Jesse Lee is the Online Rapid Response Manager for the DNC, this is a daily update on the day's messaging.
Yesterday Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke came out for a second stimulus plan for the first time, an idea Senator Obama has been pushing since January and which Speaker Pelosi has promised to bring up after the election. "Jobs, Baby, Jobs," as the distinguished Senator from New York put it last night in Florida. For McCain, having spent the crucial weeks of the market crisis wavering erratically only to end up following Obama's lead, he now faces a choice between following Obama again in supporting help for ordinary Americans through a major investment in infrastructure, help for the states, and immediate direct job creation -- or sticking by his own plan to rain more free money on banks that was panned so widely he barely mentions it any more.
Here was Obama today, keeping focused on the middle class, even telling supporters when they booed McCain, "No, No, We Don't Need That - We Just Need You to Vote":
To get an idea of how irritated this piece of common sense and common decency has made McCain's pals, read this screed from the Wall Street Journal editorial page. And why might this be so irritating to them? Because it means they'll have to start talking about the economy and the middle class, and as we all know that's just a tremendous inconvenience to John McCain.
And while Obama told the crowd "we don't need that" when they got personal against McCain, John McCain not only seems to think he needs "that" and worse, he's "proud of it." After being called out on the hypocrisy of the deceitfully vicious robocalls he once denounced as "hate calls" but now embraces, today he seemed to embrace the widespread myth that he is somehow not responsible for his campaign. The Baltimore Sun aptly describes his CBS interview last night: "'Listen to me, I'm the candidate,' McCain snapped at one point after a question quoting others in the campaign who questioned the attacks on Obama."
For McCain the low point of the day, if not his entire career, came when he was confronted by KSDK in Missouri with a despicable RNC mailer being sent out to support him.
Palin, for her part, oddly had the nerve to attack Obama for wanting to "invade" Pakistan after having spent weeks trying squirm away from her initial position in agreement with his position.
As a final humiliation, back in Florida, one of McCain's earliest and strongest backers, a man once on the short list for VP, followed in Colin Powell's footsteps to throw McCain's chief talking point overboard:
Gainesville Sun: "Crist was asked about the attacks from many McCain supporters that Obama is advancing a 'socialist' agenda. 'I imagine different people have different definitions. I don't think it looks that way to me,' he said."
As we detailed yesterday, none of these attacks seem to be leaving much of a mark, perhaps as Greg Sargent argues because they're the same played out attacks Bush and the Republicans have used for years. In any case, "Jobs, baby, jobs" or "Lies, baby, lies" - easy choice.