The GOP is getting cocky. Wildly, unflatteringly cocky. I'm starting to wonder if Obama's nice-guy, let's-talk approach might work. In McCain's eagerness to rebrand himself, he's regressed into his flyboy days.

John McCain is trying to kill our hope. Who are we kidding? He is trying to demoralize Obama supporters who need health care, who need better schools and better government.

I'm not going to let McCain kill my hope. Who's with me?

This is an all out war being waged by the KKKarl RRRoverites who are now in total control of McInsaine's Compaign. Make no doubt about it. The only thing that will bring a halt is the American people, if and when they show it in the polls.

Obama did risk offending the media here.   The corporate media has been largely in his corner (some are outright cheerleaders), with the exception of a few usual suspects, so I don't think the risk is great.  

But if the media were to turn even a little on Obama it could hurt.  By and large he hasn't had to respond to little BS things and small gaffes have gone left unreported saving him headaches.  Kerry was constantly being dogged by the media it seemed and wasting a lot of time having to push back against a lot of stupid BS.   Obama has been lucky.

So I would say hit McCain hard, as I suggested earlier today,  but don't push back on the media too hard.   To date they have been an asset not a liability.

...I hope someone else is watching Chris Matthews right now.  He's giving some GOP hack the full Campbell Brown treatment, and it's funny as hell.

Go watch.  I'll wait.

...

...see what I mean?  Pretty.

There are only 54 days left, I have no doubt they have 30-40 attacks like this or the sex education attack lined up an ready to roll out every other day. This is what Republican presidential campaigns do, every time. This is how they win. This is why Halprin calls this phase of the campaign the Freakshow.

I have no doubt in my mind that Sarah Palin has good enough responses to each charge of lying, all ready for whatever venue they come up in. And I bet she has Biden specific responses to each one, all designed to undermine whatever strengths he brings to the debate. For the next 54 days she will be repeating her reform mantra with all the discipline of Ronald Reagan.

The problem Obama has to fix is that no one knows what he means by change. He has no signature change he plans to implement that differentiates him from McCain. His one signature, identifiable issue from the campaign, Iraq, works against him in the polls compared to McCain. And if he can't get this campaign off of character and on to issues he will lose.

Hopefully he can turn the defense into an offense, "distraction" being the theme.

How many times did we hear in the Democratic primary season about every little thing that could be twisted into some subliminal racial epithet? Remember things like Andrew Cuomo making a remark about "Shuck and Jive", and all of the sudden that was a big deal?  Please...

Obama supporters and surrogates didn't let a single time pass where they couldn't try to play the "overly sensitive" and feigned outrage game on the Clinton campaign or its supporters/surrogates.  

That's what this reminds me of.  Sure, the lipstick thing is nonsense, and Obama was right to come out forcefully and say as much.  But this is some of the same nonsense that they foisted upon the Clinton campaign left and right.  

I'll tell you this much, you can bet Bill Clinton is sitting there today with a smirk, thinking to himself, "So, how does it feel, Barack?"  Bill Clinton was unfairly smeared by many Obama surrogates.  Now, it's happening to Obama, only from the other party's campaign.  Funny how things work out.  

with Sen McCain on 9/11. That guy has lost his marbles.

I was very happy to hear Olbermann highlight the "Enough" part of the Denver speech in his interview with Obama the other night and perhaps it struck a chord.  The way to cut through the clutter is with a simple statement and "Enough" says it all.  The old slogan becomes a secondary line now.  The new slogan should be:  Enough! - Change we can believe in.

And I love that the clip comes from Fox News.  Those are the people who need to hear this.

Come on Barack, grow some nuts and KEEP repeating the lipstick on a pig comment, you are right on this one, don't cowtown on this and back down, keep showing everyone that when it quacks it's probably still a duck and lipstick on a pig still makes the pig a pig.

Keep at it don't stop.

That is the headline on MSNBC right now.

Pretty sick if you ask me. If I didn't know better I would say that the Bush Admin has let this guy run around for 7 years just so they could hunt him down in October of an election year.

I mean that doesn't sound like the kind of stunt The Shrub would pull does it?

Uh no, because people are buying it. I think it works because it does show up how ridiculous McCain is being. You turn the story into why McCain does not want to have a campaign about issues.

Asking people point blank "Do you want to worry about the economy or do you want to worry about lipstick on pigs?" is a good thing. It forces people to make a decision they can't hide from so many many more people have to acknowledge being petty and shallow if they decide to go with the pig.

Jeebus.

Some of your folks need to get out of the bubble.

Every news report - on every channel - juxtaposes McCain using the same exact phrase.

Even the teeveediots on the cablez newz are hammering the GOP surrogates on it.

People -- if the GOP wants to take up the mantle of being the 'PC police', I say let 'em have it.

What this GOP is doing is rallying their team against the other team. It doesn't matter what is true or just. It only matters if you can get your team's fighting spirit up to go to battle.

And they are very much succeeding at that. The McCain fan-base is fever-pitched for battle with the Dems. It's all about getting as many of your people as possible into the fight.

The Dems on the other hand want to make it about issues.

Read your George Lakoff and weep. We're watching it happen.

Its all about race.  McCain's camp is targeting the rural whites.  Obama is black and he can't say nothing about the white woman.  While McCain can use the same line 4 TIMES against HRC, and no one calls him out.  The whole thing is disgusting.

I must say that while I absolutely think the McCain internet ad was in bad taste, people are absolutely missing the point as to what Obama implied.

The real accusation is not that Obama called Sarah Palin a Pig. He called her the Lipstick. The word Lipstick, less than one week after Palin's speech, is probably 90% word-game associated with Sarah Palin and her speech. Obama listed several policy items that McCain purportedly stands for, and then said those things were not change. That his platform was not change - then he said "you can put Lipstick on a Pig and (pause...laughter) it's still a pig". i.e. you can put lipstick (Palin) on a McCain ticket - and his platform is still a Pig.

What changed the dynamic of the race and the perception of McCain's platform is Palin's addition on the ticket. I don't agree with this - on both sides this nonsense has been going on, such as all the fake racist comment allegations such as "fairy tale" and even Ferraro's comment that in this specific primary his African American status was helpful to him (not in his life, but in his appeal especially at his experience level coming into the race). Obama has benefited from the "fairy tale" type stuff a bit - all of it on both sides in bad taste. Hillary from the "monster" stuff.

But at least we should have the premise straight to disagree with it - the argument is that it objectifies Sarah Palin. That all she is is a coat of paint over an old worn chair - that the underlying is the same and adding window dressing on it does not change it.

But his usage of "Lipstick" was unwise and intentional - in that he was obviously meaning to refer to Palin, by directly implying that all she was was the lipstick on the pig that is McCain's campaign/platform. But NOT the pig itself. That she added no other value to the campaign and was purely a cosmetic effort that fails just as badly as adding lipstick on a pig fails. That her selection was meant to try to fool you - but was so obviously lacked any substance (such as again lipstick on a pig or newspaper on a fish does not conceal the smell).

He clearly was referring to Palin as the lipstick on the Pig of the McCain campaign. And the argument is that this is demeaning her by objectifying her and not addressing her on specific issues, but just generally discarding her as cosmetic and by inference not a substantive person.

I don't agree with it and I am firmly a Democrat - but just saying that when did our blogs develop from places of actual back and forth dialogue into  a blind advocacy no matter what?