Whether or not the democratic primary is over, the general election has begun in earnest. While most of Obama's time is taken up rebutting Clinton's kitchen sink attacks, McCain bides his time by testing out new storylines to use against our likely candidate.
We've heard a few of these stories by now: Obama is inexperienced on Iraq and doesn't know where Al Qaeda is; Obama would destroy our economy by renegotiating NAFTA; Obama represents the past (uhh, McCain how old are you?); Obama is NOT Muslim (a clever way of staying politically correct while drawing attention to his middle name).
A recent NYT article details these lines of attack. But, today, we got a hint of McCain's real line of attack and what will be the central theme of his campaign: national security (why else would someone try to relate NAFTA to Afghanistan?). It's an obvious theme for McCain, but should Obama (assuming he's the nominee) take the bait and defeat him on those grounds, or should Obama take another issue, namely the economy, and take it as his own? Join me below the fold in my first diary.
