Time to lean, time to clean.

Just wait until after the Dem convention, when Obama will unleash his $500 million dollar ad campaign. At this point, Obama just needs to let McCain be McCain. The slime won't stick. The only thing Obama needs to worry about is the overwhelming amount of racist boomers who will NEVER vote for a black (or half-black) man. The boomers will stop at nothing to destroy our nation.

can someone please tell me again why Democrats shouldn’t play the crazy-old-man card?

Because it won't work. This country is dumb. Something as relevant as a candidate's old age isn't nearly as important as whether or not the Democrat is wearing a fucking pin.

Think about it this way: most polls show ~ 2/3 of Americans want out of Iraq, favor universal health care, disapprove of Bush's administration...

But Obama & McCain are neck and neck. That means a significant # of Americans are against everything McCain is about, but will vote for him anyway.

This county is DUMB. DUMBDUMBDUMB

Nonsense. Obama has been slowly losing his edge for weeks to McCain. Starting with his trip to Europe.

Didn't Kerry start to loose ground to Bush around August of 2004?

This may not end well at all...

Look, I hate to spoil the end of the story, but Obama is going to win and win big. This kind of handwringing over nothing is getting old.

We won't support spine-less NO-Bama and will re-defeat him in November!!!

They don't need to play the OLD card, just the CRAZY card. It's clear that McCain has, uh, lost his edge, and doesn't know what many of his own campaign positions are. They need to hammer the idea of debates, and when McCain refuses they need to explain why he's scared.

We spine Bama November NO less won't defeat in re-support him!!!

Sure Dan -

Crazy old man is a phrase right out of the Stranger or maybe someones grandfather - would not work.

You forget the age of the REAL people who REALLY vote.

Obama is new to the voters of the USA - Mc Cain is not. Obama is running against the staus quo, now seemingly from the middle, which is where Mc Cain is strongest.

Did anyone think this was going to be easy?

Mc Cain will have as much money as Obama - no outspend here and the media is VERY kind to Mc Cain.

Post conventions and and post veeps is the real race ..... I for one have thought Hillary on the ticket ws the ONLY way Obama could win, but it appears that is not going to happen.

And I think Mc Cain will have a woman as veep. To foil that Dem game all to hell.

For the truly cynical, another way to look at it is this: For the last two presidential elections, the polls showed the candidates "neck and neck" right before the elections produced statistically improbable results that clearly pointed to election fraud. Statistically improbable like the exact right number of improperly filled-out ballots in Democrat-leaning counties in swing states to throw the election to the Republican candidate, or like the results around Cleveland in '04 that showed Democrats taking the entire ticket by wide margins in every race except the presidential where for some reason many voters left the slot for president blank (and a Bush campaign staffer was in charge of counting the votes in that state, which he did behind locked doors after declaring a 'terrorist emergency').

So in previous election thefts, generating "statistical noise" in the press has been an important part of getting the electorate to accept that the results they're being presented with are possible. Sure, they might not exactly match exit polls, and always in a way that favors the Republican, but accepting that we no longer live in a democracy is too terrifying a step for most people to take, so they grumble and go back to following orders.

I am not counseling despair here, but I have noticed that the press often presents us with poll numbers that tell us we all agree with something that our rulers have already decided to do right before they do it. See also: the Iraq War.

can someone please tell me again why Democrats shouldn’t play the crazy-old-man card?

Because it's too early. There would still be time for a backlash from the AARP or someone. That card needs to be played in the last week of September or the first week of October, and it needs to build -- start small, ramp it up, then back off slowly, so as not to give the appearance of having changed our minds.

I agree with Dan's general sentiment about the need to fight fire with fire. But why not go all the way with that strategy? Why not sick the ultimate pit bull of American politics on McCain? Why not unleash the one individual who's like Dick Cheney on steroids?

I'm talking Hillary Rodham Clinton. I'm talking the vice presidency.

There are vicious attacks that Hillary could make against McCain that Obama couldn't dream of getting away with. And there's a certain license Hillary will have as a VP candidate that even she couldn't have had as a presidential candidate. There's no getting around the fact that older, less educated Americans somehow viscerally identify with Hillary in a way that they don't with Obama.

In the heat of the primary slugfest, I envisioned the swift-boating of John McCain if Hillary were the Democratic nominee. I'm afraid the poll trends of the past week have made clear that this election is going to be won or lost on which side is better able to swift-boat the other.

David Gergen made much the same pro-Hills argument on ABC News's This Week Sunday.

@ 6: I hope you're right. YOu have a lot more faith in the voting public than I do, that's fo' sho'.

There's no need for the Dems to play the crazy-old-man card. John McCain will make that apparent during the debates. I've yet to see a McCain appearance that didn't involving him stuttering, contradicting himself, and long, uncomfortable pauses. He's just not that pleasant to watch.

@11:

I have often thought the same thing.

Judah @12 for the insightful win. JC @15 for the runner-up.

This video clip has maccaca writeen all over it.

Democrats are afraid to fight back. They always are. They want to play nice while their opponents will do anything, ANYTHING,(except violence,) to win. It's like Frank Chopp making nice with the BIAW. No balls to stand up to the destroyers of our nation and everything good. So lose again.