The new ad that Jay links to below seems an acknowledgment that Barack Obama has decided to double down on his economic message, which simply hasn't been getting through to voters. No doubt, this is partly attributable to the sludge tornado unleashed by the McCain campaign. But it's also attributable to the Obama campaign's own failure to produce a concise message that cuts through the clutter.
This open letter from William Galston, who was one of the smartest domestic policy advisers in the Clinton White House, but has never been a self-promoter, seems very smart to me.

It's not quite one of Ross Perot's 30-minute infomercials from the 1992 campaign, but Obama's new, two-minute ad featuring just him talking directly into the camera seems like a bow in the direction of those who argue that voters want to hear the candidates talk about what they would do as president rather than what grief would befall the nation should their opponent win. What's interesting, too, about this ad (which never mentions McCain and is almost entirely positive) is how it blends the advice of those who say, on the one hand, that Obama must ditch his soaring rhetoric and talk directly about the economy to anxious middle class voters, and those, on the other, who insist he should not abandon who he is by changing how he speaks.

In the ad, he does both, staying low to the ground until the end, when he takes a shot at the "outworn ideas" of both the left and the right and calls for "a new spirit of unity and shared responsibility." That line has its roots in the rhetoric of another 1992 campaign. Here's the Obama ad:

I am advised that this is not a hoax.

As the political impact becomes clear, Swampland readers might want to take some time to make sure they have a tricky password on their own email accounts.

UPDATE: Wired.com's blog "Threat Level" has the scoop. Nothing of a scandalous nature has been posted online:

Vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin's private Yahoo e-mail account was hacked, and some of its contents posted on the internet Wednesday. The internet griefers known as Anonymous took credit for the intrusion, and screenshots of e-mail messages and photos belonging to the Alaska governor have been published by WikiLeaks. Threat Level has confirmed the authenticity of at least one of the e-mails.

The cache of stolen data contains five screenshots from Palin's account, including the text of an e-mail exchange with Alaska Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell about his campaign for Congress.

Another screenshot shows Palin's inbox and a third shows the text of an e-mail from Amy McCorkell, whom Palin appointed to the Governor's Advisory Board on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse in 2007. . . .

A fourth screenshot shows an e-mail sent to Ivy Frye, a Palin aide, from someone claiming to belong to the group Anonymous advising that the person has changed the password to Palin's Yahoo account to prevent other members of Anonymous from accessing it again.

Another UPDATE: The McCain-Palin campaign statement:

This is a shocking invasion of the Governor's privacy and a violation of law. The matter has been turned over to the appropriate authorities and we hope that anyone in possession of these emails will destroy them. We will have no further comment.

The Obama folks have a new video out today with David Plouffe asking for money not just to defend against "McCain's latest lies" but to fund their ground game. In the video Plouffe “opens up the hood a little bit” and tells supporters that they're budgeting a whopping $39,300,000 for the state of Florida alone – just one of the 17 swing states they're focusing on.

Plouffe justifies the expenditure like this:

Bush won in Florida by 380,000 votes in 2004. If you look at the number of registered African Americans who did not turnout in 2004, it's over a half million; 900,000 registered young voters in 2004. So, there's over 1.4 million registered voters who we consider to be base voters for us who were registered but didn't turnout and obviously there's a couple of million unregistered targets. So Florida's a place where the grassroots campaign that we're building in terms of registration, in terms of turnout and persuasion could make all the difference in the world. We have enough base voters in Florida to win the election if we can just turn them out.

Plouffe says that money will go to television and radio ads, turnout, staff, literature, office space and paid phones. Clearly they won't be spending $40 million in all 17 swing states – that would mean they need to raise $680 million. But this may put to rest speculation that they aren't investing enough there or may pull out of Florida. Though, they should also heed Rudy Giuliani's lesson: you can pour money down the drain in Florida and still not make a dent if the momentum isn't behind you.

First, a disclaimer: every Democratic member of Congress is absolutely committed to helping the U.S. economy recover and wishes that the down turn hadn't happened.

That said, the economic crisis couldn't have come at a better time as far as a lot of Democrats are concerned. Last week Dems were wringing their hands over the Obama campaign's handling of Palin, why he was losing ground in the polls, that he hasn't been tough enough on McCain. This week, amidst the collapse of Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch, with the Dow down more than 500 points and AIG teetering on the brink of a government bailout, Dems practically do a double-take when asked about those worries. Palin, who?

