaigning, head to Washington, and work on the financial bailout package.

This is a guy who's missed a ton of votes in the Senate throughout his presidential campaign and who just days ago called for shoving the current mess on to the lap of a commission. Actually, given that the world doesn't stop for crises--and that sometimes there's more than two or three items on a president's radar screen--this week would be a pretty good test for a candidate. He has to prep for a debate and participate in bailout deliberations.

In a brief--very brief--statement, McCain said the nation must "set politics aside." He invoked 9/11 and the coming together that occurred following that attack. "We must show that kind of patriotism now," he declared. But why is postponing the debate patriotic? And how long should the delay be? If Congress is going to get this package right, it could take weeks. Is McCain suggesting no debates transpire for that period of time?

And how about this for an idea? If McCain is too busy to show up on Friday night, perhaps he could send Sarah Palin. And Obama could dispatch Joe Biden. That would at least be a true test of their ability to fill in.

By the way, after McCain made his announcement, the Obama campaign sent out this note:

At 8:30 this morning, Senator Obama called Senator McCain to ask him if he would join in issuing a joint statement outlining their shared principles and conditions for the Treasury proposal and urging Congress and the White House to act in a bipartisan manner to pass such a proposal. At 2:30 this afternoon, Senator McCain returned Senator Obama's call and agreed to join him in issuing such a statement. The two campaigns are currently working together on the details.

That's a mature way to handle this situation. In a subsequent appearance before reporters, Obama said that when he and McCain talked at 2:30 on Wednesday afternoon, McCain told him he was considering whether they ought to delay the debate. Obama informed the reporters that he thought McCain was "mulling" it over. But after the call, McCain, without any further discussion with Obama, went public with his proposed time-out. How patriotic.

"I think we should continue to have the debate," Obama said. "....We've both got big planes...They can get us from Washington to Mississippi pretty quickly."

If the "fundamentals" of this economy are strong, why then is President Bush proposing a $500 billion bailout of financial firms?

Even though John McCain cannot answer that question, he still bangs his fist and decries Wall Street greed-meisters and Washington influence peddlers (the same sort of people who are working for his campaign). And, as I wrote elsewhere, he may be out-populisting Barack Obama.

The economic crisis under way surely is scaring voters and pissing off many of them. How dare these Wall Streeters and their lobbyist pals game the system and put our economy in peril? How many of them will be losing their second homes (with heated pools)? At this stage, McCain is expressing some of that anger, though he goes back and forth on the substance. (First, don't take over AIG; then, hooray for the take-over of AIG.) Obama has reacted more coolly. And he better watch out. Many voters freaked out by the economic meltdown do not want only calmly-delivered policy proposals. They want to see someone voice their own worries and feelings--as in outrage. In fact, I would bet that many of those still-undecided voters care more about how a candidate reacts than what a candidate proposes.

Democrats usually have the edge over Republicans when it comes to voters' perceptions of who would best deal with economic matters. But in a crisis, many voters are going to look for leadership, not policy details. So McCain may not have to answer the above question. He just has to stop making stupid comments and come on strong, decisive and mad. And Obama should ponder how to prevent himself from winding up on the wrong end of an anger gap.

After all, Americans have a right to be livid with the screw-ups of Big Finance, the deregulators of Washington, and the game-riggers of K Street. And they are entitled to a president who feels not only their pain, but their anger.

As regular readers can tell from the past few days, I've been fixated on a point: as mega-finance firms fail, it's absurd for McCain to beat on Wall Street when his campaign is chockfull of corporate lobbyists (past and present) who have been paid lots of money to rig the system for Big Finance firms. And that includes UBS executive and McCain adviser Phil Gramm, who, as chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, pulled a backroom legislative stunt in 2000 to make sure that credit default swaps--a certain financial instrument that helped pave the way to the subprime meltdown--would remain completely unregulated.

The nice thing about having an obsession and being head of a Washington bureau is that you can assign reporters to stories. So I asked Jonathan Stein and Nick Baumann, two colleagues of mine at Mother Jones, to go through a list of 177 lobbyists working for the McCain campaign and find those who have been influence-peddlers for financial firms. They did and discovered that over 80 of these lobbyists have been game-riggers for financial corporations. Consequently, we had a story to post:

In the past few days, as the economic crisis has deepened, Senator John McCain has been decrying the excesses of Wall Street. At a campaign rally in Tampa on Tuesday, he vowed that he and Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, if elected, "are going to put an end to the reckless conduct, corruption, and unbridled greed that have caused a crisis on Wall Street." He noted that the "foundation of our economy...has been put at risk by the greed and mismanagement of Wall Street and Washington."

He blasted CEOs who "seem to escape the consequences." He denounced Wall Streeters who "dreamed up investment schemes that they themselves don't even understand" and who used "derivatives, credit default swaps, and mortgage-backed securities" to try "to make their own rules." He excoriated Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac for gaming the system. And he slammed financial industry lobbyists for misguiding members of Congress. "I can promise you the days of dealing and special favors will soon be over in Washington." On Wednesday morning, after the federal government committed $85 billion to prevent the collapse of the American International Group (AIG) insurance conglomerate, McCain again assailed irresponsible corporate executives. "We need to change the way Washington and Wall Street does business," he proclaimed.

McCain has been quick with fiery, populist-tinged speeches. But one thing has been missing: any acknowledgment that McCain's own campaign has been loaded with the type of people he's been denouncing. As Mother Jones previously reported, former Senator Phil Gramm, McCain's onetime campaign chairman, used a backroom maneuver in late 2000 to slip into law a bill that kept credit default swaps unregulated. These financial instruments greased the way to the subprime meltdown that has led to today's economic crisis. Several of McCain's most senior campaign aides have lobbied for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. And the Democratic National Committee, using publicly available records, has identified 177 lobbyists working for the McCain campaign as either aides, policy advisers, or fundraisers.

Of those 177 lobbyists, according to a Mother Jones review of Senate and House records, at least 83 have in recent years lobbied for the financial industry McCain now attacks. These are high-paid influence-peddlers who have been working the corridors of the nation's capital to win favors and special treatment for investment banks, securities firms, hedge funds, accounting outfits, and insurance companies. Their clients have included AIG, the newest symbol of corporate excess; Lehman Brothers, which filed for bankruptcy on Monday sending the stock market into a tailspin; Merrill Lynch, which was bought out by Bank of America this week; and Washington Mutual, the banking giant that could be the next to fall. Among these 83 lobbyists are McCain's chief political adviser, Charlie Black (JP Morgan, Washington Mutual Bank,, Freddie Mac, Mortgage Bankers Association of America); McCain's national finance co-chairman, Wayne Berman (AIG, Blackstone, Credit Suisse, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac); the campaign's congressional liaison, John Green (Carlyle Group, Citigroup, Icahn Associates, Fannie Mae); McCain's veep vetter, Arthur Culvahouse (Fannie Mae); and McCain's transition planning chief, William Timmons Sr. (Citigroup, Freddie Mac, Vanguard Group).

When cable news shows air footage of McCain railing against greedy execs and the lobbyists who rig the rules for the benefit of Wall Street dealmakers, there ought to be a crawl beneath him listing these lobbyists. (Talk about a fair and balanced presentation.) Short of that, here's the list of the McCain aides and bundlers who have worked for the high-finance greed-mongers McCain has pledged to take on. So far, it seems, none of them have been cast out of the campaign. If McCain were serious about his outrage, he might throw these money-changers out of his own temple.

To see that list, click here.

It is almost literally unbelievable.

John McCain, responding to the current economic troubles, says that "Wall Street has betrayed us." He calls the current mess the "result of excess and greed and corruption." He adds,

We've got to make sure that people like Fannie and Freddie, organizations such as Fannie and Freddie, never have the influence again that they had in Washington. You saw it, Joe. The old boy network -- Republicans, Democrats, they had influence with everybody. So therefore, we didn't act to have the sufficient oversight while these organizations grew and grew and became the corrupt institutions that they are today."

Old boy network? Influence? Can't McCain smell the stench of old-boy influence-peddling every time he enters his campaign headquarters? As I noted yesterday, several of McCain's top campaign aides lobbied for Fannie and Freddie. His campaign overall has at least 177 lobbyists working for his campaign. These are people who get paid large amounts of money to win special treatment for corporate interests, public interest be damned.

Then there's Phil Gramm, the onetime chairman of McCain's campaign. As I explained elsewhere, when Gramm chaired the Senate banking committee in 2000, he slipped into a massive must-pass spending bill a piece of legislation totally deregulating the the market for credit default swaps, a little-understood financial instrument. The swaps market then exploded, and the rampant use of unregulated swaps--which function kind of like insurance policies for big financial institutions--helped grease the way for the subprime meltdown.

So whose greed and excess is McCain now decrying? It is the greed and excess of some of the people who have helped run his campaign. His denunciation of influence peddlers, asleep-at-the-switch regulators, and me-first CEOs is absurd, given his own ties to these folks. His most prominent economic policy surrogate is Carly Fiorina, who pocketed $42 million in severance pay and other goodies when she was forced out as CEO of Hewlett-Packard. The question is, how long can McCain get away with this?

Obama has a slight but narrowing edge in the polls when voters are asked who's best able to handle the economy. It's certainly obvious that voters don't review the details of each presidential candidate's economic policy before deciding whom they want in the driver's seat when the economy heads into a ditch. Many voters pick a favorite based on impressions. Right now, McCain is sounding a more populist tone than Obama, whose strategy seems to be to portray McCain as too tied to George W. Bush and too out of touch to be trusted with this hurting economy. So even with McCain stumbling (by declaring the "fundamentals" are strong), McCain looks more like the fighter, the guy who's ready to knock heads together--the heads of the greedy SOBs responsible for this mess--and get things going again with a healthy dose of reform. It's phony populism. It's like the head of a Mafia family decrying a crime wave caused by his own lieutenants. But that doesn't mean it cannot work politically.

In politics, being right doesn't always count. You have to show you can fight. McCain is ignoring reality to position himself as a populist reformer. Obama better burst that bubble.

It's as close as it gets to the most MS of MSM outfits declaring, McCain's lying!

I'm referring to a news article on the front-page of Saturday's New York Times that starts:

Harsh advertisements and negative attacks are a staple of presidential campaigns, but Senator John McCain has drawn an avalanche of criticism this week from Democrats, independent groups and even some Republicans for regularly stretching the truth in attacking Senator Barack Obama's record and positions.

Though the piece uses the usual framework of he said/he said--that is, others are saying that McCain is lying--it does present the evidence that McCain's recent assertions about Obama are outrageously false. It also quotes prominent Republicans saying that McCain and running mate Sarah Palin have vigorously mugged the truth in recent days. Though the article was, no doubt, in the works for a day or two, it seems as if comic Joy Behar of The View has pushed the media along. At least, she can claim credit for beating the Times to an obvious point.

