Hear hear!  I hope the media (who apparently LOOOVES Obama), calls McCain's bluff and turns their binoculars in his direction.

I agree, McCain should just rest up until the convention, go on Letterman and Leno once in a while, talk in platitudes. Be the last white man standing.

exactly.

According to some report I read somewhere else today, McCain's only press avail of the week was supposed to be today, until the campaign canceled it.

So, uh, there you go.

It would be nice if the media did it's job . . . for ONCE.  Case and point, the day that McCain raises hell about the disproportionate coverage of Obama, CBS gift wraps its interview with him by editing out his inexcusable ignorance of the basic history of the Anbar Awakening and the Surge.  The silence on that issue is absolutely deafening.  Compare that to the "flip-flop" debate that ensued because Obama used the word refine.  

Just pathetic.

Perfectly said.  Even Stewart semi-seriously repeated the complaint about the media's supposed love affair with Obama, even as the media is rigging it for McCain.  Hello?!  There's another guy in this race!!  And he sucks!!  Little attention on *that* please?

About the "gaffes." Why does the newsmedia seem to think that the only way to talk about McCain putting his foot in his mouth is in terms of his age and possible mental infirmity -- which is "sensitive" and therefore cannot be talked about? To hell with his age. Maybe McCain puts his foot in his mouth a lot because he just doesn't know what he's talking about. Other than the Surge, he's never actually staked out particularly strong positions, nor claimed particular expertise, on foreign issues. His legislative career has been very much focused on domestic and procedural issues. Just because he's spent time in a foreign prison, it doesn't mean that he's necessarily some kind of foreign-policy expert. He's clearly not. (I mean, honestly: He opposed the Gulf War in 1991, but favored the Iraq invasion in 2003. Talk about getting things ass-backward.)

So, media, please, when John McCain doesn't know what he's talking about, don't think of it as a "senior moment" that you're afraid to report. Think of it as a presidential candidate who just doesn't know what he's talking about.

Chris, spot on.  McCain's best and only sensible campaign strategy at this point is to pray for a big Obama stumble and otherwise keep his mouth shut, lest he remind voters how utterly senile he is.  

Seriously, kj's right.  McCain confusion of Sunnis and Shiites was one thing, but forgetting that the Anbar Awakening happened before the Surge is pretty bad.  Does McCain have ANY policy strengths?  The "look at me, I'm a hero for what I did 35 years ago!" campaign did not work for Kerry and it won't work for McCain.

Absolutamente.  It's about time someone wrote this.

As always, Stewart got there first and nailed it even better.

"The truth is that, while the inordinate coverage of Obama hurts McCain in some ways, it also dramatically decreases the costs of his mistakes. "

Spot on, Chris. If this election is about the economy, we win, by a mile. If it's about our guy, we could well lose.

fwiw, as I noted a year ago on these boards, when I saw McCain speak in San Jose he confused Indonesia with India and referred to the language called "Iraqi" instead of arabic. As I said then, the man's health is definitely an issue, but when you meet him one on one, his essential decency, honesty and intensity shine through.

Bottom line, his time has passed Obama's time has not arrived. Yet another hold-your-nose election.

Spot on. The media has been obsessed with Obama, and in so doing, has given McCain a pass on every mis-step, bad campaign move, or gaffe he's made the past few weeks.

MORE CAMPAIGN MUCK....Chris Orr suggests that John McCain ought to quit whining about the amount of press coverage Barack Obama is getting:The truth is that, while the inordinate coverage of Obama hurts McCain in some ways, it also dramatically decreases

"Bottom line, [McCain's] time has passed; Obama's time has not arrived."

Good line, tep! I agree. I'm also a bit more comfortable than you in the knowledge that time moves in one direction in the universe we currently inhabit. McCain's in the rear view, cursing his flat tire; there's Obama up ahead, with his thumb out, smiling. Good lookin' kid like him will get a ride.

I see that Larry Diamond has signed on to the Obama campaign. Even if Obama himself is green, he's attracting many folks who aren't. Not a bad thing, IMHO.

However, I expect his recent sag in the polls to continue after his 'splainin' about the Splooge yesterday. I have sounded more convincing to ex-wives when, slurring and stinking, I swore I hadn't been at the bar. Obama's workers in battleground states will get the daily tracking numbers today and tomorrow and proceed toward some slurring and stinking of their own, it sez here.

However, McCain is still a bit boxed out on Iraq, as contorted as Obama's explanation was. Some think McCain's "lose the war to win the election" crack was lame; I think it's about as far as he wants to go, given that the Maliki-and-Obama-on-the-same-page scents are still wafting through the media like a whisp of jasmine on a warm summer evening.

All Obama has to do is break even by the conventions and he'll be fine once interleague play begins in earnest thereafter.

