Second presidential debate tonight. Barack Obama is ahead in the polls. Sarah Palin broke even last week. It’s up to John McCain needs to turn this thing around.

McCain’s campaign formally announced over the weekend that they’ll be ramping up the personal attacks on Obama’s character, a move I think will ultimately backfire because it completely misses what people are focused on right now: our tanking economy.

I’m also not sure why a military guy thinks it’s a wise move to announce to the enemy exactly how he’s going to proceed. (Dear Native Americans: We’re outnumbered and heading for that ridge. Love and kisses, Custer.”)

The pundits have lowered the bar for Obama by pointing out that town hall meetings are not his strongest format. That means McCain has an even higher hurdle to overcome. Not only does he have to brilliantly answer questions from real voters, but he may also have to take a page from his running mate’s playbook to find ways to get in his attacks.

That’s tough.

If he comes across as ignoring the questions, he’ll look even more out of touch, but his senior strategists are openly saying that the only way he can win is by trashing Obama’s reputation.

Obama, meanwhile, just needs to maintain his cool, calm and collected demeanor. Let McCain get angry. Let him look like an erratic, hotheaded jerk who should never, ever be in charge of our country. McCain’s already off his game. I don’t think it’s out of the realm of possibility that he swings, misses and knocks himself out tonight.

Yet another statewide poll shows Barack Obama and John McCain in a statistical dead heat.

More telling are the latest SurveyUSA results out of the Ninth Congressional District, where Mike Sodrel is running against Baron Hill for the 247th time. Not only is Hill way ahead of Sodrel, but the presidential numbers are even:

In an election for US House of Representatives from Indiana’s 9th Congressional District today, 10/06/08, incumbent Democrat Baron Hill defeats Republican Mike Sodrel 53% to 38%, according to a SurveyUSA poll conducted for Roll Call, the Newspaper of Capitol Hill, and WHAS-TV in Louisville. Libertarian Eric Schansberg gets 7% today. Compared to an identical SurveyUSA poll 1 month ago, Hill is up 3; Sodrel is down 1. Compared to a SurveyUSA poll in July, Hill’s lead has doubled.

John McCain today holds a 49% to 47% edge over Barack Obama in the district. McCain’s Net Favorability is Plus 9. Obama’s Net Favorability is Plus 2. Hill’s Net Favorability is Plus 19. Sodrel’s Net Favorability is Plus 2. 28% in the district approve of the job President Bush is doing. 11% approve of the job the US Congress is doing.

Hill and Sodrel have run against each other in three previous elections; in the most recent, two years ago, Schansberg also ran, making this year’s race an exact rematch of 2006, when Hill Beat Sodrel by 5 points to re-take his seat.

It doesn’t appear that the Republican presidential wave that carried Sodrel to victory in 2004 is happening again. I guess that’s what eight years of Dubya will do to your national brand.

The GOP — the party, I’d like to remind you, that has considered challenging voters whose homes are in foreclosure — is all up in arms that the Obama campaign is offering preferred seating at Wednesday’s free rally to those who cast an early vote.

It’s like the pre-primary Dave Matthews concert kerfuffle all over again.

Presumably, my Republican friends are looking to IC 3-14-3-19 and IC 3-14-3-20 to prove that the Obama campaign is somehow inducing votes with these tickets from voters who are, in turn, accepting “compensation” for those votes.

Here’s yer problem, kids: a violation of the law requires that a person “vote or refrain from voting for or against a candidate or for or against a public question at an election or political convention; receives, accepts, requests, or solicits from any person any money or other property commits a Class D felony.”

No one is saying you have to vote for Barack Obama to get the tickets. And the tickets, by the way, carry no actual value since the event itself is open to everyone.

That means you can trot your butt down to the City-County Building, vote early for John McCain, get yourself a free preferred seating ticket to the Obama rally and shred it.

Personally, it’s entertaining to me to watch the party that invented caging and other fun voter suppression techniques throw a hissy fit because they couldn’t pay people to attend a John McCain rally.

The senior advisers and talking heads told us over the weekend that John McCain is going to attack.

He’s going to “refocus” his message on Democratic opponent Barack Obama, who spent the last three weeks leaping ahead in the polls in the wake of several McCain gaffes.

Instead of talking about the economy, which he doesn’t understand, or health care, which he doesn’t want to invest in, McCain is going to talk about Obama’s character.

Be prepared: We’re going to be returning to the “Barry Hussein Obama is a secret gay Muslim” rhetoric.

It’s all they have left.

McCain and his ongoing joke of a running mate went all in and came up short. The only thing they can do is destroy their opponent, who’s connecting with the American people because this campaign is actually about the issues.

(Side note: Want to read something interesting? Check out this Rolling Stone cover story on the exaggerations that are John McCain’s past. It contains some saucy language, but it’s a good read.)

Will it work? You never know. The GOP has lobbed mudballs and stolen elections before. But something tells me this is different. We’ve had eight years of fabrications and wingnut attacks on our senses and sensibilities.

I think this line of campaigning could backfire on McCain, but he’s at a point where he has no choice. He’s shot from the hip one too many times, and he’s all mavericked out. Back to the drawing board.