In no particular order;

I've been doing this in the comments and now it's time to do it as a diary.

Leave. John. McCain. Alone.

He's not even the nominee yet and we don't want to risk any chance he might not be. It's up to us to stop snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. More below the fold.

According to
NY Times

latest McCain ad, running since last night in battleground states/Ohio/PA etc:

THE SCRIPT A man announces, "Barack Obama never held a single Senate hearing on Afghanistan. He hasn’t been to Iraq in years, he voted against funding our troops — positions that helped him win his nomination. Now Obama is changing to help himself become president. John McCain has always supported our troops and the surge that’s working. McCain: Country first."

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Not so concerned about the hearings in Afghanistan point, has been made before and been responded to... but this charge about voting against funding the troops -- has the McCAin campaign harped on that before?

So, the McCainuses are spending a considerable amount of time complaining about the lack of media coverage of their candidate, and the inequity of coverage between Obama and McCain.  

To which the proper response is, "Poopy Poopy."

More after the jump...

As we have seen the FISA fight play out and the concurrent disillusionment and disappointment with Sen. Obama’s vote on it the Dog has been thinking about the nature of politics. Now my fellow Kossacks may disagree (FSM help the planet if we all ever get on the same page, we will run this joint!) but to the Dog politics is all about compromise. Just as we, as Dems of all stripes (and some others) can not all agree on the importance of an issue or the methods needed to address it, politicians always are working in a group that has fractious views and responses. In order to achieve anything there has to be some willingness to bend. We could (and have) argue all day and night about the right amount and timing of that compromise, but the basic fact remains the same, to be an effective politician, one has to be willing to settle for less than all of your agenda, in order to get some of it.

On kos's fp story this morning Clinton, Obama and FISA, I got into an exchange with a poster who asked me "where do you draw the line? What would Obama need to do for you to issue a public condemnation?"  I answered by saying I cannot imagine anything Obama could do that would cause me to issue a public condemnation of him because (1) I want him to win and (2) I want McCain to lose and (3) I have a personal identification with Obama that supersedes any disagreements I might have with him over issues.

But the more I thought about it, the more I realized I was operating out of an even more basic personal philosophy: a philosophy of edification.

Anyone can explain the McCain campaign strategy to me?
For exampple, yesterday and today he came to Pittsburgh as part of a countrywide tour design to portray the candidate as a champion of job growth.

No public events.
95% of people here don't even know that he came !

He had an interview with the local right wing paper. Also a puff piece interview with the local TV station. It was lame enough that the TV station only ran like 10 seconds of the interview. He upset the national media by leaving them on the plane.

McCain visited Comsol energy and discussed coal. He visited a famous local restaurant, Primanti's, and had their cheeseburger with fries. Commentators speculated that neither he nor his wife actually ate said cheeseburger.

Throughout this whole FISA debacle, I've had in the very back of my mind the question "why are Democrats shooting themselves in the foot by letting FISA through?" I know why most of the Republicans are covering their asses and voting to give telecom immunity and make sure their 'favorite' president doesn't get into any more trouble than it's worth. However, there is no clear reason why the Democrats (including Obama) are so readily capitulating to the Republicans' demands.

It's fairly obvious that if they simply let this slide, the existing FISA system which is in place will work just as effectively, and the problems with the current system must not be that severe if the president himself will veto anything short of a full "cover-my-ass" bill. So, in the long run, not voting with this bill will likely help them more than hurt them.

So, I simply ask, why are so many giving in so readily?

Something just struck me. It was a rock. Actually, I'm wondering if I'm catching on to how Obama plans to win the presidency. Lately I've been worrying he's getting too Clintonian, too small bore in his approach, all but advocating for school uniforms or whatever foolishness Dick Morris was pushing in '96. If we were to look back a couple months, the concern was that Obama was focusing too much on soaring rhetoric, on huge rallies and a campaign built on inspiration. These were the days when Obama was a hopemongerer. Funny how now folks are complaining he's not doing enough of that sort of thing. What I think we're starting to see take shape is a melding of these two strategies that on their own could lose, but together could prove dominant.

TO:  ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, CNN
RE:  HOW TO HELP US ELECT JOHN MCCAIN

Examining the alarmist headlines on the cable news channels has been amusing, to say the length.  All of them amount to some variation of:  "Will the Liberal Base Desert Obama?".  

