The Obama campaign, at long last, finally points out that it's a little absurd for McCain to paint Obama as elitist considering he is worth approximately 25 times as much as Sen. Obama, and was born into a well-off family (and married into an even better-off one), unlike Obama who has personally earned every scholarship, job, and political office he has ever held.

Obama seized on McCain's ridiculous statement that he doesn't know how many houses he has, and the Dems are running with it. Good politics, if a little base. How does the GOP respond? By addressing the merits of what Obama said? (only kidding!)

No, because Obama said the word "house" at some point in the attack, they decided that this would be a perfect time to send the media into a tailspin about Tony Rezko. (sidenote: this might be poor strategy for the GOP, since any Rezko discussion that they try to launch will immediately be swallowed up by the VP roll-out and the convention next week, but don't tell Republicans!)

Nevermind that Obama was talking about issues of wealth, connection with the people, understanding their hardship. No, he said the word "house" so let's talk about his house and the fact that Tony Rezko sold part of the property to him (of course, the transaction has been repeatedly investigated and Obama was found to have done absolutely nothing wrong. Nevermind).

I'm sure by the time I finish writing this post, the McCain response ad linking Obama to Rezko will be up on the Internet and cable news shows, but I can't link to it yet. But they're working on it (per Drudge and WaPo's The Fix blog)

My point is that, no matter how hard Obama and co. punch McCain, McCain's Rovian staff will come back at him 10 times harder. No matter what. There is no hope of keeping this campaign 'above the fray'. Get down in there.

If McCain even so much as hints that Obama has done anything corrupt, Dems need to launch a full-on offensive on the Keating Five scandal. Keep in mind, while Obama has been found innocent of everything related to Rezko's illegal activities, John McCain was found GUILTY.

The GOP would cry foul: That's 20 years ago! The man is a POW!  How dare you challenge the integrity of a war hero! Did I mention he was a POW?

But the fact is, one of the two presidential candidates has a personal history of corruption, on the record. And most people have no idea what the Keating Five scandal was. The media better not assume that this is "old news," because I'm willing to bet that if it were polled, fewer than 10% of Americans would have even heard of Keating Five.

Attack McCain's strength: his honor. Don't talk about his military service, but the man has a history of corruption. Don't let them tar Obama with Rezko and Ayers and whatnot. Punch them back, square in the honor-balls.

I know the press is generally perceived as having a liberal bias but I must admit I was still surprised at this polling from Rasmussen.  49% of voters believe that reporters are actively trying to help Obama win, while only 14% believe the same about McCain.

Now, even if there was bias for Obama and against Hillary in the primary, I think it's a lot harder to make a case that the coverage has been biased since June. To me, this polling represents the huge discrepancy between the campaigns in their ability to "work the refs," which has become the preferred euphemism for campaigns bitching and moaning to reporters about negative coverage. As much as I hate to say this, the Obama campaign clearly needs to do more bitching and moaning.

Example - the Today Show. I'm guessing that's the most watched morning news show in America, yeah? They've had two shows on since Obama left for his foreign tour, last Friday and this morning. On both days, the tour was the first story reported (evidence of bias towards Obama? shush, keep reading).

So which guests did they have on to discuss the purpose and ramifications of this historic trip? Susan Rice? Joe Biden? No, on Friday, they had Mitt Romney, and this morning it was John McCain. Because surely no one has more insights on Obama's trip than those who are trying to turn this blatantly positive trip into a negative story.

I have little doubt that the Obama campaign didn't complain to the Today Show, and normally I would hope that they didn't. It's petty and classless. But how many times have we heard the McCain campaign, including the candidate himself, kvetching about how the network anchors are following Obama on his (clearly historic) trip overseas? They know it's newsworthy and the anchors are justified. But they also know what they're doing: feeding the perception that Obama is getting unfair preferential treatment from the press.

When 49% of the country believes that reporters are trying to help Obama win, despite plenty of evidence to the contrary, the Obama campaign needs to take action. More whining, please!

There's one theme that I've been hearing a lot on the cable news networks in the last couple of days running up to the Indiana primary that has given me fits.  And it goes something like this:
Remember that 25 percent of Democratic primary voters in Indiana live in the northwestern part of the state in and around Gary. Those voters are part of the Chicago media market, so they've known and [presumably] liked Obama since 2004. That's long been viewed as an advantage for Senator Obama, but ever since the Rev. Wright story broke, the local news has been just saturated with Wright coverage. They're going way over-the-top, even to the point of sending a helicopter to hover over Wright's house. 
And it ends by supposing that what was once considered a geographical advantage for the Illinoisian could now be a disadvantage/toss-up due to the local media coverage.
Ah yes, those cheesy, tabloidy, sensationalist, easily-distracted local media types. 
I should expect no more self-awareness from the talking heads on CNN and MSNBC, but every once in a while, I'm still shocked. I guess it means I can still feel feelings, even after 650 months of this primary campaign.