Don't get me going. I've predicted for a while, that there won't even BE an election this year.

I think there will be an election, but I think McCain will win. Like you, I don't have concrete evidence on which to base my prediction. I'm a trained political scientist and I've been a fan of politics my entire life. My brother worked on the Hill for most of his career. That being said, I simply have a gut feeling (which, by the way, must be what a bleeding ulcer feels like) that says that Obama will go the way of Kerry, Gore, Dukakis, and McGovern--hopefully not exactly the way of McGovern--and we will wake up on the 5th wondering what the hell happened.

That's interesting, and something I didn't know. One wonders about the man who wrote Homo Politicus (link at sig). Does he hold all of them with equal contempt, or are some more worthy than others? That's what I can't quite figure out.

Hey Glenn,

Did you happen to see this article yesterday by Maureen Dowd at NYT?

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/30/opinion/30dowd.html

Perhaps the most vapid piece of "journalism" I've ever read.

I think you are wrong because of one thing .. Obama knows he has to win .. he has no choice .. soon after clinching the nomination .. I read an article where he said that pretty much verbatim .. as Atrios has said .. if a Democrat loses this time .. that person will become the most hated man/woman in Democratic politics .. then again .. the party might not exist after this election if the Democrats can't win the WH this time .. I think Obama is waiting till Labor Day to go on the attack .. after all .. how many people are really paying attention right now?

We are proud of a very intelligent candidate who came from such humble beginnings, graduated from prestigious Harvard Law School, shunned big money to help organize the poor, and is an outstanding communicator who is willing to listen to all views before making a decision. Of course people should be proud of this outstanding American who is working so hard to help us solve many very serious, challenging problems and keep the American dream alive for everyone, not just the wealthy. If that makes him elite, so be it. Would you call what he represents aloof?

Sad point that even liberal writers can not see this happening.

(http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/stumper/archive/2008/07/30/mccain-s-savvy-ad-strategy.aspx)

Supposedly, Andrew Romano is a liberal but he is holding up the McCaign campaign ads as clever and savvy. My point to him: "You know . . . . the mafia makes lots of money breaking the law. Does that make them more clever or savvy than the CEO that earns double digit growth for its company? No -- it is much easier to break the law than to operate within a set of laws, rules and guidelines.

Same with the McCain campaign, it is not clever or savvy knowing that the media/press will make the campaign's job really easy for you by giving free air time to false ads that have lies and distortions, and then treating that ad as actual news that needs to be discussed day and night."

Defining clever and savvy to him from a liberal point of view -- "McCain getting elected strictly on his record -- and despite him not knowing the difference between Sunni and Shia, not knowing that there is an entire country between Pakistan and Iraq, not knowing that Chekoslavakia no longer exists, confusing Somalia for Sudan, and thinking that the first major war after 9/11 was Iraq and not Afghanistan.

If through all that, McCain can get elected without the press being played like patsies by his campaign personnel, then that would be uber-clever and uber-savvy!"

Once & for all, the key for the Donkeys to win the White House isn't to run "hard-hitting" response ads or to "joke" about their gaffes (or non-gaffes: see Al Gore & Inventing the Internet).

The key is to call out these jackass journalists/pundits/whores in public, face-to-face or in print whenever one of these absurd narratives gain traction.

As George Carlin said about the right -which could easily be applied to today's press - "these people don't understand subtle. You have to hit them hard.''

The biggest achilles heel for this alleged political party reamins the burden of its nice guy/gal, Faux Dems, who collect six-figure paychecks from TV for being "honest" and "reasonable". Saps like Lanny Davis, Kristen Powers, Nicholas Kristoff, Shrummy and the like.

Somerby and GG have been making this point for years.

Yet, here we are 13 weeks from election day, and the Dems continue to illustrate their naivete by showing up to a gunfight armed with little more than a butterknife and few pebbles in the pocket.

Sure, these ads (like the one feature on this post) make the Harold Fords and The TNR crowd all tingly with admiration - but in the long run they are useless.

Can't wait for the Denver Convention when the Big Brains of the party lecture the faithful about Unity, Bi-Partisanship, Change & Hope -a la' Kerry/Edwards '04.

That's soooo Pre-9/11 thinking.

But that scene will make a delightful appetizer for the GOP rally a little more than a week later, when the chickenhawks will put their squabbles behind them and rally behind the heroic War Vet and compare him to that Uppity, Harvard-educated, Muslim- sypmathizing, Appeasing, Negro who happens to married to Karla Marx.

That will be more than enough to convince the million or so swing-voting, Regular People - people the Establishment Hacks are counting on - in places like Missouri, Ohio, Florida and Nevada to vote for the White Guy.

The party's respective conventions haven't happened yet and neither side has picked a running mate. All the smoke and vapors are coming from the McCain camp, most of it so noxious his own party is getting uneasy.

Meanwhile Obama has indeed limited himself to responding to the attacks thus far; note the operative words are "thus far".

Let's see what happens after the convention next month before we go writing obits. Yeah, I'm worried the GOP will do something cheap (morally, that is) to swing the election. But let's also not let our imaginations get the better of us; these clowns are only just realizing how in the toilet their party is.

I'd like to think Obama's an experienced enough pol to know when and where to strike. If he's using the run up to the convention to build his brand and grassroots support, great. McCain is shooting himself in the foot and possibly knee-capping himsef with these vacuous attacks. They may work or they may not.

Let's see what happens next, eh?