The Note: Fall Guys

June 9, 2008 -- One exit -- even the biggest of the big ones, with all appropriate grace and sincerity -- changes so much yet so little. So, herewith eight foolproof assertions for this first full week of the general election:

1. Sen. Barack Obama's success will be directly proportionate to his ability to fuse the words "McCain" and "Bush" in the public consciousness.

2. Sen. John McCain's success will be directly proportionate to his ability to disqualify Obama for the presidency.

3. Whoever nails down his base first -- Obama or McCain -- will win round one (but since neither is likely to get all the way there, it may be a draw that drives them to the center).

4. If one party or one candidate owns gas prices, that party will lose (more) seats in Congress, and that candidate will lose the election. (And might it be time to retire "Pelosi Premium" and try out a new bumper sticker?)

5. Obama's gaffes won't matter at all until they do (at which point they will all matter all at once).

6. McCain's inability to lift his supporters to a higher plane won't matter until it does (at which point it will be too late for him to do anything about it).

7. These town-hall forums will be a whole lot of fun (and would having Mayor Michael Bloomberg moderate one firmly put him on two veepstakes shortlists -- or take him off of both?).

8. The Democratic Party will appear united and peaceful right up until there's the slightest whiff of an Obama snub of either Clinton, or vice versa. (Don't think that, in the wake of a great-for-business primary, it will take much for the national media to turn Obama-Clinton into Lakers-Celtics.)

Obama now has a small window to begin to define himself, for the first time without the disadvantage/advantage of having fellow Democrats helping/hurting his cause. This is his first clear shot at his own general-election messaging -- and he's doing it aggressively: O'Bomber, not Obambi.

It's a new battle plan for new battlegrounds: Coming out of Virginia last week, Obama plans to hit North Carolina, Missouri, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Florida among other stops in his two-week "Change that Works for You" tour.

Per the Obama campaign: "At every stop, he'll discuss the clear choice between his candidacy and John McCain's when it comes to the economy. Because while the Bush-Cheney ticket won't be up for reelection, the Bush-Cheney policies will, as John McCain offers four more years of the same approach that has failed the American people."

At the lead-off event, at 11 am ET Monday in Raleigh, N.C., the presumptive Democratic nominee (let those words echo a bit) will lay out the election as "a choice between John McCain's plan to continue four more years of costly Bush economic policies that have widened inequality and left our children with a mountain of debt and Barack Obama's plan to provide relief to struggling homeowners, affordable health care and college for all, and a tax code that rewards work instead of wealth."

The pushback: The RNC is calling the tour "Change We Can't Afford," with a new Website, regular conference calls, and ready-for-quotation research documents. From the one out Friday morning: "As Obama Travels To North Carolina, How Will He Explain To Voters That He Supports Raising Taxes On Middle-Income Taxpayers And Small Businesses, And Hasn't Voted With Manufacturing Interests?"

So it is that these two candidates who were never supposed to be nominated by their parties in the first place inherit the battle of the ages.

"Those two self-contained conversations have given way to a broad clash of familiar product lines: Republican conservatism and Democratic liberalism," John Harwood writes in The New York Times. "That clash has been obscured by the extended Obama-Clinton contest. But the huge stakes it carries for a discontented electorate ensure it will dominate the general election campaign."

Mark Silva, in the Chicago Tribune: "In their age, experience, race, faith in the power of government and views of a complex world, Sens. Barack Obama and John McCain offer American voters one of the sharpest contrasts in candidates for the presidency in modern times, at least on a par with the Johnson-Goldwater and Reagan-Mondale elections."

They look like contrasts -- and it's not just skin and hair color: "McCain and Obama will delineate differences not just on substance, but also on style," Politico's Carrie Budoff Brown and Jonathan Martin write. "They are well-cast foes, cutting distinctions on presentation, personality and personal image. One is the master of the arena rally, the other the town hall. One can shrug it off, the other not as much. One can be stylish and professorial, the other corny and occasionally prickly."

Obama's tour is designed to define himself in opposition to McCain -- yet his work (like McCain's) isn't done on his own side of the aisle. Watch, then, the reach for the middle.

"McCain and Obama offer a rare combination of nominees able to poach on the other party's turf," The Washington Post's Dan Balz wrote Sunday. "Both have proven appeal to independents. McCain will target disgruntled Clinton supporters; Obama will target disaffected Republicans. Women, Latinos and, especially, white working-class voters will find themselves courted intensely by the two campaigns."

Your new map: "An early analysis suggests there will be new battlegrounds added to the map this year, with Virginia, Colorado and Nevada among them. The Midwest remains the most concentrated competitive region of the country, but advisers to McCain and Obama agree that the election could turn on the outcome of contests in the Rocky Mountain States and the South,"Dan Balz writes in the Post. "McCain sees potential to make his greatest inroads in the industrial heartland. Obama stumbled in Ohio and Pennsylvania and never competed in Michigan."

More cartographical curios: "Senator Barack Obama's general election plan calls for broadening the electoral map by challenging Senator John McCain in typically Republican states -- from North Carolina to Missouri to Montana -- as Mr. Obama seeks to take advantage of voter turnout operations built in nearly 50 states in the long Democratic nomination battle," Adam Nagourney and Jeff Zeleny wrote in the Sunday New York Times.

As for the team -- the seldom-profiled David Plouffe, Obama's campaign manager, gets the Chicago Tribune treatment.

"Lean and about 5 feet 10 inches tall, Plouffe can seem almost shy compared to more gregarious campaign personalities. But he can swear like a sailor, and his near-broadcast-quality voice exudes confidence on the many conference calls he holds with reporters and donors," John McCormick writes. "Plouffe, who declined to be interviewed for this article, believes the airing of campaign disputes in public should be avoided at all costs and that the candidate should always be the focus. Even with a rapidly growing staff of about 800, unintentional leaks are rare."

But the Clintons matter yet -- one speech does not heal these wounds. "With Hillary Clinton out of the presidential race, questions linger over how soon and how sincerely her campaign and her supporters will rally behind likely Democratic nominee Barack Obama," Susan Davis writes for The Wall Street Journal.

"Obama could face a challenge to win over some women who, in Clinton's loss, feel they've been disrespected by the Democratic Party and are stinging over what they believe was sexism in cable news coverage of her campaign," USA Today's Martha T. Moore writes.