NP: Big Muff, "Poppy's Song"

For months upon months, some Democrats have been pleading with Barack Obama to start landing some hard punches on John McCain, and in what's being called a preemptive strike against the coming sleaze, the word on the street is that he's "finally" doing just that.

Now, I'm sure a bunch of people are going to feel somehow vindicated by this, and will start to take credit if Obama clinches the deal here, but that so completely misses the point, it makes my head hurt. The Obama campaign is doing what the Obama campaign has always done, and that's look really, really hard at the playing field and then finding a weak point in the defense to exploit.

In this case, it's two things. First, it's going for the throat when McCain is down in the polls. I won't go so far as to say that the even temperament is a facade, but to me, it looks like Obama knows it's in his best interest to keep that going until he can get the maximum impact for his body blows. Second, and this is part of that maximum impact as well, it's taking advantage of this gift-wrapped admission that McCain and his campaign want to "turn the page" on the economy now that the bailout bill has passed.

The last two presidents both were considered strong campaigners, although with Dubya it was more that Rove was considered a strong campaigner, but Obama's approach, I think, blows them both out of the water. My hunch is that his campaigning approach lends itself to better governing as well, since the last two guys both pissed off the opposition to the point where they could barely work together.