You overstate things, though, by claiming that the advantage is “not because of *anything* Obama has done.” We’ve both seen far too many candidates, including smart and experienced ones like Gore, flail around at the mercy of their handlers, and lose the respect of the public. Obama knew better than to do that; he judged, correctly, that shifting tactics was a greater risk than staying true to his strategy and trusting the electorate. I don’t think his campaign rhetoric has been perfect, but it’s been a far, far cry from “inadequate.”

If McCain is facing a backlash, it is not because of anything Obama has done (though of course it helps that he did not do anything overtly stupid). For the first time in my memory, the media have begun framing the previously formidable Republican strategy of brazenly attacking the person of their opponent as a question of desperation. Whereas in every earlier case the media reported on the horse race by asking/tracking which strategy will work, this time they are responding to McCain’s attacks on them by treating strategy as a barometer of anxiety. No matter what McPalin does, it gets incorporated into a dominant narrative according to which s/he is struggling to find an effective strategy. As a result, every new gesture only reinforces the frame of desperation.

Obama is the beneficiary of this media dynamic. Compare the Ayers b.s. to the swift boat b.s. In the Kerry campaign, the dominant frame was “How will Kerry respond?” Every actual response was measured by the horse race barometer of strategic competence. But the current iteration of the same Right-wing assault gets framed as “Is there anything McPalin will not sink to?” So Obama need not counter the charge; it suffices to dismiss it. By contrast, when Kerry tried to dismiss the swift boat ad, he was hounded by the press and depicted as politically naive. Identical strategies on both sides + different media frames = different candidate burdens. Obama’s advantage today has the same source as Kerry’s disadvantage yesterday.

Now, this lends support to the view that the Left ought not blame itself as much as it does. But self-analysis is what makes the Left what it is. The “decider” could only be a Right-wing nut, since self-assessment is seen as a typical Lefty weakness. We, of course, see it not only as a strength, but as the paradigmatic principle of responsible collective self-rule. Without it, we’d be ideologues. Of course, this constitutive commitment to skepticism produces a strategic dilemma: the Left refuses to resort to the tactics the Right feels entitled to employ. From within a long-standing media norm that construes politics as a contest over access to institutional power, this refusal appears indistinguishable from naivete: it amounts to voluntarily tilting the political field in favor of one’s rivals. The Left’s navel gazing is exacerbated by the understanding that, so long as politics is framed in this way, its strategies will tend to produce a handicap, and the signature dilemma is whether to ease up on our own communicative norms so as to score the occasional victory. (This, I suspect, is the source of the Left’s discomfort with Clinton: he succeeded by accepting norms of discourse we associate with the Right.)

In any case, the problem remains with us today; what has changed for the time being is the dominant media frame. More precisely, the frame has not changed so much as it has been applied in a modified way, placing an impossible to meet burden on the RIght-wing candidate. It is still a question of power struggle, but instead of forcing Obama to rebut the presumption of naivete, it compels McPalin to rebut the presumption of a ruthless and unprincipled hunger for power. To be sure, Obama’s strategy does nothing to impede this shift, but it is not driving it.

One more thing, though. I will admit that I find myself more optimistic about the possible Obama administration. While earlier I had strong reservations about the wisdom of his policies and his political acumen, I now discern a greater chance that he will assemble an effective team likely to grasp the complexity of issues and to generate insightful policy options. That is, it is possible we might have an actual “maverick” on our hands—someone who could actually solve policy problems rather than select from a menu of old options whatever might best serve to keep him in office. The probability is not high, but it is the first one I’ve seen in my lifetime.