The Obama campaign has a new widget detailing McCain's budget proposals that's worth looking at. I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that these kinds of interactive, multimedia message devices are the future of political campaigning, or at least the future of political nerdery. But check it out, because it's pretty informative, especially in terms of the relative unimportance of earmarks.
In other Obama campaign news, they have a new ad up that, as Ezra notes, goes after McCain on the Sarah Palin choice for the first time. The lack of dialogue is a good choice and will make the ad stick out more on over-crowded channels. In the spirit of equal time, I'm also including McCain's new ad below the jump. The difference between the two ads is striking.
Obama's makes an argument: The GOP nominee says he doesn't know much about the economy, that he may have to rely on his vice president, and then presents the unpopular vice president as the coup de grace. McCain's ad basically says that this really popular guy isn't ready to handle the economy because ... he's going to tax and spend. And that's it; there aren't even any citations. As if McCain doesn't intend to tax and spend. McCain's ad isn't making an argument; it's just issuing declarations of tired old attacks that don't appear to be working. After all, how often do you see The Wall Street Journal declaring, "Republican Party No Longer Owns the Tax Issue"?
--Tim Fernholz