Meanwhile, the "Factchecker" column of The Washington Post has awarded McCain four Pinocchios--that's as high as its lying scale goes--for claiming Friday on The View that Palin, as governor of Alaska, did not seek federal earmarks. That's an outright falsehood. But the column felt compelled to go a step further:

Some readers have complained that I have been soft on the Democrats over the last week, while awarding a string of Pinocchios to the McCain campaign. I would like to think that this simply reflects the current state of the campaign: the McCainites have been on the offensive over the last week, tearing into Obama with a series of questionable TV ads. If you think it reflects bias on my part, there is a simple remedy: send in specific examples of Pinocchio-esque statements by Obama and the Dems, and I will check them out.

Both newspapers are essentially saying that at this stage McCain is the liar in the race. (The Post's "Factchecker" gave Palin a pass on her first week--and did not score several of her facts-challenged assertions.) No wonder the Republicans and the McCain campaign are trying to whip up a war against the so-called "Eastern media elite"--for a campaign narrative is close to being born: the fall of the Straight Talker. For the Obama camp, the question is, how best can it exploit this twist-in-the-making?

Much chatter on the Internet about John McCain's appearance on The View on Friday morning. This guy won't do a press conference, but he'll do daytime talk. Nevertheless, it was quite instructive, for McCain lied to the ladies.

He told them that Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, his running mate, did not accept federal earmark funds. But Barbara Walters and Joy Behar had it correct when they declared she had. As the Anchorage Daily News has reported, Palin in 2007 sought "52 earmarks valued at $256 million in Palin's first year. This year, the governor's office asked the delegation to help them land 31 earmarks valued at $197 million." (When I appeared on NPR's Diane Rehm Show on Friday morning, even conservative writer Stephen Hayes had to acknowledge that Palin is exaggerating when she claims she opposed the infamous Bridge to Nowhere.)

Palin's earmark record has been widely reported. Is McCain clueless? Maybe he's out of the loop because he does not know how to use the Internet on his own. Or is he deceitful?

In a way, the View gals let him off easy. Referring to two recent McCain ads--one falsely accusing Barack Obama of sexism by using the "lipstick on the pig" phrase, the other falsely accusing Obama of having supported teaching "comprehensive sex education" to kindergartners--Joy Behar said to McCain, "Now we know that those two ads are untrue, they are lies. And yet, you at the end of it say you approve these messages. Do you really approve these?"

McCain replied, "Actually they are not lies. And if you see some of the ads running against me." He then hammered on the "lipstick" point, saying that Obama should not have used that old expression. (See the exchange here.)

The "lipstick" battle is an easy one for McCain to win--or play to a disingenuous draw. He looks as if he is defending the honor of his running mate, even if there is no truth to the fundamental charge that Obama was maligning Palin. But the sex ed ad is utterly indefensible. Behar missed her chance. She ought to have said to McCain, "Can you prove that Obama advocated teaching comprehensive sex-ed to kindergartners? I will donate $10,000 to your favorite charity, if you can. If not, you will have to come back on this show and admit your campaign lied. Deal or no deal, Senator?"

Behar was so close to what colud have been a game changer. At least, a media game changer. (Real life is another thing.)

But United States democracy ought not to depend on Joy Behar pressing John McCain. The bigfoots of the news media should be prepping to give McCain this sort of treatment. It's no wonder McCain has been ducking press conferences of late. He cannot back up what he and his campaign have been saying about either Obama or Palin. But eventually McCain will have to come out of his cave and face some reporters somewhere. And they ought to be ready with tough questions. If this does not come to pass, then the moderators of the debates should step in and serve up the difficult queries. It shouldn't take a stand-up comic to get a presidential candidate running a dishonorable campaign to face the music.

Meanwhile, an advocacy group has taken on McCain regarding his campaign's phony sex-ed ad, noting that McCain was actually denouncing Obama for supporting a bill that sought to protect children from sexual predators. Any parent of small kids ought to cheer the group's effort...and remember how McCain has crassly exploited the issue of sexual abuse for political gain.

If you want to see why John McCain and his spinners might get away with their ramped-up sleaze attacks on Barack Obama, turn to page four of Thursday's Washington Post. There you will find an article headlined "McCain Camp Hits Obama On More Than One Front.". The piece begins:

Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign launched a broadside against Sen. Barack Obama yesterday, accusing him of a sexist smear, comparing his campaign to a pack of wolves on the prowl against the GOP vice presidential pick, charging that the Democratic nominee favored sex education for kindergartners, and resurrecting the comments of the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr.

And the next several paragraphs go on to describe these attacks and the consequent back-and-forth between the Obama and McCain campaigns. The piece reports,

The attacks over the first three days of this week have come at a sometimes dizzying pace. Within 24 hours, the McCain campaign released a television advertisement saying Obama favored "comprehensive sex education" for kindergartners, produced an Internet ad charging that the Democrat had referred to Palin as a pig, then concluded with another ad saying, "Obama's politics of hope? Empty words."

....McCain allies think they have succeeded in knocking Obama on his heels since he accepted his party's nomination in Denver two weeks ago.
"They really are in a meltdown," said Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.), a McCain adviser.

Only after describing the gleeful GOPers and upset Dems does the article evaluate the ads, essentially noting they were, well, crap. For instance: "The sex education ad referred to legislation Obama voted for -- but did not sponsor -- in the Illinois Senate that allowed school boards to develop "age-appropriate" sex education courses at all levels. Kindergarten teachers were given the approval to teach about appropriate and inappropriate touching to combat molestation." The piece suggests--but does not spell out--that it was a complete lie for the McCain camp to say that Obama wanted to teach kindergarteners "comprehensive sex education."

Next to the article on the hard copy of the Post was indeed an analysis of the sex education ad, noting the ad had misrepresented Obama's record and awarding it three Pinocchios (out of a possible high of four).

But here's the perennial problem: the campaign story of the day was not that McCain was lying about his opponent; it was the fight between the two candidates. Whenever the media report false charges in an evenhanded manner--A said X about B; B said X was not true--the party hurling the mud wins. And wins big. Sure, the Post's "Factchecker," Factcheck,com, and Politifact.com each rate political accusations for accuracy and fairness--and often slam a campaign for peddling falsehoods. But, it seems, campaigns dependent on sleaze can all-too-easily survive the negative reviews from these outfits.

The issue then is whether a campaign's reliance on such tactics becomes a key component of the overall media account of the election--and whether a candidate has to answer for such actions. So far McCain has not.

The current issue of Mother Jones has an essay I wrote along similar lines about how the media handle presidential prevarications. You can read it here.

This campaign is becoming ridiculous. And let's be honest: it is John McCain's fault.

Yesterday, his aides went bonkers over Barack Obama's remark that John McCain and Sarah Palin by campaigning for "change" are putting "lipstick on a pig." The McCain camp quickly arranged a conference call for reporters, during which former Massachusetts Governor Jane Swift, a Republican, accused Obama of mounting a sexist attack on Sarah Palin. (It was not an attack on McCain, because apparently he does not use lipstick.) Obama's comment, as many have pointed out, was not a chauvinist jab at Palin. He was using an expression that, again as many others have pointed out, McCain has also used on occasion.

Yet today, the McCain campaign released a web ad that quotes CBS News anchor Katie Couric ("one of the great lessons of that campaign is the continued and accepted role of sexism in American life") and that accuses Obama of mounting a sexist "smear" against Palin. (A lipstick smear?) Of course, Couric was not referring to Obama's remark. Talk about taking a statement out of context. And the ad maliciously plays Obama's lipstick comment over a headline that reads, "Barack Obama on Sarah Palin." This is nothing but deceitful.

Worse, while the McCainiacs were falsely charging Obama with sexism (playing the gender card?), they were putting out a recklessly false television ad that claimed Obama had backed legislation in Illinois to teach "comprehensive sex education" to kindergartners. A McClatchey fact-check of the ad noted this charge was without merit and absurd. The legislation had allowed local school boards to teach "age-appropriate" sex education and had provided schools the ability to warn kids about sexual predators and inappropriate touching. That is, it was designed to protect children. Yet McCain was trying to turn it into anti-Obama ammo. (Joe Klein is really upset about this.)

The McCain Mafia seems committed at throwing whatever it can at Obama: from falsehoods about taxes and earmarks (example: Palin opposed the Bridge to Nowhere) to silly and unsupported charges about sexism and sex-ed. Their strategic goal, obviously, is to keep Obama pinned down. Should the Obama campaign waste time knocking down these purposeful errors and excessive spin? That would be letting McCain shape the debate to his advantage. But if the campaign allows this stuff to hit the wall--and maybe stick--the McCain mob wins. Should it sling crap back at them? Perhaps Team Obama ought to stick to the ground game campaign manager David Plouffe has designed and not be distracted by the cable news noise. But at some point does that noise affect the ground reality? I suppose the only answer is, the Obama camp has to do it all: swat the flies, make its own case (for Obama and against McCain), and keep moving ahead.

But so much for an honorable campaign from an honorable man. Then again, given that McCain has already explicitly accused Obama of traitorous conduct (opposing a war to win an election), nothing should come as a shock. Not even abusing sex education to score points. The fortunate thing for McCain is that presidential campaigns have no true referees. Some in the media try, but the McCain camp is doing all it can to turn the election into a battle between its side and the media, a naked attempt at delegitimizing media criticism of the Palin pick and other McCain campaign moves. There is no power that can slap McCain with what he truly deserves: a time-out in a corner.

Imagine if Barack Obama ran an ad touting his vice president pick like this:

And Joe Biden was against the war in Iraq

There would be far-and-wide condemnation because such a statement would be a lie. (Biden voted for the blank-check Iraq war resolution in 2002 after trying mightily--but failing--to win approval for a more restrictive alternative he crafted with two Republican senators.) But look at McCain's latest ad, which celebrates McCain and running-mate Sarah Palin:

The original mavericks. He fights pork barrel spending. She stopped the Bridge to Nowhere.

Okay, how many times does it have to be pointed out? Governor Sarah Palin supported the Bridge to Nowhere at first. This is how the Anchorage Daily News put it:

When John McCain introduced Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate Friday, her reputation as a tough-minded budget-cutter was front and center.

"I told Congress, thanks but no thanks on that bridge to nowhere," Palin told the cheering McCain crowd, referring to Ketchikan's Gravina Island bridge.

But Palin was for the Bridge to Nowhere before she was against it.

The Alaska governor campaigned in 2006 on a build-the-bridge platform, telling Ketchikan residents she felt their pain when politicians called them "nowhere."

...In September, 2006, Palin showed up in Ketchikan on her gubernatorial campaign and said the bridge was essential for the town's prosperity.

