bob - i totally agree, the GOP are making the election a referendum on obama rather than the issues.  the first one is impossible to win for anyone - even jesus - the second one a landslide.

the question is, once the blinders are off - what can be done?

I'm not sure what you want from Obama.  He's run several attack ads over the past few weeks.  Most of them seem effective to me.  I think the gloves are off.  I'm not engaging in any bluster, but as a donor I feel satisfied my money is being put to good use.

There's been a little bounce in his favor in Rasmussen and Gallup over the past few days. Overall, it seems to me the dynamics of the race haven't changed a lot since June.  RCP average on 6/11 was 4.6; on 7/11 it was 4.8; today (8/11) it's 4.8.  Remarkably stable race overall.  It's the idea that we're supposed to be up 15 that's misinformed.  That would be bigger than 1984, from memory.  Not going to happen with an open seat.

I'd love to see some polling out of OH and NV, where he is running issue-specific attack ads.

There are so many realities this year all leading to the same conclusion: George Bush fucked up, bigtime. John McCain, despite him trying to say otherwise, is just more of the same.

Convenient-but-too-infrequently-mentione d truths:

1.) The economy is in bad shape, and it's a lot worse than the current administration will acknowledge.

2.) The original game plan in Iraq included the bullshit premise that the war would not cost us much, since oil revenues would cover a big part of the bill going forward. Iraq has roughly $80 billion  in budget SURPLUS sitting in the bank right now, all from oil revenues. It is projected that in 2008, they will add another $86 billion to that account. That's $165-$166 billion dollars in budget surpluses through the end of this year.

The U.S. continues to spend somewhere in the neighborhood of $10- to $15-billion per month in Iraq as I write this.

3.) Meanwhile, on the front page of today's NY Times, theres a story about how most of the private sources for student loans have dried up over the past few months, to the point where more than 10% of the student population that intended to go onto college simply will not be able to do so!

4.) Funds for programs and public financing are quickly following suit. We will not be able to support homeownership, basic services and maintenance of infrastructure in our country in coming months and years, due to: a.) the collapse of our by bond markets; b.) the absurdly skyrocketing national debt, as it's blown out of the water by irresponsible tax cuts, absurd increases in a healthcare system bloated by almost $100 billion per year in unnecessary administrative expenses, and, c.) a population that's rapidly aging.

5.) The charade and myth that drilling for oil will solve our nation's problems is simply that, total bullshit. It is the Republicans typically lying to the public to make an issue out of...vapor. Focus should be on alternative energy.

6.) Oil companies are reaping net profits in excess of $10 billion per quarter right now. Want to redirect some misdirected corporate benefits. Start right here; tax the crap out of these pigs...

...and on and on.

Time to come out punching, bare knuckles and all.

That the Obama campaign is complacent, passive, or holding the fort, or whatever way you wish to phrase a certain passivity is wrong.

Wrong. It's not really a subjective matter... the notion of passivity is based upon the idea that the campaign doesn't recognize exactly the same situation and is NOT responding to it- when indeed they are doing exactly the same thing as they did in the primary.

They have prioritized the ground game over national media.

They have taken advantage of a favorable position and a positive message to allow their opponent to go negative and, hopefully, drive up their own negatives among moderates and independents.

...and then, once the media has recognized and set into narrative the difference in campaign tactics, they hit back on targeted issues meant to provide the greatest number of potential paths to victory.

If one works from this fundamental realization that the campaign is working to a specific strategy then it is a debatable approach. Will McCain antagonize the independents and moderates to the same degree he rallies conservatives and frightens the middle-ground? I'm not sure we have a definitive answer.

But if you begin your strategic analysis under the assumption that Obama's campaign is passive or slow to respond...

...that's wrong.

by attitudes in the blogosphere, for chrissake.  The blogosphere means jack shit.  If the blogosphere reflected anything John Edwards would be the nominee and we'd really be up a creek.

