This commercial, which Dominic posted earlier, highlights yet another problem that Dow Constantine faces in his race against Susan Hutchison:

It's all about Hutchison. In the commercial, the only positive rationale for voting for Constantine is that, as the crowd says, "We're with Dow!" The rest is about making Hutchison unpalatable to King County voters: She's opposed to a woman's right to choose. She's terrible on the environment. And her supporters are trying to stop light rail.

You know what else? She's winning, while Constantine is slipping, according to a recent poll.

Constantine finds himself in an impossible spot on this. He needs to combat Hutchison's widespread name recognition—earned from her years as a TV talking head—by tying her name to ideas that make her politically poisonous. In the primary, his willingness to do this at a time when other Democrats wouldn't helped him win. In the general, his imperative to keep doing this seems to be boomeranging and actually upping Hutchison's name recognition and support, while at the same time making Constantine into a bad guy on the attack in a race that's no longer focused on him and his ideas.

At least, that's what the polling suggests.

My guess is that this commercial is part of an attempt by Constantine's campaign to soften Hutchison's support before re-introducing Constantine and his positive program for change right before the election. Eventual message: now that we've told you who Hutchison really is, here's the only safe choice.

But if those Hutchison numbers don't soften in the next few weeks, it's going to be a difficult last-minute sell.