She said she could feel the town's pain at being derided as a "nowhere" by prominent politicians, noting that her home town, Wasilla, had recently been insulted by the state Senate president, Ben Stevens. "OK, you've got Valley trash standing here in the middle of nowhere," Palin said, according to an account in the Ketchikan Daily News. "I think we're going to make a good team as we progress that bridge project."

One year later, Ketchikan's Republican leaders said they were blindsided by Palin's decision to pull the plug.

That is, she flip-flopped on the Bridge to Nowhere.

Do "original mavericks" rely on outrageous spin? Apparently so. It used to be that McCain--to a degree--was the sort of politician who would snort at such political shenanigans. Now he relies on them.

SARAH PALIN'S SECRET EMAILS.The Palin administration won't release about 1100 emails from her governor's office--many written or sent by Governor Palin or CC'ed to her--claiming these communications cover confidential policy matters. Then why do the subject lines for some of these emails refer to a political foe, a journalist, and non-policy topics? And how can the governor's office claim many of the withheld emails are covered by "executive" privilege when some were CC'ed to her husband Todd Palin (a.k.a. the First Dude), who is a private citizen? See my new and exclusive report on Palin's secret emails here.

My friends, I am not here tonight to talk about the past. You know my past. You know my story. You know how it has shaped me. Many others this week have graciously reminded you of what I've been through and what I have tried to do to serve my country. And, yes, it's true that the past is prologue. But I am here to talk about the future--about how we together can strengthen our nation and improve our great land for all of its citizens, especially those who confront difficult challenges or face hard times. So let me tell you what I'd like to do--for you and with you--should I be fortunate enough to be your next president....

That was not the speech John McCain delivered on Thursday night. Instead, he offered an unexciting mix of GOP orthodoxy and declarations of personal maverickness--which was capped by yet one more long and detailed recounting of his POW days of forty years ago. Enough already. A video introduction prior to his speech had covered the same ground--as had many other speakers this week. McCain was pulling a Kerry, relying too heavily on his past heroics and exploiting them in a manner that could devalue an authentic experience. Democrats who were worried after Sarah Palin's speech on Wednesday night could breathe a sigh of relief once McCain was done. The guy had managed to move the ball back to where it had been before Sarah-mania struck.

Here's how I assessed the speech at MotherJones.com:

Number of sentences in John McCain's acceptance speech about his experience as a POW in Vietnam: 43.

Number of sentences about his 25 years in the House and Senate: 8.

The convention ended as it began: a commemoration of McCain's hellish years in a Hanoi prison cell four decades ago. The political equation was a simple one: POW equals patriotic hero equals a fighting president. Before McCain walked down the long runway at St. Paul's Xcel Center, a baritone voice declared over the P.A., "When you've lived in a box....you put your people first." Case closed.

But there was a speech to get through. And before McCain arrived at the climactic I-was-a-POW finale, he delivered, in wooden style, a no-better-than-par speech that was mostly a series of traditional GOP buzz phrases: lower taxes, cut spending, open markets. He noted, "We believe in a strong defense, work, faith, service, a culture of life, personal responsibility, the rule of law, and judges who dispense justice impartially and don't legislate from the bench. We believe in the values of families, neighborhoods and communities." (Just not community organizers.) Was the speechwriter who penned Sarah Palin's acceptance speech too busy to work on McCain's?

Unlike most speakers at the convention, McCain acknowledged that some Americans are facing tough times. "I fight for Bill and Sue Nebe from Farmington Hills, Michigan, who lost their real estate investments in the bad housing market," he said. "Bill got a temporary job after he was out of work for seven months. Sue works three jobs to help pay the bills." And he said he would fight for Jake and Toni Wimmer of Franklin County, Pennsylvania. "Jake," he explained, "works on a loading dock; coaches Little League, and raises money for the mentally and physically disabled. Toni is a schoolteacher, working toward her Master's Degree. They have two sons, the youngest, Luke, has been diagnosed with autism." But how would McCain help these folks? Moments later, he offered a dumbed-down version of his economic plan: " I will keep taxes low and cut them where I can. My opponent will raise them. I will open new markets to our goods and services. My opponent will close them. I will cut government spending. He will increase it." (By the way, many analysts and journalists have repeatedly noted that Obama's economic plan would cut income taxes far more than McCain for Americans below the top 1 percent.)

Over and over, McCain cited his love of country and his dedication to the nation that "saved" him. He tried to present himself as the candidate of change, who wants to transform "almost everything: from the way we protect our security to the way we compete in the world economy; from the way we respond to disasters to the way we fuel our transportation network; from the way we train our workers to the way we educate our children." (He did not explain why after eight years of a Republican administration the country needs so much change.) McCain reminded the GOP delegates that he has on occasion challenged his own party. His domestic policy ideas, the few he offered, did not rouse the crowd--except when he called for more oil and gas drilling. In response, the delegates once again enthusiastically chanted, "Drill, baby, drill!" It was one of the biggest shout-outs of the night. The audience was notably silent when McCain called for boosting alternative energy sources.

Maverick, fighter, fixer--McCain said he was all of that. But, above all, he was McCain the warrior who had returned home. He had fought for the country once before--and he had suffered. He will fight for it again. "I have the record and the scars to prove it," he declared. "Senator Obama does not." Wave the bloody shirt....

You can read the rest here.

After the speech, I attended the swanky Vanity Fair/Google party. It was jammed with Republican politicos, and a smattering of journalists. The mood among the GOPers was not as joyous as it had been after Palin's star-turn on Wednesday night. As I was leaving at 2:00 am, I noticed that McCain campaign manager Rick Davis was at the party. (How many GOP convention speakers had derided the liberal media and Hollywood? Yet Davis--and hundreds of other GOPers--did not mind drinking and dining with VF. Hypocrites or schnorrers--you decide.) "He's really putting country first," I quipped to a McCain aide. "He has to work the bloviators about the speech," the aide replied. If so, he had a helluva job to do. And too bad for him--the bar had closed an hour earlier.

Sarah Palin's speech deserved rave reviews (for her performance) and scathing rebuttals (for her mugging of facts). Regarding the latter, see AP's brutal run-down and the Anchorage Daily News's fact-checking of her speech.

Her speech was laden with falsehoods. Still, the Hypocrite of the Night award has to go to Rudy Giuliani. He preceded Palin and fired off a slash-and-burn assault on Barack Obama. He blasted Obama as inexperienced and the candidate of Hollywood celebrities and the "left-wing media." He derided Obama for having once been a community organizer, as if that's not a real job. (The GOP delegates, most of them looking rather well-heeled, laughed along.) Giuliani, the former mayor of New York City, also slammed Obama for supposedly thinking that Palin's hometown is "not cosmopolitan enough."

Whoa. Giuliani, the onetime wife-cheater, slapping anyone else for being "cosmopolitan" was absurd. After all, Giuliani used to live with a gay couple in a fancy Upper East Side apartment while he was in the middle of a divorce. It don't get much more "cosmopolitan" than that. He also has dressed in drag more than your average failed presidential candidate.

Giuliani's speech was the pander of the night and a hateful exercise in faux populism. But he sure got into it. Perhaps he wants to be Palin's veep running-mate in 2012.

Here's a review of Sarah Palin's speech I posted at MotherJones.com.

The speech was the easy part. But she did it well.

Delivering the most anticipated vice presidential acceptance speech in modern political history, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin accomplished the mission. She talked family, biography, policy, and John McCain. Especially John McCain the POW. And--Democrats beware--she demonstrated she's handy with a rhetorical stiletto and can slice Barack Obama and Joe Biden, while flashing a stylish smile.

The 44-year-old Palin did not wipe out questions about her experience. She did address allegations she had abused her office while serving as a small-town mayor and as a governor. She did not defend her more extreme social positions, such as her support for teaching creationism. But in politics, performance counts for much. And for a little-known politician who had been hunkered down for days, as negative stories and rumors flew about, she had a helluva opening night. Next, Palin will have to face the media--one of the targets of her speech--fielding presumably tough queries about her actions (and life) in Alaska and her foreign policy experience (or lack thereof). But for the night, she held her own--and showed that she has the potential to be a fierce and effective critic of the Obama-Biden ticket.

Palin came on right after former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani had trash-talked Obama, and she began with an obligatory maneuver: praising John McCain as a hero, and doing so multiple times. She quickly dealt with the, uh, family issue, noting that "No family ever seems typical...our family has the same ups and downs of any other." Not quite. But it sounded good.

After comparing herself to Harry S Truman and hailing small-town Americans (like herself), she lit into Obama. "A small-town mayor," she said, "is sort of like a community organizer except that you have actual responsibilities." (When Giuliani earlier referred to Obama's days as a community organizer, he drew laughs and hoots from the delegates.) Palin claimed that Obama had written memoirs but not laws, that he has given speeches on the Iraq war but has never used the word "victory"--except when "talking about his own campaign." Obama, she said, was more worried about the rights of terrorists than defeating terrorists. And what will Obama do once he has finished "turning back the waters and healing the waters"? Raise taxes, reduce the strength of America, and do nothing to increase drilling. (The delegates repeated their favorite chant of the evening: "Drill, Baby, Drill"). "The American presidency," Palin said, in another dig at Obama, "is not supposed to be a journey of personal discovery." She grinned the grin of a smooth put-down artist.

Palin, a self-described "hockey mom," laid on the populism--the Republican version of populism--noting how she had confronted entrenched interests in Juneau (she got rid of the governor's jet and chef), praising factory workers and small farmers, citing her husband's membership in the steelworkers' union, bashing the elite Eastern media, and denouncing the "permanent political establishment" of Washington, many of whom were in the hall as McCain supporters, donors, and aides. (After the speech, Republican pollster Frank Luntz said he believed Palin has the potential to connect with working-class voters.)

Decrying the Democrats as tax-hikers and national security weaklings, while blasting Washington, is the usual fare for Republicans. But Palin read her lines with flair and confidence. And--can we be frank?--she looked darn good doing so. She was with the program: this election is not as much about change, hope, or issues as it is about the measure of one man. "Biden and Obama," she said toward the end of her speech, "say they are fighting for you....There is only one man in this election who has ever really fought for you...in places where winning means survival and where defeat means death." He is, she continued, "the kind of fellow whose names you will find on war memorials in small towns across America--except he came home." And, she noted, he possess "the special confidence of those who have seen evil and have seen how evil is overcome....That is the kind of man America needs." It's some ticket: a made-in-small-town-America working mom and the man who goes off to war to protect her way of life.

Palin's case for McCain was as effective a pitch for the GOP candidate as any made at the convention. And her attack on Obama was drenched with panache. After she was done, her family--including her pregnant teenage daughter's fiancé--joined her on the stage, and then McCain walked out. "Don't you think we made the right choice for the next vice president of the Untied States?" McCain exclaimed with glee. McCain and his aides were entitled to conclude that Palin had been misunderestimated by her critics and foes.

