One difficulty with all of this: any attacks on Obama by McCain will be taken as unfair and unprovoked (as the attacks by Palin have been, after a month of hacked email accounts, rumors about her child, and accusations related to the Troopergate silliness), while Obama’s attacks on McCain will either be ignored outside of the battleground states they’re played in, or spun as reasonable responses to McCain’s unwarranted attacks. Has anyone even seen the Spanish-language attack ad the Obama campaign is running in New Mexico, the one that takes the Limbaugh quotes out of context? If it were similarly outrageous and directed by McCain at Obama, we’d be hearing about it daily on the evening news.
The difficulty is that if McCain attacks, he’ll be excoriated for going negative. If he doesn’t attack, he’ll look hapless before Obama’s surrogates, who leave him free to look presidential while they rip the opposing candidates, spreading rumors, distorting statements, and concocting outright lies. I don’t see any way out of this for McCain. Result: landslide victory for Obama in the fall.