The Republicans aren't popular but that doesn't mean the Democrats are.  Just ask 9 percent Nancy.  It's going to be a close race until the end.

...it really should be 1984 in reverse...but, it's not (at least not at the moment; not yet).

Carter was ahead of Reagan by a couple of point in early 1980.

The undecided-indie vote broke heavy for Reagan after the debate and he won by 9 pts.

That was one of the worse environments for any incumbent: gas lines, hostages, 14 percent inflation, 21 percent prime interest rate, a recession, a gruesome failed hostage rescue, invasion of Afghanistan, Olympic boycott, with a more polished speaker and an outsider promising change running against a dull incumbent.

Ed ROLLINS (Reagan Campaign Manager 1984): I think a five, six-point lead is something I'd be happy going into at this point in time.  Everybody else thinking it should be 20 or 30 points. It's never been 20 or 30 points.

Errol LOUIS (NY Daily News): Well, that's right. I mean, when the question comes up and it's been asked by some analysts. You know, gee, how come Obama isn't doing better? They say well, how well is he supposed to do this far out. I mean, you don't get a 10-point lead. I mean, this had been a nation that has been divided over the last three presidential election cycles. Nothing fundamentally has changed to tip it all red or all blue.

Hank SHEINKOPF (NY Democratic Consultant): He's doing fine at this time in history. Just keep doing what he's doing.

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0 808/10/ldtw.01.html

ANDREA TANTAROS, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST:  Yes, that`s politics.  Someone is going to go negative first at some point.  McCain just happened to do it.

I do agree with Tanya.  I don`t think this is sustaining.  Ultimately, you`ve got to give voters a reason to vote for you.

And I would caution Republicans.  Don`t jump up and start clicking your heels together.  He`s only tied.  I mean, McCain is a known brand.  He`s had years of public service.  He should be way ahead of Barack Obama.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26037898/

I don't buy into the Corporate Media hype that OBama should be ahead by 20 points, nationally.

This is election is following history and if anything, McSame should be ahead, yet he's getting drummed out of ultra tight swing states like Iowa, Wisconsin, and New Mexico.

...in the past eight weeks.

His ground game is--and always has been--stronger than his media game. It's just the truth.

In fact, as I say multiple times here, Obama's ground game may be the strongest ground game in the history of the Party. Period.

On the media side, we have Axelrod. To the best of my knowledge, this is the first national campaign he's run. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Obama hasn't really picked up any ground on McCain since the beginning of June. In fact, according to some polls, he's lost a point, or two, or three...or more.

This is just another fact.

My comments and my diary are based upon facts.

Hmm...

Assuming each of these points to be true, though, how much can a media campaign be expected to move the electorate, especially as compared to the ground game?  It would appear that all of McCain's positive media and ads have had very little effect to date - Obama's still up 5 in Gallup, 2 in Rasmussen, and the state polls have essentially remained the same for two months.  It would seem that McCain's "air superiority" has done almost nothing to change the state of the race immediately following the end of the Democratic primaries (though I suppose that Obama has also failed to shift the campaign from that point).  And, since Obama is winning by most if not all credible metrics, a static race works in his favor.

The other thing is Obama is still introducing himself at the same time the Repulicans with two new books coming out on Obama are trying to "define" him. I hope that his decisions and actions at the convention will define him.

Phantom rec'd for managing to open up this discussion to a civil debate.  

...would be, perhaps, the most positive thing one could say when spinning the situation the way it is right now. In fact, most polling results average out (i.e.: poll of polls, etc.) to where Obama's lost a point or two, with McCain picking up a slight bit during the past 60 days.

A Dem lead of from 2 to 5 points in mid-August, considering the GOP's track record over the past eight years, is pretty mediocre.

Knowing what's in store, in terms of how historically effective the GOP media-attack machine has been over the last few presidential cycles does not leave me with a warm and fuzzy feeling for the fall.

