More on the race - this New York Magazine article is good stuff...

I'm not happy with the passivity of Obama's campaign over the last five or six weeks, however, there's this feeling I have that Obama might be attempting to ride over this wave as a kind of inevitable reaction of fear to his candidacy. By allowing the fear to his candidacy to grow as ugly as possible as the Republicans seek to provoke him into a stupid response with their veritable chest-thumping "Obama's a traitor who wants to suck the gas out of your car and give it to the hoot owls while you eat out of a grocery's dumpster," it might be that at the end of this road he can come out with a some kind of sane response that gains some traction with voters in swing states like Ohio and Florida while at the same time giving the Republican attacks the true shape of their idiotic ludicrousness.

I fear though, that this isn't going to work. That the Republicans, on a national level, are very good at giving the electorate a framework through which to view the presidency and its responsibilities and necessities. I believe American voters have proven time and time again that they want somebody in there who is a ball-breaker, who won't take bullshit and who is kind of macho. This was where Hillary had her greatest success among Democratic voters and she rolled up pretty huge victories in some of the swing states - she wasn't talking issues when she was beginning to win.

As well, I think, and I know I am speaking in great generalities here, that the Republicans have done an excellent job of making decisions about things like the environment seem, time and time again, like a decision between pragmatism and loony-we-don't-care-how-much-this-hurts-you-as-long- as-it-doesn't-hurt-a-dolphin arguments. In fact, environmentalism, in pretty much every study when dealing with energy delivery or car-design and in many other directions, shows tremendous potential to actually grow the economy in some pretty exciting directions.

It's hard to imagine at this point that the election is going to be won on issues, it's another popularity contest and the way to win those is to paint mustaches and boogers on your opponent's face. I mean, who wants to hear about the detail points of saving a bleeding and rocky infrastructure when you can hear about how Obama did or did not visit troops and how come? It would be refreshing to hear more opinions about what needs to be done voiced by the American voter rather than on their opinions on one candidate or other. I think when voters are asked to respond on issues, many of them have salient and insightful points to make, sadly when asked to respond to the actors in this campaign, they seem, increasingly, to respond with the conventional fallacies that are taking the lead in determining where this election will lead.

This little article at New York Magazine seems like pretty good reading - and it's quick.