Arrrrrrrghhhhhh.

It seems that I am not the only one who feels Obama needs to hit back harder and more directly in response to John McCain's attacks, as two pieces at the Huffington Post, found here and here demonstrate.

Obama has maintained an approach of remaining above the fray, but he's not above it. He's getting punched in the face and kicked in the balls and yet he's trying to maintain a calm, rational demeanor. Memo to the Obama campaign: a calm rational demeanor is not what's called for when you're getting kicked in the nuts. Obama's still using the line that McCain is resorting to "the politics of the past." The problem there is that in the last two presidential elections, that school of politics has worked pretty well for Republicans. In both 2000 and 2004, the refusal of Al Gore and John Kerry to address Republican lies about them had a major impact on the outcome of those elections. In Gore's case, the smear focused on Gore's trustworthiness, that he said outlandish things like claiming that he invented the Internet. With Kerry, it was elevated to such a level that it was actually given its own verb- Swift Boating.

The next week will be one of the most crucial of the campaign in terms of Obama defining himself in the eyes of the electorate. What he fails to say may end up having a much greater impact on voters' opinions of him than the most grandiose rhetoric he can come up with.