In response to my post suggesting an anti-McCain ad for Obama, commenter jss02002 had an interesting thought:
I've been banging my head against the wall wondering why the Obama campaign hasn't adopted this line of attack. You should ALWAYS go after your opponent's strength. And you should always have a moral/character dimension to your attacks. And this narrative is perfect because it's fits into one of America's archetypal narratives: the fall. What once was pure has now been corrupted.
But maybe, just maybe, the Obama campaign is waiting for McCain to sully his reputation with the media before they launch this attack in full force. Imagine if Obama introduced this narrative two months ago. It would have been received by an extremely skeptical media that completely, totally, and utterly believed in the integrity of John McCain. And now? The media wouldn't just agree with this narrative; they would actively promote it.
Now it seems to my untrained eye that Monday would be the day to unveil this attack. Last week the McCain campaign jumped the shark so thoroughly that he lost the AP and was grilled on the View. (Talk about losing his base!) It would bump Palin from the news cycle, and it would set up a powerful narrative for the first debate that brings the campaign back to Obama vs. McCain-Bush instead of Obama vs. Palin-McCain.
Sold!
In all seriousness, I'm skeptical that the Obama campaign is thinking along these lines--I get the sense they're leery of an ad that questions McCain's motives so directly. But, if anyone is capable of a rope-a-dope maneuver, they are. They give more strategic weight to the timing of their moves than any campaign I've ever covered.
--Noam Scheiber