Is this all they've got?

Largely spurred on by Hillary's "the sky is falling" panic over Obama's supposed non-electability, the media has been spinning a story about what a rough time Obama is going to have in November against McCain. The electoral map is all wrong for Obama, the pundits say. He can't win white votes, they add, picking up on Hillary's hateful, wrong-headed and dismissive claim. I have friends, too, who are all shaky and frightened. They say things like: "Oh man, the Republicans are going to 'swift-boat' Obama," and "The media looooves McCain."

Looking at recent Democratic wins in congressional contests to fill empty Republican seats, and the nonsense the Republican candidates threw up on the airwaves, I've become pretty confident that November will not only promise a comfortable Obama win, but also Democratic majorities in the Senate and the House.

In the last day or two, we've seen the Republicans use the term "tar baby," in a party-wide memo when discussing Obama's efforts to woo Hispanic voters. As in the past, some Republicans have back-pedalled to explain that, in the South, where the talking-points memo's author, Representative Tom Davis, is from, the term tar-baby refers to a "sticky situation." Although it is hard to believe, this is the third time in the recent past when a Republican has had to apologize for using the term tar baby. So here's my point: even if Davis (and Mitt Romney and Tony Snow before him) is just a moron who doesn't get that African Americans find the term offensive, the use of it in a section aimed at laying out a strategy for reaching out to an ethnic group--in this case Hispanics--suggests the overall cluelessness of party leaders. I'm surprised Davis didn't refer to Hispanics as "bean-eaters."

We've also seen George Bush, Joe Lieberman, and McCain all suggest that Obama will sell us out to the Nazis, er, they mean, the terrorists. The goal here, clearly, is to position in the minds of Jewish voters the idea that Obama will collaborate in a new Holocaust, foolishly sitting down with Ahmadinejad and the genocidal maniacs in Hamas and Hezbollah to negotiate away Jewish lives and our national security. But the facts of Bush's wrong-headed foreign policy can't be escaped--he has made Iran more powerful because of his blundering about in Iraq and he has steadfastly refused to help solve Israel's security problems. That's the sticky truth of things, and the Republicans will have a hard time rewriting that narrative.

Now the Tennessee Republican party is going after Michelle Obama, reminding Tennesseans that she found in her husband's candidacy a reason, for the first time in her adult life, to be really proud of America. This, I guess, will be joined to an effort, at some point, to remind us all what a crazy out-of-his-mind white-person-hater Jeremiah Wright is. These initiatives will be directed toward convincing Americans that Obama is a hate-filled black radical, contemptuous of all the good things America has done for African Americans.

But look at how lame this all is. Does any of this really frighten you? Now if Tom Davis shows up waving pictures of Obama with Ashley Alexandra Dupre, then I'll start worrying.