Obama wants – maybe needs – to run against George W Bush. If the election is a referendum on the George W Bush years, Obama starts off in a good political spot, because by a 2-1 margin Bush is unpopular right now.

The math is not so compelling if the election is a referendum on whether Obama is qualified or right on the issues, whether McCain would make a good leader, or who has the best running mate.

Look for this to continue through November. Whatever the question, whatever the event, the Obama camp’s response will be some version of, “Do you want more George W Bush?”

This ad runs against George W Bush. It tries to tie McCain and the VP candidate to Bush. That’s his message, and it’s the right message for his side to be making given the current polling numbers. It goes to his core strategy – not being George W Bush.

McCain, of course, won’t sit still for that. He’s going to be busy saying that – while he respects George W Bush and much that he’s done – he’s not George W and will do things his own way. Choosing Palin, with no ties to the Bushes or DC, is part of that.

Watch the convention, where the Bush legacy will handled carefully, for more of that. The word cloud for McCain as he presents it will be less “Bush” and less “Republican,” and more “independent,” “maverick” and “reformer.” To help counter Obama’s Bush-Bush-Bush strategy, we will see Bush speak on Monday, and then he will disappear to Camp David for the rest of the week, making him literally a less visible target.

It’s going to be an interesting couple of months, and the Palin pick just makes it more interesting.

Although I think he is wrong in that assumption as we saw with the DNC failing to consider her on the “Next Cheney” promotion.

This is simply a completed ad with missing 5 seconds of VP footage dropped in once Palin was announced. An indication, to me at least that the DNC has a playbook in place they were going to follow no matter who was selected.

I’m waiting to see if they keep on the McSame attack plan now.

Smart, I’ll give that.

Effective? I think it still has some shelf life, but only until more people realize/remember that McCain is not Bush, and more people re-convert to supporting the efforts in Iraq (both of which are advanced by the selection of Palin).

I think the constant negativity about the state of the union coming out of the Obama campaign will wear thin as gas prices continue to fall and Iraq success continues and the economy continues to grow faster than people are led to believe.

In short, I think Obama has reached his last redoubt — “McCain is Bush, and Bush is evil” — and even that won’t last much longer.

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Looking forward to McCain getting 300 EC votes.

In my opinion, Obama’s Camp needs to keep it up. He’s preaching to his base here. I think most of America is going to want a little bit more substance than this ad provides.