The Note: Image Nation

August 13, 2008 -- What we'd like to know this Wednesday:

1. How many Obamacans does it take to equal a Lieberman? (And what will it take to finagle a Hagel?)

2. Will it be enough to throw the book at Sen. Barack Obama this fall? (And no, it won't be one that belongs to the Rev. Jeremiah Wright after all.)

3. Do external events convince Obama to go in a different direction with his running mate? (And does a "keynote" Virginian -- and one who is very much not Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton -- mean no-Kaine-do?)

4. What is the state of Obama's finances really? (And how many donors do you have to have before you're staying at one's house by pure coincidence?)

5. Is it better if we're all Georgians or all Germans? (And is Sen. John McCain really approving the messages he's airing?)

Here's one thing we know about Obama: He's maintained control of his image -- but just barely. It's all out there -- the rumors, the innuendos, the outright dirty vile hatred -- at just enough volume to register, yet just quietly enough to be ignored.

That might be about to change. (Flashbacks, anyone?) Jerome Corsi is back, this time with anti-Obama screed that's rocketing up the charts and bouncing through the talk radio/Website echo chamber faster than it can be fact-checked away.

The book is set to debut at No 1. on The New York Times bestseller list. (And you thought Democrats were worried about the direction of Obama's campaign before?)

"Almost exactly four years after that campaign [against Sen. John Kerry] began, Mr. Corsi has released a new attack book painting Senator Barack Obama, the Democrats' presumed presidential nominee, as a stealth radical liberal who has tried to cover up 'extensive connections to Islam' -- Mr. Obama is Christian -- and questioning whether his admitted experimentation with drugs in high school and college ever ceased," Jim Rutenberg and Julie Bosman write in The New York Times.

"Significant parts of the book, whose subtitle is 'Leftist Politics and the Cult of Personality,' have already been challenged as misleading or false in the days since its debut on Aug. 1. Nonetheless, it is to make its first appearance on The New York Times best-seller list for nonfiction hardcovers this Sunday -- at No. 1."

How key is this: "Mr. Obama's campaign has yet to weigh in heavily on Mr. Corsi's accusations. It appears to face the classic decision between the risk of publicizing the book's claims by addressing them and the risk of letting them sink into the public debate with no response," Rutenberg and Bosman write.

Says Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor: "We will respond to these smears forcefully."

Obama is spared, at least, further Wright ruminations: "There will be no book coming in October because Rev. Wright has not written a new book," ABC's Teddy Davis and Rigel Anderson report. "A statement to the news media will be released on Wednesday according to a spokesperson for Trinity United Church of Christ."

The real question to emerge of the Clinton memos -- other than who was behind the parking debacle, and who constituted the "cabal": Will McCain take Mark Penn's ball and run with it? And, ultimately, will McCain reinforce the libelous junk that's out there on Obama with suggestions that have just enough truth to hold up?

"Clinton's campaign never did quite become the flag-waving, patriotic operation that Penn envisioned in March 2007, nor did she ever go as overtly negative as he was preaching in March and April 2008. Would she be the nominee if she had? And can McCain win the presidency if he -- carefully -- pursues a similar path?" The Washington Post's Dan Balz wonders.

"McCain risks damaging his reputation as a politician who has eschewed the politics of negativity," he continues. "But what was considered out of bounds in a Democratic primary campaign may be less so in a general-election race, in which other voters come into play. McCain will have to make some difficult judgments about this in the final 82 days."

"It's fair to say that most people thought it would really rebound on her," a former Clinton aide tells the Los Angeles Times' Peter Nicholas.

Meanwhile, things chug along in happy Democrat-land. The Democratic National Convention schedule continues to fill out -- and Clinton supporters are going to have to decide how they feel about someone else giving the "keynote."

Yes, it's just an honorific and nothing more -- and anyone named Clinton will capture plenty of limelight in Denver. (Pity the poor vice-presidential nominee who has to follow Bill on Wednesday -- not to mention the keynoter who has the honor of speaking post-Hillary.)

The keynote label is going to former governor Mark Warner, D-Va., like Obama before him a shoo-in for the Senate, the AP's Nedra Pickler reports. "The focus on Warner could help boost his prospects in Virginia, where he is trying to win an open Senate seat and Obama is also campaigning hard," Pickler writes.

(Does this check the Virginia box -- with apologies to Gov. Tim Kaine, D-Va.? And the word on Warner went out in an e-mail to Obama's Virginia supporters -- maybe Obama campaign manager David Plouffe really is serious about breaking running-mate news via text messaging. . . . )

But with two nights belonging to Clintons -- whose convention is it, again?

Maureen Dowd has an answer: "Now they've made Barry's convention all about them -- their dissatisfaction and revisionism and barely disguised desire to see him fail. Whatever insincere words of support the Clintons muster, their primal scream gets louder: He can't win! He can't close the deal! We told you so!" Dowd writes in her New York Times column.

"Hillary's orchestrating a play within the play in Denver. Just as Hamlet used the device to show that his stepfather murdered his father, Hillary will try to show the Democrats they chose the wrong savior," Dowd writes.

Maybe not so much. But though a roll-call vote including Clinton's name remains unlikely, the die-hards persist: "What we want, if we still can, is to save the Democratic party from itself," "PUMA" co-founder Will Bower told CQ's Andrew Satter.

(Where do you file this messaging? Former Clinton communications director Howard Wolfson told Fox News Tuesday that he's heard Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., is being considered for Obama's ticket: "I have heard some rumors to that effect. Look, John Kerry has been vetted. He ran for president. I think he would be a strong choice. He'd be a good choice, especially in the context of foreign policy.")

Convention scheduling just may leave room for some of these folks: Republicans for Obama has been formally launched, with former Rhode Island senator Lincoln Chafee, former Iowa congressman Jim Leach, and former Bush fundraiser Rita Hauser headlining the new group.

Said Chafee (who eagerly received McCain's help in his unsuccessful 2006 reelection bid): "Seeing the two different John McCains is a fracture in his credibility."

In this race for the center, these are folks worth watching: "Their reasons for crossing party lines are diverse, ranging from the war in Iraq to overspending in Washington, and signal unhappiness not just with the candidacy of Republican Sen. John McCain, but with the Republican Party as a whole," Elizabeth Holmes and Amy Chozick write in The Wall Street Journal. "The departure underscores the GOP's struggle to define itself in the shadow of an unpopular president and in the wake of defeat in the 2006 midterm election."