One of the more maddening things for me during the primary was the persistence of the myth that Obama didn't go negative on Hillary Clinton. The reality was that there was an ongoing concerted effort, albeit rather subtle and largely under the radar, to portray Clinton as someone who would "do or say anything to win", the subtext, of course, being "she's a liar." The beauty of the attack from Obama's standpoint was that people already had a pre-conceived notion in their head about Clinton along those lines so it didn't seem like an "attack", it just seemed like he was saying what people thought they already knew to be true.

Obama has been doing the same thing against McCain with the whole "erratic" and "confused" frame. Here, Obama is tapping into people's concerns about McCain's age without actually going there but is basing it on McCain's own behavior, so it doesn't come off as an attack (although the media is certainly acting as though the use of the word "erratic" is somehow equivalent to Palin's use of the word "terrorist.") This is the brilliance of Team Obama's message machine: they subtly amplify a pre-existing narrative (much as Bush did in 00 against Gore and in 04 against Kerry) and let most of the association take place in the mind of the voter or, as with Claire "Best Surrogate Ever" McCaskill on FNS yesterday, out of the mouth of a surrogate.

Where Obama excels at this, the McCain team is floundering. Just check out these attacks McCain is trying against Obama. Does any of this ring the least bit true? What world have these guys been living in?

Via Marc Ambinder:

What Senator Obama says today and what he has done in the past are often two different things. He has often changed his positions in this campaign, and the best way to determine where he would really take this country is to examine where he has tried to take it in the past. ....

Even after he refused to lift a finger to prevent this crisis, when the crisis hit, he was missing in action. He didn't start making calls to round up votes until after the rescue bill failed in the House and the markets crashed. We continue to see the price of delay today as the markets continue to fall. Today the DOW has fallen below 10,000. And yet, members of his own party said they felt no pressure to vote for the bill. Why didn't Senator Obama work to pass this bill from the start? Why did he let it fail and drag out this crisis for a full week before doing a thing to help pass it?

Umm, really? Does this seem like anything approaching how the last two weeks went down? And as Ambinder notes, it's fairly absurd to paint Obama as "a mystery, a liar, complicit in the economic crisis and an unaccomplished naïf, at all the same time." Not only does it not ring true but it's unfocused to say the least.

And then there was this, via TPM:

My opponent has invited serious questioning by announcing a few weeks ago that he would quote -- "take off the gloves." Since then, whenever I have questioned his policies or his record, he has called me a liar.

Rather than answer his critics, Senator Obama will try to distract you from noticing that he never answers the serious and legitimate questions he has been asked. But let me reply in the plainest terms I know. I don't need lessons about telling the truth to American people. And were I ever to need any improvement in that regard, I probably wouldn't seek advice from a Chicago politician.

My opponent's touchiness every time he is questioned about his record should make us only more concerned.

Obama is "touchy?" Which Obama is that, exactly? The thrust of the speech is "Who is the real Barack Obama" to portray him as, as Greg Sargent points out, "an alien in our midst," but they never succeeded at framing him as this dangerous other that McCain is now trying to hammer home. The problem for McCain is that his attacks are directly contradicted by what everyone sees and hears from Barack Obama, not coinciding with them as they need to in order to stick.

I just got off a bipartisan blogger call with T. Boone Pickens ahead of his post-debate online rally along with Carl Pope of the Sierra Club, and to me the most interesting statement made by the Texas oil man-cum-energy independence advocate was the following: "There's no way we can drill our way out of it."

During the call, I asked Pickens about his focus on the production side rather than the consumption side of the energy market. If, in other words, America consumes between a fifth and a quarter of the world's energy production but produces only a fraction of that amount, can upping our drilling, our creation of wind farms and the like really make a big difference.

Pickens responded by saying that any increase in production will make a difference, in effect that closing the gap between production and consumption is important. Nevertheless, even as Pickens said that the focus of his effort is not on conservation, decreasing consumption is important. And to underscore the point, he did clearly say that "there's no way we can drill our way out of" the energy crisis.

To me, this says wonders. The Republicans are running on a "Drill, baby, drill" platform -- even Sarah Palin used those very words during the Vice Presidential debate -- but even a Texas oil man who has been among the strongest supporter of the GOP and conservative efforts admits that this is not a solution. Perhaps, then, it shouldn't be such a surprise that voters trust Barack Obama over John McCain on the question of handling the issue of energy.

Anyway, the call overall was interesting, and I'm assuming that others will be posting on it as well. For those who want to be a part of the online town hall tomorrow night following the debate, click here.

As Barack Obama has risen in the polls nationally and in much of the state polling, we're seeing some pretty dramatic movement among downticket Democrats as well, particularly Senate candidates in red states.

GA-SEN Today kos alerts us to the remarkable fact that a new Research 2000 poll he commissioned confirms what Survey USA found last week: the Georgia Senate race between Democrat Jim Martin and Republican Saxby Chambliss is currently all tied up.

Research 2000 for Daily Kos. 9/29-10/1. Likely voters. MoE +/- 4%

Chambliss (R) 45
Martin (D) 44

Being that this is the third poll in a row to show this race within 3 points or less (within the MOE,) I agree with Kos, this is now a top tier race.