They also were entitled to believe that Palin would be something of a babe-magnet for the party's base. Days ago, Tom DeLay, the former House majority leader, told me that by picking Palin, McCain had electrified social conservatives, who had not been jazzed by the prospect of voting for McCain in November. But at his church, this past Sunday, DeLay's parishioners told him they now were excited about the ticket. Palin's performance on Wednesday night can be expected to reinforce and boost social conservatives' enthusiasm for the McCain-Palin ticket. The social cons have a new champion.

Political experts say that veep picks ultimately do not determine outcomes in presidential elections. And that's probably true. Yet on Wednesday night, Palin displayed plenty of potential. (Joe Biden had reason to say to himself, "This debate's gonna be a challenge.") Though rumors still swirl and unanswered questions about her official actions in Alaska remain, Palin might end up an asset, not a liability, for McCain. She has to meet the press and withstand the ongoing and intense media scrutiny that only began a few days ago. She has to handle that debate with Biden. She has to prove her mettle on the harsh campaign trail. But while pundits before the speech were pondering how the McCain campaign could put lipstick on this (seemingly) pig of a choice, after the speech was over, it was clear, for at least the moment, that with Palin there's more lipstick than pig.

On the first night of the GOP convention, Fred Thompson, the actor-senator who flopped as a presidential candidate, was given the role of a lifetime. This grumpy old guy was asked to play Marie Antoinette. And he nailed it.

As soon as Thompson hit the podium to give one of the two centerpiece speeches of the night (his co-star was Joe Lieberman), he derided the Democrats for harping on the current economic difficulties, poking fun at them for acting as if the country was in the middle of another "great depression." He didn't accuse them of whining, but he came close, as he hailed the United States as a "prosperous" country. His performance garnered applauds from the delegates, many of whom, playing to type, looked as if they spend more time at the country club fretting about tee times than at the kitchen table worrying about bills.

There are two Americas, it seems. One with concerns about the nation's economy, the other in happy denial. And the latter was in full view at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul. Through opening night, there were hardly any references to the troubles at hand. The convention spent more time celebrating former military heroes and POWs than addressing worries voters might have about the economy, health care, education, climate change or any other issue other than national security. On these fronts, it was as if the Republicans had nothing to say. Thompson tried to get the crowd stirred up over taxes and abortion, but that was so 1980s. Voters viewing the proceedings could be forgiven for wondering, what are these guys going do for me and my neighbors?

That was odd, given that the slogan of the convention is "Country First." What was being placed first by McCain's convention planners was McCain--specifically McCain the POW. This night was not about country; it was not about what can be done to make this country better and stronger; it was not about offering policy proposals that would improve the lives of Americans; it was about promoting a brand: Hero McCain.

After the first night was over, I strolled over to a hotel bar and met up with several journalists and pollster Frank Luntz. Luntz mentioned that in Michigan only 9 percent of the voters believe the country is on the right track. Nine percent? What do the McCainites think the other 91 percent in Michigan are looking to the GOP for? Heroic tales of McCain from 40 years ago? Hagiography?

It was a vapid start to a convention, which will probably end up being dominated by Sarah Palin's acceptance speech, not John McCain's. (Soap opera usually trumps politics.) But Tuesday evening was an example of hollow patriotism. Country First? No, it was McCain First. And a true patriot might consider placing the needs of his fellow countrymen ahead of his own political needs.

So much for all that talk about Hurricane Gustav helping the GOPers by providing George W. Bush a convenient excuse for not showing up at their convention in St. Paul. On Tuesday night, Bush will address the convention via satellite.

The theme of the night, McCain campaign officials said, is "Who is John McCain?" Putting it that way seems odd. Why a question. Don't most voters already know? Using such a formulation reminded me of a not-so-grand moment in presidential politics involving retired Admiral James Stockdale, who was Ross Perot's running mate during the 1992 campaign. (Ignore the Fred Thompson bits in the below clip.)

Having Bush speak on Who Is McCain night is more proof of the hollowness of American politics. Only eight years ago, Bush supporters, during the 2000 primary contest between Bush and McCain, waged a whispering campaign to try to define McCain as a syphilitic, Manchurian Candidate who was married to a mob-linked, drugs-abusing wife and who had fathered an out-of-wedlock black child. At the time, the Bush campaign--and Bush himself--said nothing to distance itself from the vicious rumor-mongering. Of course, the McCain camp suspected that Karl Rove and the Bushies were actually behind the effort. Compare that to how Barack Obama has publicly declared that Sarah Palin's family life ought not to be a campaign issue.

In any event, Bush's appearance tonight will close a circle on the Bush-McCain relationship. Bush will return the praise that McCain, sacrificing honor and principle for expedience, (insincerely) heaped on Bush at the 2000 convention. And Bush's appearance will be a reminder to voters that McCain, the so-called straight talker, has forged a phony bond with Bush to advance his political career. It turns out that not even a hurricane could blow away McCain's deal with the devil.

Here's my dispatch on Barack Obama's acceptance speech, first posted at MotherJones.

It was a historic speech on a historic night--in a remarkable setting. A crowd of tens of thousands of Americans, filling an entire stadium in the middle of the country, waved American flags and signs calling for "Change." Never in the nation's history had more Americans attended such an event. Never before had an African-American accepted the presidential nomination of a major party in the United States. And the speech of Barack Obama matched the moment.

He connected his own history--the history of a not-quite-ordinary American family--to the mythical promise of America. His rhetoric soared--as usual--but it was tethered to reality: in particular, the stark differences between how Obama would approach the challenges the nation now faces and how John McCain would do so. Obama laced his criticism of the Bush years and the possible McCain years with a dose of populism, which gave portions of the speech a sharp edge. And he brought his pitch for hope and change down to the ground with a succinct description of policy ideas he would work for as president.

Obama, as convention dictates, began with a high-minded theme: America is a land of promise, but, he declared, that promise--especially for hardworking Americans--is in jeopardy, placing the nation at a critical juncture. "These challenges are not all of government's making," he said. "But the failure to respond is a direct result of a broken politics in Washington and the failed policies of George W. Bush. America, we are better than these last eight years. We are a better country than this." Given that polls show that at least seven out of ten Americans--maybe more--believe the country is on the wrong track and a similar number of Americans disapprove of Bush, his criticism was not at all radical.

In one of the more important passages, Obama, taking a populist turn, made the case that his opponent does not understand this:

The truth is, on issue after issue that would make a difference in your lives--on health care and education and the economy--Senator McCain has been anything but independent. He said that our economy has made "great progress" under this President. He said that the fundamentals of the economy are strong. And when one of his chief advisors--the man who wrote his economic plan--was talking about the anxiety Americans are feeling, he said that we were just suffering from a "mental recession," and that we've become, and I quote, "a nation of whiners."

A nation of whiners? Tell that to the proud auto workers at a Michigan plant who, after they found out it was closing, kept showing up every day and working as hard as ever, because they knew there were people who counted on the brakes that they made. Tell that to the military families who shoulder their burdens silently as they watch their loved ones leave for their third or fourth or fifth tour of duty. These are not whiners. They work hard and give back and keep going without complaint. These are the Americans that I know.

Now, I don't believe that Senator McCain doesn't care what's going on in the lives of Americans. I just think he doesn't know. Why else would he define middle-class as someone making under five million dollars a year? How else could he propose hundreds of billions in tax breaks for big corporations and oil companies but not one penny of tax relief to more than one hundred million Americans? How else could he offer a health care plan that would actually tax people's benefits, or an education plan that would do nothing to help families pay for college, or a plan that would privatize Social Security and gamble your retirement? It's not because John McCain doesn't care. It's because John McCain doesn't get it.

Obama blasted McCain for embracing the "that old, discredited Republican philosophy--give more and more to those with the most and hope that prosperity trickles down to everyone else." He proclaimed that it was time for GOPers, "to own their failure. It's time for us to change America. And that's why I'm running for president of the United States."

He did not say--as Hillary Clinton did during the primaries--that he was running to fight for you. His is still a campaign of collective action--us, not me-- and that might continue to make it hard for voters facing tough economic times to identify with Obama. (Some people desire a champion slugging for them, not a movement to join.) But on tax cuts, health care, outsourcing, energy independence, and education, Obama vigorously outlined the stark differences between him and McCain--and he presented those differences in language designed to appeal to working-class voters.

On national security, Obama ceded no ground to McCain. "If John McCain wants to have a debate about who has the temperament, and judgment, to serve as the next Commander-in-Chief, that's a debate I'm ready to have," he said. None of his arguments were new--he blasted McCain for being overly eager to go to war in Iraq before the job was done in Afghanistan--but he did so with great confidence. "John McCain likes to say that he'll follow bin Laden to the Gates of Hell--but he won't even follow him to the cave where he lives," he remarked.

Obama sounded strong; he looked strong. "If John McCain wants to follow George Bush with more tough talk and bad strategy, that is his choice--but it is not the change that America needs," he said. Obama warned McCain to stop questioning his patriotism: "I've got news for you, John McCain. We all put our country first." And, he said, don't go pulling the same-old, Rove-like stunts, accusing Democrats of being nothing but tax-raisers and national security weaklings:

The times are too serious, the stakes are too high for this same partisan playbook. So let us agree that patriotism has no party. I love this country, and so do you, and so does John McCain. The men and women who serve in our battlefields may be Democrats and Republicans and Independents, but they have fought together and bled together and some died together under the same proud flag. They have not served a Red America or a Blue America--they have served the United States of America.

Throughout the entire speech, Obama's delivery was powerful. He stuck with his now-familiar message of hope and change. He reiterated his call for a politics that transcends pettiness and distractions. But he really took it to the other side--issuing specific charges and offering specific ideas for policy changes. Obama still has one failing as a great speaker: he does not quite step out of the moment of the Grand Speech to talk directly to the individual on the couch who is watching and weighing. He seeks to inspire and attract support with political poetry--but there's a touch of abstraction to the exercise.

Nevertheless, what was in the speech was far more important than what might have been missing. Anyone watching could see that Obama has an economic vision. He showed he had no reluctance to challenge McCain on national security. He linked the policy debates of the moment to the noble currents of American history, noting that this day was the fortieth anniversary of the "I Have a Dream" speech of Martin Luther King Jr. He soared high. He punched hard. He was tough without being mean. It was a near-perfect--or maybe perfect--blend of positive and negative.

Can an acceptance speech make a difference in an election? This was one with the potential to do so. And as the Democrats' convention concluded with fireworks exploding at Denver's Invesco Field and stately orchestral music playing from the loudspeakers, Democrats were entitled to look at their once-improbable leader and say, Mission Accomplished. But the Republicans will have their chance to rip Obama apart at their convention next week--and in the weeks following that. This will be a fierce and bloody election. There will be no more big speeches for Obama, though the debates between the candidates could end up mattering much. Yet on a night when the fast trajectory of Obama's extraordinary life intersected with the slow trajectory of American history, Obama made a passionate and forceful case for himself, for his campaign, and for his view of America and what must be done to serve its citizens. He gave his supporters cause for hope.