I spent yesterday on Capitol Hill chatting with some Senate Democrats about the presidential race. Almost universally when asked about concerns about Obama dropping the ball, on and off the record, members chided me for being oh-so-last-week.

Last week “was all 24-hour news cycle and things are getting back to where they need to be and that is what's happening to real families and what's happening in terms of jobs and the economy right now,” said Michigan Senator Debbie Stabenow. “And the more people emphasize that the more people will be for Barack Obama particularly now, given everything that's happened.”

“People have their concerns, people do things and say things. But the campaign is beginning now,” said Senator Dianne Feinstein of California. “And the issue is the economy and the only change is Obama. McCain has supported everything the administration has done with respect to the economy.”

“You know, parts of the national media get all caught up in nonsense. What matters here is we have a fiscal crisis,” says North Dakota Senator Kent Conrad, chairman of the Senate Banking Committee. “We have a housing crisis, we have an energy crisis, we have a healthcare crisis and thinking that some how the people who are the architects of these crises are some how going to change things.”

“Start* Stop whining and start winning is my motto,” said Senator Barbara Mikulski, a Maryland Democrat. “Some of the professional Democrats like to fret. I think Senator Obama's on track, he has the message on his side: we're talking about change that makes a difference, we're claiming the ground of being in the spirit of reform while McCain is talking about rehashing the issues, particularly on the economy.”

While there may be some lingering white knuckles inside the Beltway, most Democratic fears have been assuaged by the abrupt and powerful re-emergence of their strongest issue. McCain had been gaining in the polls on his handling of the economy, but his own missteps this week have further helped Obama. So, while of course all Democrats hope and pray for the economy to recover and work on legislation to do just that, they maybe don't mind so much Wall Street's timing.

[*Apologies, transcription typo]

Glen Johnson, AP veteran and no-bull reporter par excellence, takes advantage of the new ethos over at the venerable wire service in a piece examining how John McCain promotes himself as a both an experienced Washington insider and a reform-minded outsider -- in nearly the same breath.

I'm, like, a total fanboy for the Constitution. I liked it before it signed to a major label. Turns out I have this in common with Chief Justice John Roberts, who gave this kind of adorable interview today to WP's "Kid Post":

What do you think is the coolest part of the Constitution that people do not really know about?

What could be cooler than the part about the Supreme Court? Under the Constitution, justices serve for life, so they can say what the law means without worrying that it might be unpopular. Because the Supreme Court is separate from the rest of the government, it can make sure the government follows the law, too. People may know that, but I'm not sure they know how rare and special it is.

Hey, I'm sure that when Bush appointed Roberts, he was explicitly told that it would be "special" if the SCOTUS cracked down on him "rarely."

At the bottom of today's Washington Post story about Charlie Rangel's refusal to step down as chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee is this paragraph:

Rangel has said he would hire a forensic accountant to untangle his financial records, which contain a variety of errors.

And yet he still wants to keep writing tax policy for the rest of us.

An NYT editorial amplifies the point that Scott Lilly made yesterday:

[McCain] said that by calling the economy fundamentally sound, what he really meant was that American workers are the best in the world. In the best Karl Rovian fashion, he implied that if you dispute his statement about the economy's firm foundation, you are, in effect, insulting American workers. “I believe in American workers, and someone who disagrees with that — it's fine,” he told NBC's Matt Lauer.

Let's get a few things straight. First, no one who is currently running for president does not “believe in American workers.”

More to the point, the economy is stressed to the breaking point by fundamental problems — in housing, finance, credit, employment, health care and the federal budget — that have been at best neglected, at worst exacerbated during the Bush years. And as a result, American workers have taken a beating.

In clarifying his comments, Mr. McCain lavished praise on workers, but ignored their problems. That is the real insult.

For decades, typical Americans have not been rewarded for their increasing productivity with comparably higher pay or better benefits. The disconnect between work and reward has been especially acute during the Bush years, as workers' incomes fell while corporate profits, which flow to investors and company executives, ballooned. For workers, that is a fundamental flaw in today's economy. It is grounded in policies like a chronically inadequate minimum wage and an increasingly unprogressive tax system, for which Mr. McCain offers no alternatives.