I have no doubt we'll kick McCain's ass in the field. I can't say that about the communications side of the race, however. All one has to do is take a good look at what happened to Kerry, just four years ago, to realize any sense of comfort here is ill-founded at this time.

That sentiment's further exacerbated by the realities that: a.) this is Axelrod's first, real national effort, and b.) his work in the primaries was so, so, with the real Obama campaign kudos belonging almost exclusively to the truly brilliant field organization (not the media effort, much, at all).

On a personal level, I'd feel a hell of a lot better about all of this if Obama had picked-up 3 or 4 points since June. But, that's not how it's played out, to date.

How else can one explain Bush's re-election in '04?

And the answer to that is one of the reasons I am more sanguine this year than I was four years ago.

The Republicans won in '04 for a number of reasons, but if I had to choose one, and you might agree with me on this, it was TURN-OUT.  The Democrats turned out in huge numbers.  The Republicans turned out even more.  Even with the country as fucked up as it was.

The Democratic Party has always been dependent on loyal union movements for its GOTV operations, to one degree or another.  Unfortunately, that movement has shrunk over the past three decades. The Republicans in the recent past have become dependent on the religious right evangelical movevement for their GOTV in the same way.  And in 2004, they worked their asses off because they really thought the End of Days was coming.  Oh, not all of them, but many of them, and it was a pervasive sense that you could get reading the millenialist rapture blogs at the time (always fun for a laugh.)  I'm not being facetious when I say that there were a great many evangelicals working their heart out for Bush and Cheney in '04 because they thought they were helping fulfill God's prophecies.  Bush and Rove played them to a tee!

And this is where McCain suffers in a way that the current polls can't show.  He isn't the second coming.  They might prefer him to Obama, but I don't think they're going to work till their fingers bleed when they can't smell that rapture just around the corner.  That's why I try to stay tuned in to what the Republicans are doing to try to raise or maintain evangelical fervor for McCain.  It's not that he needs their votes.  He needs their GOTV apparatus or they are up shit creek.

About excessive optimism and pessimism, the broader point of your article...  Let me say, there is too much of both.  Wow!  What a lame, empty thing to say, eh?  But there is.  Democrats are such incredible wusses that anything unexpected can set them into a panicked stampede.  I don't assume that the people coming on here with gloom and doom predictions based on flimsy evidence are working for McPoints.  I just assume they are typical of the Democrats in every election.  We suck.  (Is that too provacative?)

That, too, has to be balanced against the excessive optimism of those who think we can't lose.  We have NO idea what things are going to be like in late September.  We won't have a pig's chance of seeing the horizon line of this whole thing until after the Republican convention and McCain's bounce has been factored both in and out.  But too many external events can intervene in the meantime for us to become either too gloomy or too optimistic.  The Republicans, if anybody, should be the gloomy ones right now, just based on the facts we do know, and if they are able to keep on marching, we should try to show just as much discipline.

There will inevitably come a moment, perhaps after the RNC convention, where McCain pulls ahead of Obama in the polls.  And that will lead to a chorus of "Oh, we're doomed, why didn't they listen to me..."  It is a guaranteed moment.  I hope we show more backbone and hang together better this time than we did in August of 2004.

You've effectively described the media narrative about this race, a narrative, however, that doesn't really capture the reality of the electorate and the race.  

You give too much credit to McCain and to the Repub media strategy.  Calling McCain's "Obama is Paris Hilton" attack ad an attempt at swiftboating is to give a bad name to swiftboating.  These celebrity ads may have some minimal effect on the numbers right now, but, there is no way that branding Obama as a "celebrity" is going to turn the election around for McCain.  These pathetic attack ads are pale shadows of the repub attack ads of the past (Willie Horton, Swiftboat, etc.).  I'm with Obama when he said, "this is the best you could come up with?"  