In a word, no.  We're so used to grumbling our way down to the poll, casting our vote for a wholly uninspiring Democratic candidate in November, that if need be we will act in kind this time too.  But even so, I'm still under the sway of the Obama glow, even if certain segments of the cynical media have begun to question its love affair with the Illinois senator.  As I have maintained before and continue to maintain, politics has some degree of pandering involved and one never truly knows how any candidate will govern until he or she is sworn in and taken office.    

Obama is just the latest in a never ending line of Presidential candidates with so called 50 state strategies. It is flawed both conceptually and practically and the only result is in fact to create a result opposite than that desired. Let me explain.

I am reluctant to wade in here, but I've seen too much derision of those of us who are deeply disappointed with Obama of late, and it is time for the phrase "purity troll" to be retired.  Some of this needs to be addressed for the attempt to stifle dissent that it represents.  I for one will not be silenced for standing for the principles I believe to the best ones to base American government upon.  

I will still vote for Obama, but I am clear that he is merely less bad than McCain.

I was going to offer his FISA non-stance and his embrace (longstanding) of religious institutions as part of federal programs, too, but it's already too long.  The point is, I do not find his actions consistent with progressive principles more often than I am comfortable with.

Think of this as a neurophysiological analysis of the winning Obama strategy.

Amidst all the excitement about FISA and refinements of the Obama position on withdrawal from Iraq, I think people are missing the essence of the Obama strategy.  

This is particularly true in the online world where people actually care about issues and policy.

Obama's single minded goal on his course to the White House is simple:  stay cool, stay boring, say nothing, do nothing, threaten nothing.

His goal, it seems clear, is to become an empty vessel, a mirror on to which people can project their own fantasies about who an American president is, what he should look like, how he should sound.   You can't be that mirror, that empty vessel, if you say things that enable others to define you as "controversial" or "flip flopping" and if you become perceived that way.  You've got to keep people's limbic systems (the fight or flight response system) quiet, so that they can hear your discourse, keep in mind their aspirations for a better America, and accept you as a President.

After years of watching the GOP in action, I think they actually have a well defined process to control political dialog in the USA.

Tonight Obama himself was TV responding to a Red Herring.   Not Good.  It shows that McCain has defined Obama and MSM automatically accepts any deviation from McCain's definition as a flip flop.   Pathetic reporting but something we all need to combat.

I'll put on my business person hat and lay out what I believe the GOP is doing.

Key Concept:
RED HERRING

any diversion intended to distract attention from the main  issue

Dictionary die.com

I'm fine with Obama's first salvo of national ads, but I'm also hoping for something different this year: I'd like to see an ad campaign that matches the 50-state strategy we've heard so much about.  In other words, let's see some ads that focus on the unique concerns throughout the country.

For example, there could be an ad just for Nevada slamming McCain for his pro-Yucca Flats position.  There could be an ad for Northern Virginia on Obama's plan for fixing the transportation crisis.  There could be an ad on fair trade for Michigan and Ohio.

   
    Barack Obama's gambit is to appear more centerist during the next 4 months in order to win over conservative Democrats, Independents and Republicans. In chess, a "gambit" occurs when a player gives up a piece for board position or time (i.e. the opponent must make the extra moves to win the piece then must take extra moves to return to offense or defense).

    Barack Obama's gambit is to take centerist positions for the next four months in order to gain votes so he can achieve the ultimate checkmate: THE WHITE HOUSE. Here is the most basic gambit in chess, the King's Gambit:
.

 
    White is offering a pawn so that it can gain board position and time to develop its own offense. Barack Obama has offered semi-centerist positions to gain board position (voters) against the Republicans and the time to describe himself to the voters. These are classic gambits in chess and politics.    

Crossposted at MyDD

This was originally a comment, but by the time I finished saying everything I felt needed saying (and by the time I'd reiterated it incessantly to make sure I was understood, as I neurotically tend to do), I realized I'd written a diary.

There's a lot of anger out there and frustration over Obama's apparent leap to the center. I've thought about writing about FISA, but the fact is what can be said has been. By the time I got up the confidence to write something, the lines were drawn and that was that.

Well I'm getting in on the ground floor of this Wesley Clark hullabaloo. Thanks in advance for reading. I'm a bit nervous but here it goes: