The last few weeks have witnessed a flood of misinformation coming out of the McCain campaign. The McCain campaign has turned into a psy-ops exercise at this point. If Obama keeps taking each of these falsehoods on individually, he will drown his message. Instead he needs a coherent, high-level strategy to deal with it all. It would help if the media would get sick of the McCain camps antics and start calling BS where appropriate. 

Rather than attacking, my feeling is that right now Obama should be building expectations for Palin's interview and the VP debate. The attacking merely lowers expectations of Palin and feeds visceral reactions. Instead he needs to put the ball back in their court by praising Palin and criticizing Mcain. He needs to constantly demanding to know how the policies pursued by McCain would be any different from the Bush administration at the height of their first-term hubris. They will have to try to differentiate.

"In the coming days, America is looking forward to hearing governor Palin's views on the issues on voters minds - the economy, and expensive ongoing war, resurgent Russia, etc. after 26 years in Washington, John McCain will no doubt benefit from the fresh perspective and insight in facing these challenges. Obviously, large numbers of people think that our country is on the wrong track and there is no question that Palin brings something new to the table. While there is little doubt that Palin brings a new point of view to this campaign, her record indicates little difference from the policies pursued by those in power over the last eight years. She presided over boom times in Alaska and ensured that all Alaskans benefited from high oil prices. I imagine she would hope to do the same as Vice President. The American people surely look forward to hearing about her policy differences from the Bush administration."

If she doesn't respond, hit on the point over and over again - eventually the media will start talking about how she needs to differentiate from Bush to win independents. If they come back with issues, Obama is on winning territory. If they come back with their existing talking poitn with the personality appeals and vague Bush-like promises about "exec experience", washington outsider, uniter-not-divider type arguments. "George W. Bush represented the same party, and gave us the same vague promises. Palin represents a fantastic story for America and for women, but the American people need to know why they should expect a different result from McCain/Palin than we got from George W Bush?"

The fact that under her leadership Alaskans have largely benefiting from high oil prices while the lower 48 were left to suffer is a winning point for Obama. Anyways, regardless I think that the Palin bubble will reach it's peak over the week-end with her ABC interviews. Hopefully she'll again repeat the falsehoods. Though it appears inexplicable, the fact is that a lot of people like her - people liked Bush too. He has to push them off the likability turf and frame the campaign with the question, "How are your policies different from those pursued in the first term of the Bush administration?"

I still think the Palin bubble in the polls will begin to burst over the next week or two. People like what's new or exciting and want to get to know it better. We need to ensure they get that chance because what they see looks a lot like Bush in drag.

Anyways, those are my thoughts on the matter, would love to hear other viewpoints on how to deal with this challenge. Feel free to recommend if you think this discussion is worthwhile.