The other problem with these ads is that McCain is the one running these ads.  Big mistake.  If Bush had run the swiftboat ads, Bush would have taken a hit and perhaps would have lost the race.  It was key to the successes of the swiftboat ads that Bush could stay above the fray and let his informal surrogates do all the dirty work, especially since Bush was a draft dodger.  

McCain, however, because his campaign put out the celebrity ads, set up himself up for some deadly responses.  I.e., the brilliant Paris Hilton ad and the new Obama response ad.  It's going to be very easy to paint McCain as a hypocritical, nasty, dishonorable, disrespectful, and frivolous candidate for running ads in which his own mother and his own supporters (Paris Hilton's mother) said were frivolous and dumb!

That being said, I do believe stronger responses should be forthcoming, not from the Obama campaign, but from surrogates like Hillary Clinton, Wes Clark, Nancy Pelosi, Ed Rendell, Claire McCaskill, etc.  

...fear of...

1.) The mideast exploding with changing of the guard in Israel;

2.) Comments I'm hearing about Putin being interested in a more aggressive posture in Cuba;

3.) A Mexican drug/gang violence situation on our southern borders that's just adding fuel to the anti-immigration meme;

4.) A totally irrational belief that inane drilling for oil is the answer to our energy problems!

I mean, just look at this last item. It is truly downright irrational. But, it's gaining more and more traction for the Rethugs with every passing day.

Rational thinking has little bearing on public sentiments these days. If anything, it's this last item on my list which confirms this fact.

Add an undercurrent of exploitable fear to the political mix, and we have a far-too-volatile situation here which indicates that anything's possible these days.

Yes, common sense and reason takes a backseat to hysteria...an all-too-common reality in our country in this day and age. And, at the end of the day, it is the media that's at fault.

Yes. The media. And, that's not Obama's strong suit, as I reiterate this in my diary and throughout my comments.

If this is how some people act when "their candidate" is ahead, how badly would they act if he was tied?

I remember that during the primaries Obama's supporters never polluted the atmoshere with concern. That's always been the province of those who supported Clinton.

Fortunately, their concern didn't keep Obama from winning then and it won't in November.

...even the lamest ones...count on it.

John McCain's military record.  It is terrible. Being a POW does not take either skill or ability.  And everything else about his record is a joke, from his education, to the amount of planes he lost.  If his daddy wasn't an Admiral would he even have been in the military long enough to become a POW?  He crashed two planes, and ran a third into powerlines, before being shot down.  We can't afford him to crash our country, his daddy won't be there to save him.

The drilling arguement, is not about increasing supply and all about securing profits for the oil companies.  Americans won't be helped.   We can't afford another President that cares more about multi-national oil companies then about the American people, we won't be fooled again.

His concept of "win" and "lose"  the war on terror is just as nebulous as the war on drugs. Everytimes he talks about a war that it will be impossible to reach the kind of conclusion he wants , it should just prove his unfitness to lead.  This is not WW2 where we can demand the unconditional surrender of our enemies.  We should hit him on lack of understanding of asymmetrical warfare.   And why he insists on tying up resources thousands of miles away when the 9/11 report showed proper enforcement in our own country would have done more to prevent terrorist attacks.

Terrorist: "Osama why can we go through their borders with our bombs?"

Osama bin Laden:"Because the fools are still playing games in Iraq and Iran."

Terrorist:"But Osama don't they know you are from Saudi Arabia, and based out of Afghanistan? You hated Saddam and Iran."

Osama bin Laden:"This is America, knowing things is considered elitist here.  That is why they elected party animal Bush.  And bottom of his class McCain."

Terrorist:"Sometimes Death to America is too easy."

Osama bin Laden:"If they keep electing leaders that do our work for us."

Great diary. This is the exact opposite of concern trolling (some twit above made a snarky reference), this is reasoned analysis of the reality we live in.

I am confident in Obama's ability to win this year, but I am not complacent. We've been down this road many times.

I've seen this movie before, and I know how it ends.

But, as the diarist said, we have to win this year. We are at a tipping point in history more so than the last election.