Soon after I wrote yesterday's posting--in which I questioned whether the Democratic convention was producing enough red-meat attacks against John McCain--I ran into Senator Dick Durbin, the Illinois Democrat and No. 2 in the Senate. I asked whether the Obama people planning the convention had made the slightest of strategic errors by not striking at McCain in a harsher manner. No, no, no, said Durbin, who has been one of Barack Obama's most enthusiastic supporters in Democratic officialdom. "They're cutting ads right now that will be a lot sharper," he noted, referring to spots that would come out after the convention. "We need to come out of here with a positive message."

Well, we'll have to see how strong those ads are. But on Thursday night, the main speakers at the convention generally stuck to the usual practice: praise McCain's heroism, courage and service to the country and then say the problem with him is that he has a few bad ideas. Joe Biden, who as veep-mate is supposed to be the lead attack dog, went on about how McCain's courage "amazes" him and noted that his friendship with McCain transcends politics. As I've written before, this strategy of heaping praise on McCain the man and then questioning McCain's ideas may place the Dems in a corner. McCain attacks Obama for being a traitor. He says Obama is so ambitious he is willing to lose a war to win an election. That's a damn ugly charge. It's a vicious indictment of Obama's character. What do the Obama-ites do? They say McCain is a man of solidity but they disagree with his policy notions. Not very even, right?

So don't the Dems then have to ratchet up? Show voters he's a phony maverick or a warmonger or completely out of touch (with the Internet, the economy, take your choice)? After all, if the choice for the voters is a good man with some bad ideas or a bad man with some good ideas, wouldn't many choose the former?

Hours after Biden's speech, I found myself in a hotel restaurant at closing time with an assortment of reporters and political ops. I raised this point, and a Democratic political consultant (not the one I mentioned yesterday) disagreed. This person said that there had been a loot of private polling done on the Democratic side that indicates that on-the-fence voters would not buy a direct slam on McCain and that they would not absorb any negative information about him unless the attacker paid tribute to McCain's military service. The consultant was adamant on this point. S/he maintained that the polling did show that voter perceptions of McCain could be changed to benefit Obama, if the attack was crafted the right way and McCain was not merely blasted.

I don't have access to this empirical data. It could be overwhelmingly convincing. (My table-mate did not reveal who had done this polling.) But if the Democratic assault on McCain has to be nuanced and tempered with praise, that could be quite tricky for the Obama campaign to pull off. It's clear that the McCain attack on Obama ain't gonna be subtle. Not next week in St. Paul. And certainly not in the weeks after that.

For my review of the third night of the convention, click here.

Following Hillary Clinton's get-over-it speech on Tuesday night at the Democratic convention, I was at a swanky party, and a political consultant I've known for years--a smart fellow who has been essential to the careers of several prominent Democratic legislators--walked up to me and said that the Barack Obama campaign had made a serious strategic mistake. "We've had two soft nights," he complained.

The first evening was the warm-and-fuzzy celebration of Michelle Obama. Then came Hillary Night. Throughout both evenings, some shots had been taken at George W. Bush and John McCain, but no real fusillade had been launched against the two. (Ohio Governor Ted Strickland had a good line on Tuesday when he quipped, "It was once said of the first George Bush that he was born on third base and thought he'd hit a triple. Well, with the 22 million new jobs and the budget surplus Bill Clinton left behind, George W. Bush came into office on third base, and then he stole second.") This consultant noted that four years ago he had argued against the stay-positive approach of John Kerry's convention. The Kerry crew's decision to not pummel Bush throughout the four-day convention is now regarded by many political pros as a major error. And this consultant was worried that the Obama camp was repeating history. "We've lost two nights," he said.

He knew that on Wednesday night, Senator Joe Biden would take after McCain. That's what veep candidates do. They play the attack dog. And every Democrat and journalist in Denver was expecting Biden to do so with enthusiasm. But regardless of how well Biden would do in this role, it did seem that the Obama campaign had relegated its assault on McCain to something of an "attack hour," rather than integrate it fully into the convention's narrative. (And Biden's attack would have to compete for attention with Bill Clinton's much-anticipated speech that night.) Though the Obama campaign did have to go through several compulsory exercises on the first two evenings--"humanize" Michelle, hail Teddy Kennedy, and pacify Hillary Clinton--it's not hard to imagine an alternative schedule that would have featured speakers or films that ripped into McCain to make the point that this election presents a fundamental choice and that a vote for McCain would be one damn serious mistake.

Obama did win the nomination by promising to rise above partisan potshots. But not every shot has to be a cheap one. The Republicans and their allies, of course, are doing what they can to make Obama seem like The Other. They question the American-ness of Obama and his wife. They lie about his tax plan. Their goal: to delegitimize Obama. The Obama campaign should not follow the GOPers into the gutter. But it does need to persuade those I-don't-know-yet voters that McCain is not only an ex-POW and self-proclaimed maverick but a fellow who--due to his conservative policy positions, connections to corporate lobbyists, cluelessness about the Internet, combustible temperament, eagerness for military confrontation and more--would be a bad president for the country. Up to now, much of the Obama campaign's assault has focused on tying McCain to Bush. (Hillary Clinton's one zinger against McCain played off this point.) But this line of attack will only go so far. On Election Day, voters will be deciding between Obama and McCain. For Obama to win, voters will have to believe McCain himself--because of his own views, his own traits--is dead wrong for the job.

Has the Obama campaign blown it? Hyperbolic questions like this cannot be answered until after the votes are cast and counted. But let's consider another question: will the Republicans at their convention next week begin with two soft nights and not try to rip the hide off Obama from the start? Perhaps. But if I were an Obama adviser, I wouldn't count on that.

Among the politerati gathered in Denver for the Democratic convention there is a question some are whispering: do you have a sinking feeling?

There has certainly been a profound mood shift for Democrats and journalists who fancy Barack Obama since the days of early summer when Obama, having vanquished Hillary Clinton, seemed a dragon-slayer with a clear path toward the White House, never mind that old guy who kept saying dumb things and whose campaign was undisciplined and disorganized. This week, at parties and receptions, in the hallways of the Pepsi Center (and does anyone else think it is odd that a major political party picks a possible next Leader of the Free World in an arena named after a beverage?), and on the street corners of Mile High City, people are asking if the Democrats--yet again--can blow it.

There is reason for worry. Recent polls have been not so hot for Obama. One CNN survey found that the number of Hillary backers who say they will vote for John McCain over Obama in the fall has increased in recent weeks. (That number was supposed to decrease.) A Quinnipiac poll out today shows McCain ahead of Obama in Florida 47 to 43 percent. Obama had a two-point lead there in late July. Yet that poll also found that Florida voters say they prefer a Democrat over a Republican in the White House by a 44 to 39 percent margin. That is, a generic Democratic candidate beats a generic Republican in the Sunshine State. Yet McCain leads Obama. Any theories? (Race--there I said it.)

In Ohio, according to the Quinnipiac survey, Obama has a one-point advantage over McCain. In Pennsylvania, he holds a seven-point lead, the same as it was in late July. In both of these states, there is also a tremendous yearning for a Democrat in the White House. In Pennsylvania, the poll found a 50 to 32 percent margin, and in Ohio, it was 44 to 35 percent. It seems that throughout Swing-state-land, voters want a D to reside in 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. But that desire is apparently not translating into strong support for Obama.

There's more: pundits keep punditing about Obama's inability to connect with working-class Americans (meaning, white working voters). Such talk--which may have validity, given these polls--is spooking Dems and Obama fans who know that for years the Republicans have been able to succeed in part by slamming Democratic candidates as out of touch, elitist, and effete (even when the GOP's candidates were plutocrats and handmaidens of the well-to-do). These Dems and journalists say--apparently rightfully--that Obama has not yet passed the I-feel-your-pain test.

And there's more: the ghost of John Kerry. The Democrats' 2008 convention is only one day old and already Dems and journalists are wondering if it will be a replay of last time. As the 2004 convention ended, the Kerry campaign and Democrats were on a massive high. Many believed the convention had been a success and had placed Kerry on practically an undeniable route to the White House. It didn't turn out that way. This time around, there's hypersensitivity on this front.

No doubt, there's plenty cause for concern (but not panic--not yet) for Obama fanciers. The race, as depicted in the polls, is much tighter than might be expected, considering the external circumstances (a lousy economy, a lousy president). And the Obama magic does seem less magical these days. A nineteen-month-long campaign has taken its toll. But there's much to happen in the next ten weeks that could determine the outcome. This could end up a blowout in either direction, or a narrow win by either side. Which is why, despite the hoopla of convention week, some Obama-ites within the political set appear to be preparing themselves for the possibility of déjà vu all over again.

For my take on the first night of the Democratic convention, see this dispatch here.

Too much Clintons at the convention?

There will be a lot--perhaps more than needed. On Tuesday, Senator Hillary Clinton will have her time at the podium. But first, reportedly, convention-goers (and viewers at home) will be treated to a film about her, presumably in the style of the Man From Hope biopic shown at the 1992 convention. Then she will speak. No doubt, she will talk about her historic run for the presidency. The question for a Clinton-cynic is how much of her address will be about her and how much will be about Barack Obama?

This will be her night--which she deserves. But then the Clintons get a second night. On Wednesday, Bill Clinton will get his turn. He is supposedly disappointed that he has been relegated to "Securing America's Future" night, when speakers are supposed to tout Obama's potential as commander in chief. Clinton would rather speak on a wider range of issues. I can understand the Obama camp's concern. Remember his convention speech in 1988? (Howard Wolfson, Hillary Clinton's communications director during her campaign, argues that the Obama campaign still must soothe the hurt feelings Bill Clinton has after the campaign. What is this? High school? Wolfson adds, "President Clinton has his part to play as well. He needs to offer a strong argument in favor of Barack Obama's candidacy on Wednesday night, and remind everyone why he is one of the most gifted campaigners in our generation between now and November.")

Also on Wednesday night, Hillary Clinton will again be in the spotlight, when her name is placed into nomination, thanks to the munificence of the Obama campaign. So of the four nights of the convention, the Clintons will have major roles on two. Not bad for the second-place finisher. Even though Hillary Clinton racked up a lot of votes, pundits can--and will--wonder if this is excessive, given that the whole point of the convention is to move forward with Obama. Wouldn't one night have sufficed? Start with a film on HRC. When it's done, the lights go up and...there's Bill Clinton. He introduces her. And then she comes on. A nice package--all in one. Then for the next two nights, the convention would concentrate on Joe Biden and Obama.

