They know it too, which is why they have switched to McCain spokesman, Joe the Plumber's, favored attack: Obama is a Socialist!!

Like Joe W said ...Grasping at straws..Socialist , unlike Alaska that redistributes oil wealth while taking all manner of federal handouts

Let's hope that the American public is finally tiring of fighting the 60's culture wars every 4 years.
Besides the members of a typical McCain/Palin campaign rally, I think this is the case.

Finally I got it,

McCain is so angry because Obama is running the kind of campaign that the Senator from Arizona always wanted to run.

Nothing worse than seeing your opponent be what you yourself claim to be.

The biggest problem for McCain has been in listening to conservatives. They're the ones obsessed with Ayers and Wright and socialism. But the only reason anyone listens to those attacks on Obama is because they already hate Obama and these are the best attacks they've got. But to everyone else, these attacks are mindnumbingly stupid. It's like a heavy metal band that keeps putting out polka music because the owners of the company like polka music. It might help you get more records cut, but you're still not going to sell any and you'll only damage your reputation if anyone hears your material.

And again, it must be stressed that even conservatives aren't particularly impressed with the Ayers connection. That's why they have to add absurd speculation to it, like suggesting that Ayers ghost-wrote Obama's auto-biographies. They're not obsessing about Ayers because they truly think he's a threat. They're obsessing because it's the best attack they've got. And if they had real dirt on Obama, they'd drop the lame Ayers stuff immediately. But since that's the case, they need to drop it anyway. It's better to not viciously attack your opponent if your attack is no good. It's like they brought water guns to a knife fight.

Watching the SNL stuff with Palin. Who in the GOP thought this was a good idea? I has to be aimed at 2012 and just a desperate attempt to rescue her branding for the future otherwise it's a complete embarassment for McCain Palin. Sarah laughs, or sits there pissed and trying to pretend to have fun, while Rome burns.

Obama is running his campaign with such discipline because:

1. he is Jackie Robinson and knows it
2. he wants to be able to govern the United States of America not the blue states of America

He is the candidate who is looking ahead to what the country will need to be united in facing the enormous problems of this century. If McCain wins by smears and voter fraud -- I fear a possibility -- he will make George Bush look like a good President. McCain is out of gas; he has no clue about what is needed.

The only thing motivating McCain is his absolute lust to hear 'hail to the chief' -- this is not a man who has anything to offer the country.

Let's buy him a cell phone with 'hail to the chief' as the ringtone and elect someone who can actually govern with wisdom.

I tend to think the media's interest in "optimism" is overstated, I suppose it's also worth mentioning that Obama enjoys a huge edge -- 62% to 30%...

Actually this is huge. Here's why:
Human optimism skyrockets when you factor in the world's expectations too...

Think about the effects a McCain victory would have on global markets. It will be more than just a one-day hangover. This is not the climate to elect someone who is older, scarier, and more of the same. We joke a lot about America becoming a third world country. I believe if McCain-Palin wins, the rest of the world is not going to do much to prevent that from actually happening. My sense is that the world will turn away from the American dollar in great numbers. McCain-Palin will be a catastrophic blow...

On the flip side, a Barack victory will buy us enough global good will to get our economic house in order.

I'll bet Ayers phone is tapped and they still have nothing.

Republican-controlled federal government legislating to give greatest tax relief to the already wealthy individuals and corporations, all the while real wages for working people drops like a rock over the last eight years leaving us enough to help bail out Wall Street bankers = Not Socialism or Class Warfare

Proposing to raise the marginal tax rate on the wealthiest 5% of Americans in order to provide relief to the poor and middle class workers = Socialism and Class Warfare

Got it.

I tend to think the media's interest in "optimism" is overstated, I suppose it's also worth mentioning that Obama enjoys a huge edge -- 62% to 30%...

If you don't think optimism in a candidate is important, I have two words for you:

Ronald. Reagan.

People respond to optimistic candidates. Hope, change, all that. Barack Obama has built his candidacy around making people believe our best days are ahead of us.

The only thing motivating McCain is his absolute lust to hear 'hail to the chief' -- this is not a man who has anything to offer the country.

Didn't he pretty much admit in his own "autobiography" that the reason he ran for president was because he wanted to be president?
Pathetic.

McCain's Ayers attacks may be harming him in a way I haven't heard discussed: they remind everyone of his age, and in a negative light. When he brings up the "old, washed-up terrorist," he sounds like the crank who still boycotts Jane Fonda movies. Vietnam and the 60's upheavals are ancient history to the large majority of Americans and McCain's attacks show us that McCain still lives in that era.

In a last act of desperation Camp McPalin will run an ad that features photos of felons who bear some resemblance to Obama (for your average knuckledragger this could be any man darker than beach sand). The voice-over will list the various crimes of the convicts as they flash on the screen. The last will be Obama. "Barack Hussein Obama: He's got the face of a criminal, what does that say about his soul?"

I agree with a couple of others who don't want to dismiss the importance of optimism. Does anyone want a president who doesn't believe things can and will get better? (I'm assuming that's basically what we mean when we say a candidate is "optimistic.")

BUT...I don't think the results in the ABCNews Poll mean much of anything because ABC seems only to have asked who is MORE optimistic. Now, I'd say Obama is MORE optimistic, but I think McCain is optimistic, too. (You can run a negative campaign while maintaining the belief that you will make the country better after you're elected.) I'm not voting for Obama's optimism; I'm voting for Obama's plans, which I think are more likely to make the country better than McCain's plans are.

If I called all the shots and could wave a magic wand, as Palin would say, I would probably ask voters simply: "Do you think Obama is optimistic?" and "Do you think McCain is optimistic?" If either candidate gets low numbers on that question, he's pretty obviously in trouble if the other guy polls well. (Hard to believe independent voters would go for the guy who thinks things are going to stay bad or get worse.) But my guess is that both Obama and McCain would get good scores on optimism.

Of course, if the optimism comparison question indicates anything, it's probably only among independents. The same poll gives Obama a 57-31 advantage among those swing voters.