I am all for laying all our cards out on the table, and doing so immediately. Obama needs everyone's help in order to take our country back from the corporate cronies and warmongers.

Do what you can, whether its phone banking, canvassing, donating money and/or talking to your friends, family and neighbors.

Just remember the motto that is means much more than "Yes we can": Not this time!

These are all reasonable concerns...
However it appears that the Obama is now hitting
hardest in specific States/regions.
Notice last week's Nevada/Yucca and Ohio/DHL ads.
I like the idea of localized impact.

I do not buy into the meme that Obama should be ahead more...In spite of the McCain/Rove attacks on his strength(in this case Obama is more popular)Obama is not behind. In fact here in CO where McCain ads are on all the time...no real difference in the past month.

The changes will more evident after the Tale of Two Cities plays out..

Though I do expect the Obama campaign to remove the muzzle on 527's like moveon.

The biggest difference is Obama will remain in control of himself...
McCain? ...not so much...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phjDm05E9 Qw

Just found this..

http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/pdf/P PP_Release_Colorado_811.pdf

Are there a lot of people claiming the Dems have this thing sewn up or patting themselves on the back? I haven't seen it, although I confess that visiting the blogs more than 4 times a day or for periods more than 2 hours a day make me want to poke my eye out with a spoon. I've seen some pushback to the daily media "OMGZ! Obama is only winning by 4 instead of 5! Sound the alarm!!11"

We live in a 24 hour news cycle. Throw in about 7,563 political blogs and you have a space/time that needs filling with something. In the absence of real news, media will invent it or puff up statistical noise to make it into something insightful. But noise is still noise. Does this make me complacent? Hell no. Rather than complacency the overwhelming feeling inside of me and I'm sure other Dems is apprehension. I've seen defeat pulled from the jaws of victory too often to feel smug about anything.

I disagree that we have anything to worry about regarding Obama's campaign and his people. They went up against the the Clinton machine and won--that's no small feet. More money, name recognition, establishment backing, the most popular politician living, and STILL won. Yes, I agree they sort of backed in across the finish line, but I think of that more due to the demographics of a few of the final states than anything else. But, ultimately, it doesn't matter. Win by 0.5 or by 50, a win's a win. Importantly, Obama has never trailed McCain, whereas he trailed HRC numerous times and came back to win. According to the data the primary was a much closer contest that this has shaped up to be so far.

The Republicans are going to lie, smear, whisper and Swiftboat (tm). Its their thing. I don't see Obama's slow response (which, btw, is lightening quick compared to Kerry's response to the SB'ing) as due to inexperience, but rather a result of being handcuffed a bit by the promise to run a "positive campaign." I certainly like the idea of a positive campaign, however, you box yourself into a corner a bit when the opposition starts a kitchen sink strategy. Respond positively and it could be ineffective or seen as "weak"; respond negatively and it could be seen as you breaking a central promise of your campaign. I think BO's campaign is finding a nice middle ground. Hopefully the pundits and political entertainers will start to point out the McCain hypocrisy and lies (even Fox's Chris Wallace called out McCain's people on the air about Obama raising taxes on people making 42,000 a year).

Bottom line, its early and this thing is going to ebb and flow. We've got money, enthusiasm and a toxic Republican brand all going for us.

This election is very much in the air, and your diary illustrates why the Obama campaign cannot become complecent. A lot of hard work is still needed to win.

Thank you for the diary Bob. I was very glad to see something posted by you, and as usual, you did not disappoint. I think some of our less experienced friends here think winning elections is a walk in the park, and that the best candidate should just, well...win! For those of us, who have been through more than a handful of elections, we have seen what the republicans are capable of doing. And we see how the repugs are able to keep winning elections, by doing whatever it takes, including stealing the presidency.

The inexperienced and overconfident need to pull the cheese off of their heads, quit dissing valuable diaries, and start working for our candidate.