Obama Has Lost Control of the Election

Talk about change: John McCain is hosting celebrity rallies of his own while all the excitement has fizzled out of the Barack Obama campaign, EJ Dionne observes in the Washington Post. "It's clear that Obama has lost control of this campaign." His task, then, is "to remind Americans that the stakes in this election are far higher than the matter of who said what and when about Palin,” Dionne writes. “He isn't doing that.”

Instead, McCain has been controlling the agenda, “absurdly” claiming the mantle of the change candidate. Dionne argues that Obama should forget broadening the political map and focus on must-win states such as North Carolina. The Dem can’t “expect voters to know he’ll fight for them when they are not yet sure that he’s willing to stand up for himself,” Dionne writes.
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