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.

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.

Tonight was one of those Council meetings that should have only lasted a couple minutes, but it didn’t!  It wasn’t the ad nauseum debate over whether the city spend up $500,000 on crime prevention grant monitors, but actually it was the opening prayer that did it for me.

It was CCC member Doris Minton McNeil’s turn to do the prayer.  McNeil has been charged with felony batter for allegedly shoving a police officer while intoxicated.   She invited her Pastor to lead the invocation, which is not out of the ordinary, but the fact that it took forever.  I don’t attend church and now I remember why.

It’s one thing to ask the big man upstairs for guidance and wisdom, it’s another thing to ask him to watch for Minton McNeil because her enemies are out to get her.  I am not making this up.  Her Pastor also asked the Lord to “reign down justice,” whatever that means.  He also asked the Lord to give her strength.

Now in all fairness, in what seemed like the same amount of time it took the Lord to make the world, the Pastor did ask for other things, but I thought it was highly inappropriate to turn the occasion into an ecumenical get out of jail free card.

I always chuckle how people call for Jesus when they screw up.  Maybe had they been talking to him before they decided to engage in counterproductive behavior, they would have avoided the mess they got into.

From a content standpoint, there’s nothing wrong with it, but Attorney General Steve Carter doesn’t have the most exciting speaking voice. Also, Linda Pence comes across as a complete prosecutorial badass in her spot. Zoeller? Not so much.

  Here’s something to remember.  Long Thompson hasn’t been running any TV ads for about a month.  That’s about the same time she closed a bunch of her campaign offices.  With now less than a month to go before the election, you’d have to think that if her campaign isn’t completely poverty stricken, she’d be back on TV.  That would indicate that the internal polls, the ones we don’t see but the big contributors do, are bad for Long Thompson.  Otherwise, they’d be opening their wallets to fund the October commercials that might be her only chance.

  Debate number three next Tuesday might provide another chance for a comeback.  But based on the first two debates, Long Thompson hasn’t really done anything to move the numbers.

  What scares Daniels’ people, I’m sure, is the prospect of a Barack Obama landslide in Indiana.  Yes, I know that even a narrow Democratic presidential victory in Indiana qualifies as historical.  But what if things continue deteriorating for John McCain and Obama opens up a really substantial lead in Indiana?  What if all those newly registered voters who haven’t been to the polls before don’t bother to take the extra effort to split their tickets?  What if they just check “Democratic” and walk out the door?  That has to keep Daniels up at night just a little bit at least.

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.

Meanwhile, there’s still no word if or when Jill Long Thompson’s new ads will hit, but according to a campaign update, the gubernatorial candidate will be sharing the stage with Barack Obama at Wednesday’s rally at the Indiana State Fairgrounds.

An ethics hearing found Gray failed to file proper disclosure forms regarding his business interests.

There are no penalties in the ordinance, but it does call for Gray’s actions to be publicly condemned.

Expect some controversy out of this one as there is a question as to whether the Council’s investigative committee of gray ever had a quorum since it was made up of two members of each party.  And there was a question as to whether Democrat Paul Bateman had officially resigned from the Committee after he part of a federal investigation regarding charity fraud.

Stay tuned.

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.

That is my prediction of the Presidential race with 30 days to go.  Feel free to cheer, scream, whatever.  I’ll still be here to explain my analysis.

Welcome back.

Okay, here’s my rationale.

Although the national polls have Obama with a 5-7 point lead, it’s state polls that matter because of the Electoral College.

By my count based on polling data, voter registration and the general mood of the electorate, Obama has 259 Electoral votes while John McCain has 160.  119 are up in the air.  Obama wins the Northeast, Upper Midwest and West Coasts.  McCain wins most of the South, and the Plains states and most of the Rocky Mountains.

The battle ground states are Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, Virginia, Indiana, Missouri, Colorado, New Hampshire and Nevada.  New Hampshire and Florida notwithstanding, the path to the White House literally cuts across the center of the United States.

To win, McCain has to literally sweep Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, Virgina, Indiana and Missouri.  He has only four ways to get to 270 while Obama has 11 combinations.  McCain needs to win 110 out of the 119 Electoral votes.   Obama only needs 11 out of 119.

What complicates matters for McCain is all the states in play are place where George W. won.

Of course there are still two debates to go and there could always be a national emergency that puts foreign affairs back in the spotlight.  And in politics, a day is a lifetime and anything can happen.

But if the election were held today Obama would be Commander-in-Chief.