Yet another hold-your-nose post from tep.  Look, if the media focused on our guy in a less superficial way -- we of course would win.  The sad truth is that with media scrutiny comes towering heaps of bullshit.  That doesn't bode well for whoever is under the spotlight.  I don't care who it is.  Typical is the non-stop anticipation of an Obama gaffe on his foreign trip -- a gaffe that *hasn't happened.*  Also typical is the lopsided, sloppy, and often plain wrong reportage on the supposed flip-flops, which has had an impact in the polls.  (I'm not saying there's no story there -- just that it was blown wildly out of proportion given the facts.)  Sans towering heaps of bullshit, more media attention would be welcome by Obama, who shows up well on his merits.  But as long as we're going the towering heaps of bullshit route, that street has to go both ways.

My assumption is that McCain and his team are being shameless whiners about the media being more in love

"I'm also a bit more comfortable than you in the knowledge that time moves in one direction in the universe we currently inhabit"

If I could be sure that the oil price were going to top $200 by late October, I'd agree with you.

However, I've never seen a US presidential race that was as close as this one and then grew into a rout as it approached Election Day. Every race I can think of, except maybe the sympathy race following JFK's assasination, has gotten NARROWER as it moved down to the close.

My bottom line with Obama is that given the party's enormous advantage on nearly every single issue, our candidate should be leading by high double digits at this point. Instead, he's basically neck and neck. To my rational, "reality-based" reading of this data, this points to a problem with the candidate.

If you can provide a persuasive counterargument, I'm open to suasion, but I think our candidate should be doing _far_ better. It's only going to get more difficult as Steve Schmidt whips McC's joke of a campaign into shape.

I agree William Y: I think Obama should cut it out on the surge dance, just say it worked already.

Tep, I posted my three reasons elsewhere, but here they are again.

1. Polling data are unreliable. (You know, it is possible that McCain is the Dukakis of this election - just because Dukakis and Obama are Democrats means exactly zero.)

2. In case you have not noticed, Obama is different.  Very different.  He's - OMG - exotic.  It does not make him weak; it means he has to sell himself.

3. After the beating he got from Billary, it is a wonder that Obama is still standing.

This is not to be complacent, nor to be unduly pessimistic.  It is to look at the facts that we have, and put them in their proper context.  

After a couple days of nonstop kvetching from the McCain campaign about how Barack Obama gets so much

Tep

Incidentally, I came across this gem over on Joe Klein's Time Magazine blog, it's a comment by a reader:

"Let's just say that even if McCain wore the flag as a diaper and french-kissed Ahmedinejad, real Americans from West Virginia are still going to paint the town red on Nov. 4."

The thing is, I think this commenters is right, and I don't think it has anything to do with Obama as a candidate, and everything to do with his melanin concentration.  That might well be a weakness to you ...

Regarding whether the "surge worked," I think the CW -- which is pretty unanimous that it did, and that Bush was right and Obama was wrong, at least in this instance -- is overstated and simplistic.  Three things to consider:  First, the strategic point of the surge was to make room for political accommodations that still haven't happened.  Second, there are many factors at work in the reduced violence, including the so-called "Sunni awakening" which predates the surge and was inspired in part by the prospect of American withdrawal.  Third, you have to compare the alternatives that were put forward before the fact, not merely the state in Iraq pre- and post-surge.  Because Bush's strategy has seen reduced violence with the surge does not mean that Obama's strategy of timetable for withdrawal and associated diplomatic pressure would not have also seen reduced violence, while incidentally preventing further American casualties.  When the British left Anbar, for example, Anbar saw decreased violence without benefit of the surge.

I don't know how much Obama should emphasize these points.  One approach is to focus on the situation going forward.  It may be that little is to be gained by relitigating the surge, especially when there's a danger of insulting sacred cows and you're going up against some pretty firm CW.  It will appear defensive.  Still, I don't think he should simply concede the point.

Plus a lot of the sectarian violence a couple of years ago resulted from formerly mixed neighborhoods being "cleansed" of one group or another. That is largely gone, not because of the surge but because the mixed neighborhoods themselves are gone. So the simple "the surge worked" assessment has plenty more problems with it.

Icarus - I responded to your three points there but I'll reprise them, briefly, here.

First you argue the data don't matter. Then you concede they do matter but assert that racism explains Obama's failings in the polls. Finally, you blame Obama's lackluster showing on Hillary.

Surely you can do better than that, Counselor. I mean, really no candidate in memory has ever received such a tidal wave of gushing publicity as he has, and his opponent's campaign is a joke. He just doesn't have any excuses at this point.

Is there any chance, in your mind, that the candidate is actually a weak one, that he's not all there and that the media hype is obscuring this man's fundamental lack of appeal to a very large swath of the swing vote electorate?

tep, as far as Obama being a weak candidate, I agree that Obama is polling below where he should be vis a vis his positions vs. McCains, and generic Dem vs. generic Rep.  I think that one of the problems with perception that Obama has is that because the media is only focusing on his suit, people assume that it's an empty suit.

This is the reason many people don't take Bono seriously (to make a left-field analogy).  Even though he has serious and genuine ideas about reducing poverty, many people think the ideas are idealistic and silly.  Why?  Because he's a Rockstar.  Obama's rockstar profile (not exactly helped by staging massive rallies in football stadiums), while making him perhaps more visible and more popular, may be diverting attention from his politics.  When people only hear about the suit, they think that's all there is.