The apparent stalemate chracterizing Barack Obama's poll numbers is a function of a confluence of factors among which the unrebutted John McCain attacks---or delayed response thereto--- have had a very effective impact of significantly suppressing what should have been a significant edge in the polls for Obama following his overseas trip. For the entire week during that trip he had all but ceded the battlefield to McCain who used it to level one attack after another against Obama with maximum effect. And quite inexplicably Barack has passed up every opportunity to aggressively counter-act these charges untill very late as if he had been lulled into a false sense of complacency in the tradition of previous Democratic presidential candidates whose political demise was precipitated by their failure to fight back at crucial moments when it mattered most.
 
With the foregoing in mind, then, this vitual deadlock in polls between these two rival canidates will continue perhaps until right into the Democratic Convention. The problem is that in the immediate aftermath of the primaries Obama did not do enough---if any effort at all---to define himself before the McCain campaign defines him, which is precisely what they are now doing. All those campaign ads that raised  eyebrows within political and social circles are calculated to dramatically shift the strategic intitiative in McCain's favor through the saturation of the airwaves with negative ads all designed to decisively define Obama and systematically trumpet their talking points geared to inculcate their poliltical narrative. What then can Obama do? He should respond to these negative ads soon enough. There should be no doubt that they work, even though the public has invariably professed aversion toward negativity. With this in mind, it cannot be stressed strongly enough that as running-mate, assuming winning this election is an inexorable imperative for Obama, he should pick someone who has the stomach for a fight, while he himself stays above pettiness and nastiness that increasingly characterize this election. Hillary Clinton remains the best pick. Republicans know full well that if she were to be picked, they would be in trouble. Meanwhile McCain seems content because his negativity is dominating the headlines, without anybody on the opposite side to confront him.
 
Without doubt, and in view of the above, Obama's options are quickly dissipating if he does not adapt his tactical approach within a broader strategic framework encompassing the amalgamation and utilization of resources
toward the re-orientation of his campaign to  tactical and strtegic readiness to respond to attacks and smears in a timely fashion rather than wait for a week or two while McCain's smears and attacks gain traction.