How Desperate Is the Obama Campaign?

Yesterday Obama released his August fundraising numbers, but Obama’s camp doesn’t say why those numbers are being released a week early. It’s clearly an effort to squelch more whispering about the campaign’s disappointing trajectory. Attracting much less notice are the abysmal fundraising numbers for Howard Dean’s DNC. With the DNC virtually sidelined while the RNC can spend in excess of $100 million, Obama’s hard-money edge is worthless. In another sign of desperation, Obama has apparently decided that Joe Biden is useless as an attack dog, so he has to surrender his former image as the purveyor of “a new style of politics.” That announcement was followed by a desperate ad that picked on McCain for being old–except that the Obama campaign specifically denied that they were making an issue of McCain’s age. In case you were inclined to believe them, you only had to wait two days to see that the Obama campaign was lying. That’s how long it took Obama’s backers to argue that McCain is too old to be President:

McCaskill said she stood by her remarks that she’s “uncomfortable with anyone, regardless of gender, that is going to be vice president to one of the oldest presidents we’ve ever had that has never met a world leader.” When Stephanopoulos asked her it was fair to raise McCain’s age, McCaskill doubled-down and mentioned his past skin cancer, saying, “I think what we’re talking about is a reality. Other people talk about his melanoma. We’re talking about a reality here that we have to face…”

So after months of denying that they were trying to make McCain’s age an issue, Obama’s team decided–just seven weeks before election day–that age is one of the few issues left to them? This is what desperation looks like.

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