TX-SEN Another red state Democrat showing impressive gains is Road to 60 candidate Rick Noriega running against John "Big John" Cornyn of Texas. I've been waiting for this race to tighten and it looks as though it finally is (August numbers in parentheses.)

Rasmussen Reports, September 29, 500 LVs, 2008, MOE +/- 4.5%

Cornyn (R) 50 (48)
Noriega (D) 43 (37)

Rasmussen's pretty much the only pollster in polling this race, so I'd like to see other polls confirm this trend. I'd also like to see Cornyn drop, not rise, especially his favorability rating, which is currently at 57/30. His cheesy black and white ads can't really be helping him, can they? Whatever it is that's driving this race, it's apparent that at the very least Noriega is rising at a faster rate than Cornyn and it could just be a matter of whether Noriega has enough time to get his message out.

NE-SEN Last but not least, it's great to see some movement in Nebraska. The Scott Kleeb campaign has always said to be patient, as Scott works to get his name ID up, his numbers would rise. Interestingly, the place he's always done the worst simply because they don't know him is Omaha -- ya know, where the Democrats are. Now, we're finally seeing that movement.

Rasmussen Reports, September 30, 2008, 500 LVs MOE +/- 4.5%

Johanns 52 (56)
Kleeb 38 (31)

While 14 points is still a large hurdle to overcome, a 25 point lead dropped down to 14 points is a summer well-spent. And now the great news that Obama is actively competing for Nebraska's second congressional district can only help Scott. Expect this race to get tighter still as Omaha's voters learn they have a progressive Democrat to vote for down ballot as they vote for Obama at the top.

Among these three races we have what potentially could be our 61st, 62nd and 63rd seats in the Senate. Could it be that in shooting for 60 we were being conservative?

Here are today's numbers:

These four polls were all entirely in the field following the Vice Presidential debate, before which Barack Obama's average lead over John McCain stood at 49.75 percent to 42.00 percent -- or nearly the same as it is today. In other words, Sarah Palin did basically nothing to win back voters to the Republican ticket, a genuine missed opportunity.

In other polling news, the Battleground tracker (.pdf) has Obama up 50 percent to 43 percent among likely voters, and the Democracy Corps survey (.pdf), which included Bob Barr, Ralph Nader and Ron Paul as options, shows Obama leading 47 percent to 44 percent among likely voters. When these polls are added into the daily average, Obama's lead is 49.67 percent to 42.33 percent.

Over the weekend we got word that the Virginia GOP is nervous about John McCain's possibly losing Virginia.

Virginia Republicans are warning that John McCain's prospects for winning a state that has been in the GOP column in every presidential election since 1964 could be in jeopardy. With Barack Obama treating the Old Dominion like a battleground state and reliable polls showing a margin-of-error race there, some are cautioning that McCain is making a critical mistake by allowing the Democratic nominee to outpace him in terms of visits and resources committed.

Since June, the Obama campaign has held 12 events in Virginia, the McCain campaign just 1. In addition, Obama has exploited his cash advantage in the state:

Obama is also plowing millions into Virginia, blanketing the airwaves with TV and radio ads, filling up mailboxes with leaflets and, along with the state party, operating 49 campaign offices.

Together, McCain and his running mate, Sarah Palin, have held just one campaign event in Virginia. And the campaign has taken its ads off the pricey Washington, D.C. network affiliates that reach into the entire swath of the Northern Virginia, the commonwealth's most populous region.

According to two new polls, the VA GOP's worries are well-founded.

Survey USA gives a sense of the trend they've found in Virginia over the past month.

In 4 tracking polls conducted since the Republican Convention, McCain has gone from up by 2 to down by 10.

There is movement among men, where immediately after the GOP convention, McCain led by 10, and where today Obama leads by 11.
There is movement among whites, where McCain's once 22-point lead is today reduced to single digits.
There is movement among the well-to-do, where today for the first time Obama leads.
There is movement among pro-choice voters, where Obama's lead has doubled since August.

McCain no longer leads in any region of the state.

That is nothing short of devastating for the Republican nominee. But hey, at least he's spending time in Iowa!

H/t to Raising Kaine for the alert that today is the registration deadline in Virginia, so if you live in VA, tell everyone you know to register today.

Now this is just plain embarrassing. In 2004, George W. Bush pulled in about 60 percent of the vote in Nebraska's second congressional district, but there have been signs for a while that the districts single electoral vote may be in play. Indeed, just last week the Obama campaign announced that it was adding another office in Omaha to help in the efforts in the second, and news emerged that the Obama campaign had spent $350,000 advertising in the city (the media market of which spills into Iowa as well) while the McCain campaign had not yet made a similar investment.

The McCain campaign, getting skittish about all of these developments, sent Sarah Palin to Omaha this weekend in the hopes of staving off a loss of this single electoral vote. But rather than just let the action stand for itself, or even being forthcoming about the fact that the electoral vote was in play, the McCain campaign trotted out what has to be the lamest excuse I've heard in a while: Palin saying she just wanted to visit Nebraska.

