I agree, the motivation for Obama is simple - McCain has been painting him as an Ivy league elitist, rich and out of touch with the common man (the perennial Republican caricature of Democrats, as if Republicans didn't have millions or own businesses or serve on the boards on Multi-nationals). So it's a direct counter by Obama - 'How elitist and out of touch with the common man am I, compared to you?' Makes sense, hit McCain low, where he has been punching Obama for a long time. But it's still unbelievable how deeply they are buried in their own ridiculous echo chamber that this flies as news. Who cares? McCain married into money, I'm sure Obama could spin that into something bigger and more sinister (including the housing line) if he wanted to, but it's so ugly and irrelevant. And besides, Obama doesn't have the e-mail/talk radio/Fox News megaphone to make his paranoid, ridiculous, nasty mud-slinging as effective as McCain can, so besides his rhetoric about the high-road, it's strategically not smart.

Part of the problem with the Democrats playing low-road politics is that the Republicans have monopolized the churches, the 'grassroots' talking points distributors, and generally the PR machine of American popular culture. They compete with Exxon and Coca Cola and Nike for an audience and use similar distribution for their messages. The Democrats are more focused on Academics, literary, and intellectual culture when pitching their ideas. How does Obama make his 'high-minded' appeal through pop-culture mediums? Following a rock-star model, aloof but always somehow center-stage at the same time. And the Republicans have turned this around on him. So the ultimate question is how do you reach an audience that doesn't read and that accepts peripheal rumors and punditry as truth? Who knows. We're talking about the section an American public that is so attracted to conspiracy and misinformation that they refuse to accept Global Warming, believe 9/11 was a government conspiracy, don't really have any faith in government (or experts of any kind), don't know or care what the supposed reasons for fighting in Iraq were are are, and so on and so forth. Cultural ignorance and paranoia aren't 2008 election problems.