Comfortable With McCain?

The ad about John McCain owning seven homes and his statement that being rich means having an income in excess of $5 million a year is Obama's first real attempt to lay a glove on McCain. It's about time.

Right now, the voters "feel comfortable" about McCain -- whereas Obama is being defined by the relentless torrent of mud being flung at him by the GOP.

It's not enough for Obama to defend himself against these personal attacks. The Obama campaign must start re-defining McCain in the minds of the voters.

This is a world championship fight and if all the blows are thrown by one fighter, and the other guy does not hit back, the result is a foregone conclusion. We'll be watching one more election get thrown by a weak Democratic candidate.

When McCain talks about Obama and Tony Rezko, Obama should be talking about McCain and the Keating Five.

It's long past the point where Obama should be merely "responding". Obama and his supporters should be throwing all the mud they possibly can at McCain -- truly re-defining him in voters' minds.

McCain was a war hero and a maverick years ago. He is no longer that person. This election should be about what McCain is today and all the opportunism he has demonstrated now and in the past.

The topic should not be McCain's "failed marriage", but rather that McCain left his cancer-stricken first wife to end up married to a beer baroness worth well over $100 million.

This type of Opportunism has been a hallmark of McCain's career -- never more so than now when he has changed most of his policy positions to placate the Far-Right of the GOP, and where the wealth of McCain and his wife puts John far out of touch with the problems of most Americans. Like Bush, McCain will be one more president of, by and for the rich -- and let the rest of the public be damned.

Not to mention McCain's flaring temper and his propensity to shoot from the hip. Not only was McCain wrong in supporting our invasion of Iraq before we had finished destroying Al Quaida in Afghanistan, but also his hot-headed reaction to the recent flare-up between Russia and Georgia shows that he is very likely to embroil us in a major war if he is in the White House -- either with Russia or with some other powerful adversary. Losing his cool is another McCain quality.

If the American people feel comfortable with McCain today, that is totally Obama's fault for not defining McCain to the American people in the same way that Barack's opponents have been defining Obama.