Sarah Palin said at a hastily scheduled Sunday night rally in this solidly red state that the decision to come here was hers alone and was not the defensive move by her campaign to lock up Nebraska's 2nd Congressional District that many pundits have suggested.

[...]

"And you can ask -- and probably the reporters will ask -- the top dogs in our campaign why am I in Nebraska, and it's truly because I asked to come to the heartland of America today," she said.

It's bad enough that the McCain campaign has been forced to defend Nebraska of all places, but to try to spin away this embarrassment by claiming that Palin just wanted to visit Omaha only compounds the problem. With all we have heard about the able press shop of the McCain campaign, you'd think they'd be able to come up with some better spin than that.

Forget the first week of November. Today starts the last week of McCain's campaign.

As the Dow dips below 10,000 and reports warn of reduced consumer spending, we know the economic crisis is still first on voters' mind. And we know it'll likely get worse before it gets better.

But the McCain campaign doesn't want to lead - they're furiously, desperately trying to duck the responsibility of addressing a national crisis. How can voters trust a candidate that won't?

So Republicans are trying to distract with slime (and Bill Kristol loves it).

As Todd noted overnight, the Obama campaign is responding to McCain's Ayers smear with a discussion of the Keating Five. But beware the sin of traditional political media: reporting a false equivalency. McCain's conduct during the Keating scandal is relevant - not only because of his adherence to failed economic policy, but because of his personal conduct and judgment when America faced a financial crisis.

McCain, short on paths to victory and playing defense, is turning to fear for campaign salvation: Obama is scary because he's met Ayers. But it won't work, because there's something more tangible and real to be afraid of: an uncertain economic future with a new President McCain unwilling to lead.

If McCain's past (and his most crushing political scandal) becomes tied to our current crisis this week, he's finished. If he's not already.

John McCain has occasionally spoken about how lucky he feels to still be alive having "survived three plane crashes." The LA Times digs deeper into those crashes and delivers what could be the most brutal takedown of one of the pillars of McCain's candidacy for president, his military experience.

Of McCain's days as a Naval aviator, The Times writes:

Mishaps mark John McCain's record as naval aviator: Three crashes early in his career led Navy officials to question or fault his judgment.

John McCain, welcome to your October surprise.

The LAT documents his crashes.

John McCain was training in his AD-6 Skyraider on an overcast Texas morning in 1960 when he slammed into Corpus Christi Bay and sheared the skin off his plane's wings.

McCain recounted the accident decades later in his autobiography. "The engine quit while I was practicing landings," he wrote. But an investigation board at the Naval Aviation Safety Center found no evidence of engine failure.

D'oh!

More:

In his most serious lapse, McCain was "clowning" around in a Skyraider over southern Spain about December 1961 and flew into electrical wires, causing a blackout, according to McCain's own account as well as those of naval officers and enlistees aboard the carrier Intrepid. In another incident, in 1965, McCain crashed a T-2 trainer jet in Virginia.

And then there were two incidents after he was deployed to Vietnam.

After McCain was sent to Vietnam, his plane was destroyed in an explosion on the deck of an aircraft carrier in 1967. Three months later, he was shot down during a bombing mission over Hanoi and taken prisoner. He was not faulted in either of those cases and was later lauded for his heroism as a prisoner of war.

Not faulted...except that The LA Times actually does imply that McCain might have avoided being shot down had he not been such a reckless pilot.

Three months later, McCain was on his 23rd bombing mission over North Vietnam when a surface-to-air missile struck his A-4 attack jet. He was flying 3,000 feet above Hanoi.

A then-secret report issued in 1967 by McCain's squadron said the aviators had learned to stay at an altitude of 4,000 to 10,000 feet in heavy surface-to-air missile environments and look for approaching missiles.

This portrayal of McCain plays into a narrative that the Obama campaign has become rather fond of lately, which is that McCain's behavior is "erratic." A couple examples from the LAT article about the erratic behavior of young John McCain.  

This examination of his record revealed a pilot who early in his career was cocky, occasionally cavalier and prone to testing limits. [...]

The young McCain has often been described as undisciplined and fearless -- a characterization McCain himself fostered in his autobiography.

The media has been clutching its pearls over the Obama campaign's use of the word "erratic" when describing McCain presumably because of an ageism subtext, but these tales make clear that in the case of John MCCain, erratic behavior is not a function of his advanced years, rather it's simply a quality of his character. From the young McCain's cockpit antics to the last 2 weeks of wacky behavior on the campaign trail, as Claire McCaskill eloquently documented on Fox News Sunday yesterday.

Now, on the other hand, if you look at what Barack Obama's ad says, it's just talking about what John McCain did the last two weeks. He was erratic. One day, no bailout. The next day, a bailout. One day, "I'm suspending my campaign." The next day, "I'm not."

One day, "I'm going to debate." The next day, "I'm not going to debate." The next day, I go ahead and debate. One day, "I'm not going to leave Washington until we have a deal," and then he's on a plane out of Washington after the deal's kind of blown up. So it really -- there has been a lot of erratic behavior.