That's not how it's going to be. Perhaps all this Clinton programming will help ease the resentment of the Hillary Hold-ons (whom I wrote about here.) If so, it will be worth it. But is it possible those die-hards cannot be satisfied and that a Clinton-drenched convention will deliver a less-than-consistent message (Obama, Obama, Obama)? Your guess--or calculation--is as good as mine.

A piece on Biden I posted at Mother Jones.....

In the end, Barack Obama used unconventional means to announce a conventional choice for his running-mate.

Via a three A.M. text message sent to the cell phones of his supporters, donors and volunteers, Obama's campaign declared that he had chosen Senator Joe Biden, the Delaware Democrat, to be "our" veep nominee. (Three in the morning--was this a dig at Senator Hillary Clinton or just a coincidence?) With this I'll-let-you-know-first gimmick, Obama had snagged millions of cell numbers and email addresses his campaign can use in the weeks ahead to motivate voters and push them to the polls on Election Day. So in purely tactical terms, his running-mate rollout was indeed pioneering and widely successful. What remains to be seen, of course, is whether he made a smart pick by attaching his campaign for change to a fellow who has worked Washington's ways in the Senate for 35 years.

Sometimes going conventional is not the wrong course. During the past weeks of veep-frenzy, Biden's assets and liabilities have been dissected repeatedly. He possesses extensive foreign policy experience (which Obama does not). He can do straight-talk relatively well for a senator (while Obama has been accused of not fully connecting with working-class voters). Then again, Biden has suffered in the past from both verbal diarrhea and gaffe-itis. I've attended many committee hearings in the Senate when Biden turned a question into a long-winded monologue that drove people in the room to want to shout, "Question, Senator, do you have a question?!!" And there are times when Biden's mental filter has switched off and he has said the dumbest thing, such as when he famously called Obama "the first mainstream African American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy." (The Daily Mail headlined its account of Obama's pick this way: "Obama names 'gaffe-prone' Joe Biden as his running mate.")

But Biden is a smart legislator who has shown that he can suppress his own faults when he must. He had a good campaign this past year as a presidential candidate. He won few votes but performed well at the debates and demonstrated he could keep his infamous verbosity under control. At the confirmation hearing for Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, while other Democrats got bogged down in legal jargon practically indecipherable to the average person, Biden peppered Roberts with straightforward questions about Roberts' claim that he merely wanted to be an umpire on the bench who calls constitutional balls and strikes. "Much as I respect your metaphor," Biden countered, "it's not very apt, because you get to determine the strike zone. The founders never set a strike zone." It was the best moment of the hearing.

On foreign policy, Biden has always been an activist, thinking and engaging with the issues and crises generating headlines and those that don't make the evening news. He has a fancy for cooking up proposals. And even if he devises ideas that may raise objections--such as his plan to partition Iraq--he often deserves credit for the effort. (He issued his proposal for splitting up Iraq at a time when the Bush administration was doing nothing but "staying the course.")

One of Biden's better moments came in the run-up to the war with Iraq. In the fall of 2002, the Bush administration, claiming Saddam Hussein had amassed loads of WMDs that he could hand to al Qaeda for attacks against the United States, was demanding that the House and Senate grant Bush the authority to invade Iraq whenever he wanted. Rather than cave to Bush, Biden, the chairman of the foreign relations committee, worked with Republican Senators Richard Lugar and Chuck Hagel to craft an alternative: a resolution that would allow Bush to attack Iraq only for the purposes of destroying Iraq's WMDs and only after seeking UN approval. If the UN withheld permission, Bush would have to come back to Congress and prove that the threat was so "grave" that only military action could eliminate it. This was a wily legislative maneuver that could have averted a war. (And Biden told me and Michael Isikoff during an interview for our book, Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War, that he had received backdoor encouragement from Secretary of State Colin Powell.) But Biden's bipartisan measure was ultimately derailed by a fellow Democrat: House minority leader Richard Gephardt, who essentially accepted the White House's blank-check approach. After Gephardt did that, Republican senators told Biden, How can we be to the left of Dick Gephardt? "I was so angry," Biden later said. "I was frustrated. But I never second-guess another man's political judgment."

Biden went on to vote for the Iraq war resolution. Which demonstrated his Washington-ness. He had tried for something better. When that failed, he, too, accepted the prevailing notion. But his pre-vote effort to create a much more limited resolution will afford the Obama-Biden ticket a small measure of cover when its foes point out that Obama's main charge against John McCain (he supported the Iraq invasion) can also be applied to his running-mate.

The main rule in veep-picking is this: First, do no harm. Among Obama's conventional options, each had obvious problems. Senator Evan Bayh of Indiana stood side-by-side with McCain in fervently advocating the war in Iraq prior to the invasion. Governor Tim Kaine of Virginia is another political newbie on the national stage with no foreign policy cred, and he has yet to rack up many accomplishments. As for Senator Hillary Clinton, with her on the ticket, the election would be as much about the Clintons as about Obama and McCain. Depending on your view, that's either a big winner or political hell.

Biden comes with decades of baggage. There are thousands of Senate floor votes for GOP oppo researchers to sift through. He's had more than one plagiarism scandal. Hailing from a solidly Democratic state, he brings no Electoral College votes with him. But he has the talent to be both Obama's attack dog and his top foreign policy adviser. And though vice presidential nominees tend to have no true impact on the final results, Biden has the potential to be a fierce campaigner for and with Obama--that is, if he can be the better Biden for the next ten weeks.

By tapping Biden, Obama does little to reinforce his core themes of change and hope. He does not amplify his Washington-is-broken and postpartisan messages. He does not boost his claim that his campaign is a movement. He does not increase the excitement factor or accentuate the historic nature of his candidacy. But then Obama himself has already provided much of that. And it's possible that the American electorate can only absorb so much unorthodoxy in a presidential election. With Biden, Obama may have passed the do-no-harm rule. But that won't be known until the election is over.

On Thursday, two Obama-ites asked me if John McCain's inability to recall how many houses he and the missus own is a "game changer." This suggested to me that the conventional media wisdom that Barack Obama was either slipping or not doing as well as he should be doing against McCain had taken hold within Obamaland. And perhaps the Obama-ists should be fretting, for polls are not always wrong, and voter surveys do seem to show McCain holding nearly even when external circumstances (a lousy economy, an unpopular war, $4-a-gallon gas, a populace that overwhelmingly believes the nation is on the wrong track) ought to give the fellow from the non-incumbent party a major advantage.

Thus, the desire within the Obama camp to change the game.

McCain's house--make that, houses--moment certainly is a boost for Obama. But it's unlikely to alter the fundamentals. This election is, as another piece of conventional media wisdom puts it, about Obama. Much more so than McCain. The GOPer is a known quantity. Many voters, correctly or not, believe they know the guy. Obama, even after campaigning for a year and a half, remains the new kid on the block. His challenge is to forge a bond with those in-the-middle voters, many of whom tend not to pay close attention to the details of political debate. Consequently, many of them are easily swayed by misleading or false attacks--the specifics of which they might not absorb, even as they develop an impression shaped by the attacks. (Yeah, I heard there's something about Obama's Muslim background......)

During the nomination battle, Obama was able to reach many Democratic primary and caucus voters directly--through campaign appearances, through direct voter meetings, through surrogates. And he connected. Now that he's playing to a bigger, more diffuse, and less engaged audience, it's tougher for this fresh face to forge a bond.

The pundits keep saying that Obama has to demonstrate to voters that he feels their economic pain and knows how to relieve it. That's true. But he also has to make a direct connection. He cannot just release solid economic plans and give well-written speeches on economic matters. He can indeed best McCain in issuing economic proposals. But that's not the same as getting a voter to feel that he or she knows--really knows--Obama.

So while watching the Olympics, I was surprised to see the Obama ad that has run repeatedly. It's darn conventional. The spot touts his plans for creating millions of jobs and advancing alternative energy. Wind generators are pictured. And Obama gazes in a leader-like fashion into the wonderful future. I wondered why Obama in this ad wasn't speaking directly to whoever was watching it. A commercial that claims he's great and has great ideas is not going to do much on the forge-a-bond front. Such an ad follows the conventions of standard commercials: talk at the viewer. Obama has to talk to voters. And that's more difficult in the general election than in the primaries. And the main way to reach undecided, swing, independent, or whatever-you-call-them voters is, alas, by the media and advertising.

Obama's people obviously understand this. And who knows what they have planned for the coming weeks. Still, I keep waiting for a breakthrough. Maybe that's an unfair expectation. But as the general election contest now stands, the Obama campaign cannot rely on McCain slip-ups--of which there have been many. It must create the game-change it seeks.

In a front-pager on Sunday, The New York Times took on the question, is John McCain a warmonger? The paper did not put it in such an indelicate manner. But that was (and is) essentially the issue at hand. The story reminded readers of McCain's bellicose rhetoric after 9/11. In October 2001, he appeared on David Letterman's show and said that Iraq might behind the anthrax attacks. He also claimed that Mohamed Atta, the lead 9/11 hijacker, had met with Iraqi intelligence--even though the evidence at the time was unclear. (The entire charge was eventually debunked by U.S. intelligence.) And on an aircraft carrier in January 2002, he yelled to sailors, "Next up, Baghdad!"

None of this trip down memory lane was surprising, given that McCain months ago was joking about bombing Iran. McCain is a guy who despite his own military service and POW experience has been too eager in recent years to play the war card. Not only was he among those who made false claims about Iraq to win popular support for a U.S. invasion of that country; he seemed eager for the war. The Obama campaign might consider reminding voters of his excessive enthusiasm for military confrontation with Iraq and Iran.

But that's not why I'm writing this posting. What stood out in this article was McCain's response to a query posed to him by the Times. Asked about his support for the war in Iraq, McCain replied via email:

Given Mr. Hussein's history of pursuing illegal weapons and his avowed hostility to the United States, "his regime posed a threat we had to take seriously." The attacks were still a reminder, Mr. McCain added, of the importance of international action "to prevent outlaw states -- like Iran today -- from developing weapons of mass destruction."

Okay, when will the war backers stop spinning? As it turned out, Saddam posed no immediate treat to the United States. He was, of course, a problem--but not a threat. And the war did not prevent his outlaw state from developing nuclear weapons because Iraq was not developing nuclear weapons at the time. Saddam's nuclear program was kaput. In fact, the international inspections program that was ended by the U.S. invasion was itself effectively preventing Saddam from developing nuclear weapons and other WMDs.

McCain would not admit that he had gotten Iraq wrong. He said that his pre-invasion remarks about Iraq's WMDs were misleading because of "Iraq's opacity under Saddam." But that's a convenient CYA excuse. The weapons inspectors had gotten it right at the time and were saying there was no evidence of major WMDs in Iraq. McCain, like others legislators (Republicans and Democrats), simply chose not to believe them.

On this crucial issue, there's no straight talk from McCain. Then again, there cannot be. For any admission of error might make it harder for him to rush into the next war.

