The Note: Inevitability, Now

July 30, 2008 -- If you look carefully through those tubes, you can see why Sen. Chuck Schumer is thinking about the big Six-Oh.

If you look carefully at the news cycle's latest popular kid, you can determine how new Gov. Tim Kaine and his friends are at this veepstakes thing.

If you look not-so-carefully at what President Bill Clinton is up to, you might forgive him for missing the perks of the presidency.

If you look carefully at what Sen. John McCain is doing and saying, you can measure how much twisting straight talk can survive.

If you look carefully at what Sen. Barack Obama is doing and saying, you can watch his self-image swell to fill the mold being fitted for him. (And hey -- the inevitability thing worked SO well in the primaries . . . )

Some of the most interesting looking centers on Obama: Secret meetings, a bizarrely vague public schedule, sit-downs with the Fed chairman and the new Pakistani prime minister, all after a heralded foreign trip?

You might say he's measuring the drapes -- but that assumes he hasn't ordered new windows.

The latest entry in the (bulging) Obama files: "This is the moment . . . that the world is waiting for," he told House Democrats Tuesday night, per The Washington Post's Jonathan Weisman. "I have become a symbol of the possibility of America returning to our best traditions."

(Read that sentence again, and try to imagine how it would look if it was said on camera.)

Obama may be right (and if he is, he wins) -- but the first person singular is the most dangerous of tenses, particularly when the meme is being set. Toss in a jettisoned faux-presidential seal, a canceled visit with troops, maybe a sprinkling of broken promises, and you've got enough to weave an uncomfortable yet unforgettable suit.

With a public schedule that "would have made Dick Cheney envious," this is Obama going from presumptive to presumptuous, Dana Milbank writes in his Washington Post column.

"Some say the supremely confident Obama -- nearly 100 days from the election, he pronounces that 'the odds of us winning are very good' -- has become a president-in-waiting," Milbank writes. "But in truth, he doesn't need to wait: He has already amassed the trappings of the office, without those pesky decisions."

(If you don't think the hype is contagious, check out the newspaper headlines over Patti Solis Doyle's shoulder in this photo -- and remember that Solis Doyle once managed Hillary Clinton's campaign.)

From Obama's perspective, it's not bad work if you can get it -- except McCain is using those very symbols to try to take it away from him. (It's in full techno-music glory in the RNC's new Web ad.)

This is fun to make fun of, sure (and the world can always use an extra Hasselhoff reference).

But with Obama set to return to "real" campaigning in Missouri Wednesday with the start of a bus tour (and McCain set to share a piece of the state with him), consider how Obama has set the stage: His economic message is being built on the same pillars as his foreign policy, as if meeting with important people sends the message that he cares.

At this snapshot of a moment, who has the more compelling economic message? And who's the insider in this equation?

Obama "on Tuesday discussed the current financial crisis and his proposals for tougher oversight of financial institutions with [Ben] Bernanke. He also talked by phone with Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson," Amy Chozick and Laura Meckler write in The Wall Street Journal.

"Republican candidate Sen. McCain, meanwhile, talked about the need to help people hit by the housing crisis and the need to break U.S. dependence on foreign oil," they continue. "Speaking at a town-hall meeting in Sparks, Nev., Sen. McCain said his rival's requests for home-state earmarks are part of the problem and that Mr. Obama's plans to raise taxes would only hurt the economy."

A new answer, too, on taxes: "No," McCain said Tuesday, when asked flatly whether he would raise taxes. "Pretty much anything you can tax, [Obama] wants to tax it more."

(Just in time. These tough words from The Wall Street Journal editorial page: "One of the miracles of this Presidential election campaign is that John McCain still has a chance to win, notwithstanding his best attempts to kick it away. In his latest random policy improvisation, the Arizona Senator tried to give up the tax issue. . . . Such mistakes also help explain the continued lack of enthusiasm for Mr. McCain among many conservatives.")

Yet in the attacks, McCain has his own brand at stake: "The old happy warrior side of Mr. McCain has been eclipsed a bit lately by a much more aggressive, and more negative, Mr. McCain who hammers Mr. Obama repeatedly on policy differences, experience and trustworthiness," Michael Cooper writes in The New York Times.

"By doing so, Mr. McCain is clearly trying to sow doubts about his younger opponent, and bring him down a peg or two. But some Republicans worry that by going negative so early, and initiating so many of the attacks himself rather than leaving them to others, Mr. McCain risks coming across as angry or partisan in a way that could turn off some independents who have been attracted by his calls for respectful campaigning."

Mike Murphy offers his advice, for free and on the record: "I think the campaign does have to be careful about its tone. . . . A pure attack tone could be perilous."

In the same vein: "For four days, Sen. John McCain and his allies have accused Sen. Barack Obama of snubbing wounded soldiers by canceling a visit to a military hospital because he could not take reporters with him, despite no evidence that the charge is true," Michael D. Shear and Dan Balz write in The Washington Post.

"The attacks are part of a newly aggressive McCain operation whose aim is to portray the Democratic presidential candidate as a craven politician more interested in his image than in ailing soldiers, a senior McCain adviser said," Shear and Balz continue. "They come despite repeated pledges by the Republican that he will never question his rival's patriotism."

"The candidate who started out talking about high-minded, civil debate has wholeheartedly adopted Mr. Rove's low-minded and uncivil playbook," per The New York Times editorial.

That's not to say it doesn't work: The New York Times' Jim Rutenberg looks at McCain's "public relations coups" in getting media play for his ads: "Mr. McCain's campaign has proved particularly adept at getting such free air time in recent weeks, as news stations endlessly repeat the advertisements, which feature provocative visuals that can fill time during a relative lull in the campaign season," he writes.

Why that's critical, Part One: "More Americans will see presidential campaign ads before Election Day because of Democrat Barack Obama's deep pockets and his quest to expand the number of competitive states in his race against Republican John McCain," Martha T. Moore writes in USA Today.

Part Two: "What sets [Obama] apart from his predecessors is that he may actually have the money to attack his rival's base on a broader scale and in a more sustained way than any candidate before him," Politico's Jeanne Cummings reports. "The process has already begun. The Illinois senator last month began airing ads and opening offices in Virginia, North Dakota, Colorado and a handful of other states that have voted Republican in recent cycles."

The big spending has begun: "Since the end of the nomination season on June 3, more than a combined $50 million has been spent by the McCain and Obama teams to air more than 100,000 ads, according to a new report released by the Wisconsin Advertising Project," per ABC's David Chalian.