With a Bullet

The LA Times has a piece on Steve Schmidt, the strategerizor of the McCain campaign. He's a primary reason I wish so fervently for an Obama victory in November. He bet it all on negativity and winning the day's news cycle. In doing so he squandered McCain's reserve of credibility and character. Has it been worth it to McCain? If he wins, then I guess so, but his image is toxic, his judgement is questioned, and his past -- which he has so carefully polished all these years -- is starting to get examined, which is unlikely to be a good thing for McCain.

For much of the summer the blogosphere was frustrated that while McCain launched attack after attack on Obama's readiness and character, Obama stayed largely above the fray, focusing relentlessly on communicating change and talking (sort of) policy. In other words, McCain talked about Obama while Obama talked about...the people he was talking to.

Now, it's October and McCain and Schmidt have decided that they should continue to talk about Obama. They have little choice. It's too late to begin telling a compelling myth about the life of John McCain. People already had a sense of McCain's life and character, but the campaign he's waged has undermined that. So all they have left is more attacks on Obama. It may work, but I suspect that people have already had their fill of Wright and Ayers (and we have Senator Clinton's campaign to thank for that), and that those two Amurica haters aren't particularly relevant to people's daily lives.

The Keating Five, on the other hand, has the virtue of being really relevant to people's lives and their current anxieties. Obama kept his powder dry and now that people have been reassured that he has the right temprement to be president (Krauthammer's words, of all people), it's now time to use it.