I'm still on vacation. Posting will suffer for a few more days.

I'm still on vacation, but I cannot escape The New York Times. Thus....

One perpetual problem of the MSM was illustrated by The New York Times on Wednesday: the inability to call plainly a lie a lie. Or a liar a liar.

In an front-page article on this year's Swift Boat attack--a best-selling anti-Obama book written by Jerome Corsi--the Times defined the story as Corsi's attempt to do to Barack Obama what he did to John Kerry (with his 2004 book challenging Kerry's Vietnam War record). It did not make Corsi's demonstrably false charges the main focus of the piece. To be sure, the article did include examples of Corsi's misleading and untrue allegations. But his (presumably) purposeful mangling of the facts was not in the lead:

In the summer of 2004 the conservative gadfly Jerome R. Corsi shot to the top of the bestseller lists as co-author of "Unfit for Command," the book attacking Senator John Kerry's record on a Vietnam War Swift boat that began the larger damaging campaign against Mr. Kerry's war credentials as he sought the presidency.

Almost exactly four years after that campaign began, Mr. Corsi has released a new attack book painting Senator Barack Obama, the Democrats' presumed presidential nominee, as a stealth radical liberal who has tried to cover up "extensive connections to Islam" - Mr. Obama is Christian - and questioning whether his admitted experimentation with drugs in high school and college ever ceased.

The next paragraph noted that "significant parts" of the book have been "challenged." And the piece said, "Fact-checking [a book like this one] can require extensive labor and time from independent journalists, whose work often trails behind the media echo chamber."

Wait a minute--isn't the Times able to do such a fact-checking job? After all in 2004, the Times did publish a front-page article that thoroughly debunked the case of the anti-Kerry Swift Boaters. This piece, though, noted that Media Matters, a liberal media watchdog, has done the most aggressive fact-checking of Corsi's latest hit job. And then the Times, repeating some of Media Matters work, did report that "several of the book's accusations, in fact, are unsubstantiated, misleading or inaccurate." But it gave only two examples. (For instance, Corsi claims Obama has "yet to answer" whether he used marijuana and cocaine after college. Obama has indeed said he has not used any drugs since he was 20 years old.)

The thrust of the Times piece was the controversy over the book: Corsi makes charges about Obama; others cry foul. And calling Corsi a "gadfly" hardly captured the man who has decried Islam as a "dangerous Satanic religion," has accused John Kerry of being secretly a Jew, and who has implied that Hillary Clinton is a lesbian. (None of Corsi's more coarse observations were mentioned in the Times article. See here for more.)

The Times could have covered this story in a different fashion. Consider this alternative lead:

A new best-selling book by the co-author of the 2004 book that falsely accused John Kerry of exaggerating his Vietnam War record contains significant allegations about Barack Obama that are false, according to an extensive Times review of the charges.

The Times took the easy path. It zeroed in on the fuss over the book--and in typical he said/she said fashion allowed Corsi and Media Matters to each accuse the other of mugging the truth to serve a political agenda. But the evidence is clear: Corsi is the offender here. Certainly, the article led reasonable readers to that conclusion. But this was an instance when the newspaper of record could have served the truth more by fully concentrating on Corsi's false charges. Within this bastion of the so-called liberal media, Corsi got off easy.

I'm on vacation, so posting will suffer this week and the next. But I was impressed by the responses--okay, some of the responses--to the previous item, in which I asked, Can a black man be elected president? Note the wide range of replies--from it's irrelevant to it's the main thing. Thus proving that we are indeed in the midst of a grand political science experiment, yet one with tremendous real-life consequences.

One noteworthy reply came directly to me in an email from Jeffrey Hart, a veteran conservative who has been a senior editor at The National Review since 1968 and who wrote speeches for Nixon and Reagan. He's an Obamacon, one of the rightwingers who are hot for Barack Obama. He writes:

I've read you Blog on maybe we can't elect a black president. But three weeks ago Obama was ahead in Gallup by 4-6 points. Obama was black then too. Then there came his trip to the Middle East, Iraq, Germany. Apparently successful. Now he and McCain are about equal in the national poll.

What explains that?

Only very recently Obama might have brought race into the foreground when he said "They will try to frighten you with etc. and the fact that "I don't look like those other presidents" on the currency.

McCain seized on that. Hoped that race would not be part of the campaign. Sure. He's delighted to have race in the foreground. In the Sat. NYT Bob Herbert cites earlier McCain innuendoes about race.

But those weren't taking hold as Obama's polls remained very good. Did Obama make a big mistake in that "not looking like other presidents"? Or have McCain attack ads about flip-flopping been enough to pull Obama's polls down?

That is, I think Obama's polls sank before the recent race business. What to do? Obama should attack (and run TV spots):

1. McCain supported a hugely expensive war sold with lies. Be specific.

2. McCain wants to make Bush tax cuts permanent -- "Hood Robin" tax-cuts. Robin Hood took from the rich and gave to the poor. Bush-McCain Hood Robin cuts give to the richest and take from the rest.

3. McCain would appoint Judges "like Roberts and Alito." There goes Roe. Women Alert.

4. McCain would renew Bush's attempt to attach Social Security to the stock market. The stock market drops about 200 points every time you look.

5. McCain has no national plan for medical care.

6. Play clips of Gramm saying people are "whiners" about lousy economy. That was a "gaffe," defined as when a politician tells you what he really thinks. Gramm was McCain's economic guru until he let it out what McCain really thinks.

7. Play TV clips of McCain hugging and kissing Bush. That absurdity sez it all. It may be that Obama is too nice. But to win he must go on the attack, but with comic touches.

8. The three presidential debates will be devastating for McCain: Pericles vs. Donald Duck.

Wow. It's not every day that Obama gets such advice (and cheerleading) from a National Review editor and former Reaganaut. Whether Hart is correct or not--and his plan sounds good to me--the fact that a fellow with his pedigree is rooting for Obama and hoping for him to hit McCain damn hard shows that this sure is one different election--and not just because of the race of the candidates.

In the meantime, while I'm gone, feel free to continue discussing the race factor in the comments section--or anything else.

Consider these tidal forces: the economy is sagging, two wars (one quite unpopular) are under way, the incumbent GOP president has basement-low approval ratings, and over 80 percent of the nation believes the country is heading in the wrong direction. With all that, the presidential candidate of the party on the outs ought to have a near-cakewalk to the White House. And perhaps Barack Obama will win handily in November. But the latest national polls show he has but a modest (if steady) lead over John McCain.

So here's an unoriginal thought: if Obama were a white guy with a white-guy name, he'd probably be heading toward a 40-state win--okay, maybe a 30-state win. That leads to this unoriginal and obvious question: will American voters elect a black man president?

I can't help thinking that's a defining question of this election, perhaps the defining question. Sure, there are other factors at play. Obama, it is true, doesn't possess the governmental experience of your average presidential nominee. But solid experience is not always what voters desire. (Remember George W. Bush?) And, yes, Obama has not been a leader on commander-in-chief-ish issues--though he was still able to render the correct call on the Iraq war. But are these the decisive matters in this election?

It is often hard to discern what factor is the game-changer--especially before votes are counted. But Obama's race looms large for my back-of-the-envelope calculations. I wonder if the United States--that is, a majority of voters--can pull the lever for a biracial man with an unusual name. And I've been asking political analysts of different ideological bents about this for weeks. To date, no one has impressed me with a creative answer. Some say, "Of course, America can do this." Others say, "we'll see, won't we?" A few seem dedicated to hiding their pessimism. (And I recall what a key Hillary Clinton fundraiser and aide said to me at the start of the primary campaign: We cannot make our strongest case against him--America is not going to elect a black man.)

I have no clear take on this. Barack Obama as president? On the morning after Election Day, will Democrats be saying, "what were we thinking?" Or will the world look at the United States and see that its citizens had overcome a history of racism to make history? I dunno.

Thus, I ask you to tell me. Is this the key question of this election: can a black man be elected president? I'm on vacation for a while and will keep this thread open for several days. Please share your informed or uninformed speculation in the comments section below. And feel free even to give an answer to the question itself.

Sorry for the all-too obvious cliché in the headline, but Virginia Governor Tim Kaine is the Conventional Wisdom Flavor of the Moment, when it comes to who will share the Democratic ticket with Barack Obama. MSNBC's First Read tipsheet sums it up:

Gov. Tim Kaine is all the rage today -- with a front-page Washington Post piece saying that he has had "very serious" conversations about possibly becoming Obama's veep pick, as well as a Politico article that has a source saying that Kaine is "very, very high on the short list." What's more, Kaine today just happens to be in Washington (for his WTOP interview at 10:00 am ET). And guess what? Obama's in DC, too. For all we know, the two are meeting as you read this, or have already met (Obama had a VERY early call time this morning). Kaine's strengths: He helps with the battleground of Virginia; reinforces Obama's outside the Beltway message (although part of his state happens to be inside the Beltway); also reinforces Obama's emphasis on faith (he's a devout Catholic); speaks fluent Spanish (once serving as a missionary in Honduras); and is close to Obama. Kaine's weaknesses: He has little name ID across the country; has no national security experience; and it's debatable how much more support Obama might gain in Virginia with Kaine on the ticket -- given that Mark Warner and Jim Webb are also campaigning for him and given that Kaine's geographic strength in the state is fairly similar to Obama's. The Obama campaign isn't one that likes to surprise. Could it be they are sending a signal that Kaine is very likely, and if you don't speak now Dem special interest groupies, forever hold your peace?

Yesterday, Republican Governor Tim Pawlenty was the rage, with pundits expecting John McCain to name the Minnesota chief executive his veep choice during an appearance on Larry King Live. But on the show, McCain announced nothing. He wouldn't even say he if would announce anything before the Olympics kick off on August 8.

Should we care about all speculation? It's hard for political reporters to not be dragged into the who's-it-gonna-be speculation? And every four years we go through this exercise. But, eventually, presidential candidates pick their running-mates, and then the fun can start. (Remember Dan Quayle?) So it's something of a waste of journalistic resources to go overboard trying to figure out whom might be selected. But whaddayathink? Should he go with Kaine?

As Barack Obama turns from overseas issues to economic matters--with a scheduled meeting on Monday in Washington with economic leaders--I noted elsewhere that there was a potent economic issue waiting for Obama: economic transparency. Referring to the subprime meltdown, I noted:

So here's a populist issue for Obama: the U.S. economy is too important to be placed in the hands of wheeler-dealers who in the shadows engage in transactions that have the potential to send waves of harm throughout the highly-interconnected financial world. Americans are entitled to feel insecure when they see that the economy can be so severely affected by a few big firms that go off the reservation, thanks to the imaginative machinations of a small number of traders. More transparency, more regulation--whatever the policy prescriptions are (and they will be technical and hard for most of us to understand), Obama could by addressing this issue gain a political advantage over John McCain, who tends to celebrate the workings of the markets.

Then I came across a story in Monday's Washington Post that was headlined, "Transparency Sought as Speculators' Activity in Oil Market Grows" and that reported:

Big Wall Street firms representing the interests of pension funds, endowments and wealthy individuals around the country have grown in just a few years from minor participants in the oil markets to their most dominant force.

These financial firms -- whose holdings of oil contracts are now larger than the collective demand of airlines, trucking firms and other companies that need oil to run their businesses -- have become the focus of an intense debate in Washington over whether their exponential growth is contributing to the surge in oil prices.

The agency that regulates commodity trading has been tracking some of the activities of these investors. But a year and a half ago, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission decided to keep that information secret, rebuffing thousands of requests from industry groups and individuals to make the data public. The CFTC noted in a report that only one group supported this decision: the International Swaps and Derivatives Association, which lobbies on behalf of the Wall Street firms.

The biggest financial speculators, called swap dealers, trade "futures contracts" that allow them to make money by betting on the price commodities will fetch in the future. They rarely take delivery of the goods themselves. In 2000, swap dealers held about 140,000 oil contracts, according to CFTC data obtained by a House Energy and Commerce Committee investigation. That has surged to about 1.8 million today, including a three-fold jump since 2006.

Here's an instance when a small number of those wheeler-dealers may be having a serious impact on the economy and the financial health of households across the United States, and the regulators take the side of the speculators and allow them to continue their trading far from the prying eyes of the public.

This is a good--and populist--issue for Obama and the Democrats. Regulators ought to be working for the public, not industry. And transparency ought to be the rule. During the W. years, unregulated segments of the economy that are cloaked in secrecy--such as the swaps market--have grown in size and significance. It's time for pushback.

On Friday morning, on NPR's Diane Rehm Show, guest-host Susan Page made me--really, really, really made me--and the two other commentators (PR man/syndicated columnist Tony Blankley and Politico's Jeanne Cummings) predict John McCain's running-mate pick. None of us were eager to prognosticate. But Page insisted.

Earlier in the day, I had pondered the conventional-wisdom short-list of McCain's choices: Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, former Bush budget director Rob Portman, and former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge. At least three of these contenders should be nowhere near McCain's calculations:

Ridge: He favors abortion rights. That could help McCain with independent voters, when the inevitable McCain-wants-to-criminalize-abortion ads start flooding the airwaves in the fall. But does McCain want to be at war with the base of his party from now until election day? (One problem for McCain is that he cannot win without the party's base, and he may not be able to win by catering to it. What a paradox!)

Portman: As the economy slides further into a ravine--and Bush's approval ratings remain in the gutter--does McCain want by his side the man who was in charge of Bush's budget? Portman does hail from the must-win state of Ohio, and he's considered an affable and effective campaigner. But McCain would find it harder to distance himself from Bush's economic policies with one of Bush's key economic appointees on the ticket.

Jindal: As I noted earlier, if McCain opts for this 37-year-old overachiever, he will make exorcism a campaign issue, for Jindal will have to explain his 1994 account of an exorcism in which he participated--and prove his account was true. Also, Jindal's record in Louisiana has been not-so-stellar recently. Senator, once more, can you explain whether you believe that Satanic demons can take possession of an individual and that people like your running-mate can perform amateur exorcisms to drive these spirits away?

So that leaves Pawlenty and Romney. Pawlenty comes from a swing state, but he has no standing on the national stage. "Pawlenty of nothing," one conservative pundit quipped to me recently. As for Romney, he does okay (not great) with the GOP base (the part of which that does not consider Mormonism to be an anti-Christian cult), and he can talk about his business experience at a time when the economy is ailing. One key question is, is McCain still pissed off at Romney over his attacks on McCain during the primary campaign? McCain does have anger issues. (See here for a recent example.)

When pressed for an answer by Page, I went with Romney, noting I was probably wrong. Blankley chose Ridge. And Cummings picked Portman, adding that voters would not necessarily identify him with Bush. But we all stipulated that we had no clue. As for me, I doubt that the veep pick will make much of a difference for McCain's campaign. He (and Barack Obama, too) ought to keep in mind the cardinal rule: first, do no harm. Yet that short-list is full of potential dangers.

Over the past few months, Jim Pinkerton, my regular sparring partner on Bloggingheads.tv, has regularly rushed to the defense of Mike Huckabee. When I wondered aloud whether Huckabee really does believe that angels intervened when he was in a hunting contest (to help him kill an elk), Pinkerton pooh-poohed my secularistic skepticism. When I uncovered a little-known 1998 book in which Huckabee lumped together environmentalism and pornography, seemingly compared homosexuality with necrophila, and insisted that people who "do not walk in faith" tend to be "immoral, impure and improvident," Pinkerton claimed I was taking the former Arkansas governor's comments out of context. (I begged to differ.)

So it did not come as a shock when I heard that Pinkerton, who was a domestic policy adviser for the first President Bush, had suspended his career as pundit to go to work for Huckabee's presidential campaign.

Pinkerton is a quirky, independent-minded, and affable conservative, which is why I have enjoyed working with him on bhTV. He proudly wears the paleocon badge, and he has been against the Iraq war from the start, blasting away at the neocons and their imperial ambitions. He's a fierce hawk on immigration. No fence is too big or too large for him. He has railed repeatedly on bhTV that elites (I guess that includes me) just don't get it--the "it" being the supposed widespread and deep popular anger about illegal immigrants. He's also a utopian advocate of space exploration. He wants off Planet Earth. Matt Yglesias recently poked at Pinkerton's way-out notions.

I wonder whether Huckabee and his campaign realize what they're getting with Pinkerton. Perhaps they're comfortable with his blistering attacks on George W. Bush and the neocons--even though Huckabee stands with Bush and the hawks on the Iraq war. I doubt Huckabee would take personal offense at Pinkerton's argument that the defense of "Christendom" (against creeping Muslimization) ought to be the organizing principle of U.S. policy. But does Huckabee need more attention drawn toward his fundamentalism?

In vetting Pinkerton, did the Huckabee-ites consider one of his proposals for domestic security: put a cop in front of every mosque in America. Yes, that's what he said during a recent Bloggingheads.tv match-up. He was serious. Quite serious. You can see for yourself right here:

If you watched the clip, you saw that when I questioned his idea, Pinkerton said that "we can have some elections on this issue." So is Pinkerton now advising Huckabee to call for police surveillance of every mosque in the nation? I'd sure like to be the fly on the wall for that meeting. Or when Pinkerton says to Huckabee that he ought to unfurl the flag of "Christendom." Or when he tells Huckabee that space is the place.

As I said, I do like Pinkerton. He is engaging and possesses (as you can tell) an unorthodox mind. I wish him well, though not success, for a Pinkertonian Huckabee is a rather daunting (if not frightening) prospect to consider.

Like you, I'm waiting to see what those so-important New Hampshire voters are going to do. After chasing the candidates--all of them!--around the state for nearly a week, today is a day of calm. The candidates tend to do little, other than visit polling places and shake hands. There won't be any speeches, there will be few press releases blasting an opponent. No one wants to make any last-minute mistake. There's often an eerie calm on Election Day. So below are some reflections first posted on MotherJones.com on what a loss might mean for Hillary Clinton's presidential ambitions.

ELECTION DAY IN NH: HILLARY'S LAST HURRAH?

Last night, at a rally near the Manchester airport, Hillary Clinton packed 'em in. A thousand or so people listened to her deliver a long speech outlining virtually every policy position she has ever mentioned during the campaign. On one level, it was an impressive performance. She demonstrated a command of policy and facts. She spoke passionately about her intellectual passions. On another level, it was, perhaps, too much too late. As at least two reporters in the room --including Mickey Kaus--quipped, it seemed she was delivering a State of the Union speech, particularly the sort that her husband use to give. Remember how he would go over a long laundry list of policy proposals? One of the biggest cheers of the night came when she said that if elected president she would make sure the federal student aide form wouldn't be too long.

This was as good as she gets. The crowd was pumped--though it did lose some energy as she went on and on. (And on Election Day eve, you don't want to tire out supporters who have to get up early the next morning and start working for you.) She pointed out that she was the candidate who was strong enough and experienced enough to deliver the change that the American electorate yearns for. But she took no pot shots at her opponents. "Time to tell her story," a Clinton aide said to me.

It's not such a bad story. And did the size of the crowd indicate she might just be able to pull out a win in New Hampshire? Once upon a time--that would be sixteen years ago--another Clinton became the self-proclaimed "comeback kid" of New Hampshire. (That was after placing second in New Hampshire. Talk about chutzpah!) There's no reporter in New Hampshire I've spoken to who thinks that HRC can pull it out. Instead, we discuss how big Barack Obama's win will be--and what the point spread will mean. Some political commentators claim that if Clinton can hold him to a 6-point or less win, she can claim a moral victory. I dunno. Seems to me that whatever the win is, as long as it's more than a close call, the important statistic will be this: 2 for 2.

At their morning and afternoon events yesterday, Obama continued to soar, preaching his politics of hope, and Clinton continued to blast away at him, using weak ammo. His events were jammed. Hers (until the evening rally) were not. At a gym in Dover, there was an embarrassingly small crowd, and a Politico reporter spent an hour trying to find young pro-Clinton voters in the room. She failed. At the opera house in Rochester, hundreds of people waited in the cold for Obama, and then many did not get in.

I'm not making any prediction. But I would be stunned if Obama does not end this day with a commanding lead. And the key question of the Democratic race will only become sharper: what is she to do? I keep saying this: he's selling vision, she's selling vegetables. You can't beat vision by saying my vegetables are better yours--especially if the consumers are in the mood for vision.

And where can she stop him? In Nevada, which will hold a caucus on January 19? That caucus--a first-time event in the state--will likely be quite small. And the one political powerhouse in the state--the culinary workers union--seems poised to endorse Obama. (That endorsement could come on Wednesday.) Nevada might easily become Obama's third in a row. So South Carolina? It's hard to envision the dominant African-American vote in that state not flowing to a sweeping Obama. Some pundits floating about New Hampshire are saying Clinton ought to pull out of South Carolina. If she did, she would appear weak. But if she looses there, she would appear weak. She has no good choices in South Carolina.

That leaves Super Duper Tuesday on February 5 as the place for Clinton to make her final stand, if the Obama wave doesn't crash on its own. That's a long way off. Then again, it's in less than a month. In a way, she's being forced into a Rudy Giuliani strategy: loose all the initial bouts and then shoot the moon in the near-national primary. It's a tough model for success. Will she be able to beat back Obama in California, the key prize of February 5?

Politics is a fluid business. But things, at the moment, do seem grim for the Clinton gang. So maybe Kaus was right, and last night Clinton delivered her fantasy State of the Union speech because she realizes she might never get to do it for real.