The Note: Desperate Times . . .

Oct. 6, 2008— -- Four weeks out, what does it say that . . . Team McCain is hoping that Bill Ayers has one last bomb in him -- just enough to blow up the presidential race?

. . . That it's the McCain campaign that has to telegraph its intentions to keep the base from sitting the rest of this one out?

. . . That Karl Rove has gone from nudging along McCain strategy to sounding the GOP alarm bells?

. . . That Palin Power needs to be employed to save a single electoral vote in Nebraska (and that she wants both Michigan and Jeremiah Wright in play -- her campaign's moves notwithstanding)?

. . . That GOP jitters are spreading across the (diminished) map?

. . . That Sen. John McCain is turning a page only to find an old story he doesn't like to hear told?

So we reach the nasty stage -- with Ayres and Rezko (but not Wright -- unless Gov. Sarah Palin gets her way) back among us.

But context is everything, and might these attacks have been more effective a few weeks ago -- back when convention wisdom wasn't congealing, back when the map wasn't crumbling, back when the GOP aides wasn't fretting/sniping/panicking, back when this race still looked wide open?

It's not (just) the fundamentals of the economy, it's the fundamentals of the campaign: McCain is looking to rock a race that has already been through as big a storm of perceptions as we're likely to see.

He's relying on old connections and shady associations to raise doubts about Sen. Barack Obama -- when it might be too late to make it all stick.

"Take it to a well capitalized bank: Bill Ayers isn't going to save John McCain. The race is over," Howard Wolfson declares on his New Republic blog. "This is a big election about big issues. McCain's smallball will not work. This race will not be decided by lipsticked pigs. And John McCain can not escape that reality."

Like the crisis that's brought us to this, the fundamentals are beyond the candidates' control: "John McCain needs a game-changer to win the U.S. presidential election. He's not going to provide it himself, and Barack Obama won't give it to him," Bloomberg's Al Hunt writes in his column. "The Arizona Republican's best chance for a turnaround is a national security crisis over the next four weeks that somehow persuades swing voters that his experience and credentials are essential."

Palin got to test-drive the new message: "Republican vice presidential nominee Gov. Sarah Palin unleashed a new attack on Sen. Barack Obama, accusing him of 'palling around with terrorists' for his association with former 1960s radical William Ayers," per ABC's Imtiyaz Delawala.

"This is not a man who sees America as you and I see America," Palin said in Carson, Calif.

"Last night in Omaha, Sarah Palin not only questioned Obama's patriotism," reports ABC's David Wright, on "Good Morning America" Monday, "she accused him of consorting with terrorists."

Says GOP strategist Ron Bonjean: "It's clear we're at a tipping point. We're at a decisive moment where Sen. McCain needs to act and act fast."

And Palin wants to go further: Asked about the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Palin tells Bill Kristol that he should be in the mix: "I don't know why that association isn't discussed more, because those were appalling things that that pastor had said about our great country, and to have sat in the pews for 20 years and listened to that -- with, I don't know, a sense of condoning it, I guess, because he didn't get up and leave -- to me, that does say something about character. But, you know, I guess that would be a John McCain call on whether he wants to bring that up."

(Other tidbits: She'd welcome another debate with Joe Biden -- but won't issue the challenge herself -- and the hockey mom offers this advice to McCain for Tuesday's debate: "Take the gloves off.")

(Is this Palin being Palin? If so, is this what the GOP wants/needs?)

A new ad from the McCain campaign Monday is maybe as explicit (on a different subject) as Palin would be: "Who is Barack Obama? He says our troops in Afghanistan are 'just air-raiding villages and killing civilians.' How dishonorable. Congressional liberals voted repeatedly to cut off funding to our active troops. Increasing the risk on their lives. How dangerous."

But Team McCain isn't even convinced it will work: "McCain's course correction reflects a growing case of nerves within his high command as the electoral map has shifted significantly in Obama's favor in the past two weeks," Thomas M. DeFrank writes in the New York Daily News.

Says a "top McCain strategist": "It's a dangerous road, but we have no choice. . . . If we keep talking about the economic crisis, we're going to lose."

Careful what page you turn to: The attacks have barely begun, and already a swift and fierce response from Obamaland

"On Monday the Obama campaign will start hitting Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., on his role in the late 80s/early 90s Keating 5 scandal, despite previous indications by Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., made months ago, that the scandal was not 'germane' to the presidency because McCain had apologized for his role," ABC's Jake Tapper reports.

"The Obama campaign, including its surrogates appearing on radio and television, will argue that the deregulatory fervor that caused massive, cascading savings-and-loan collapses in the late '80s was pursued by McCain throughout his career, and helped cause the current credit crisis," Politico's Mike Allen reports.

(Obama, in May: "I don't have any doubt that John McCain's public record about issues that he's apologized for and written about is not germane to the presidency.") http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/10/obama-to-attack.html

A new Web video is being released at a new Website at noon ET Monday -- with the preview out late Sunday.

Campaign Manager David Plouffe, in an e-mail to supporters late Sunday: "The backward economic philosophy and culture of corruption that helped create the current crisis are looking more and more like the other major financial crisis of our time. During the savings and loan crisis of the late '80s and early '90s, McCain's political favors and aggressive support for deregulation put him at the center of the fall of Lincoln Savings and Loan, one of the largest in the country. More than 23,000 investors lost their savings. Overall, the savings and loan crisis required the federal government to bail out the savings of hundreds of thousands of families and ultimately cost American taxpayers $124 billion."

And from a new Obama ad: "Three quarters of a million jobs lost this year. Our financial system in turmoil. And John McCain? Erratic [!] in a crisis. Out of touch on the economy. No wonder his campaign wants to change the subject."

Who can best afford a late food fight? "The onus is on Republican John McCain to turn the race around under exceptionally challenging circumstances -- and his options are limited," the AP's Liz Sidoti writes. "McCain's advisers say the Arizona senator will ramp up his attacks in the coming days with a tougher, more focused message describing 'who Obama is,' including questioning his character, 'liberal' record and 'too risky' proposals in advertising and appearances."

"Some Republicans close to McCain's campaign fret in private that Obama may be pulling away for good; others aren't so pessimistic," Sidoti continues. "But there's unanimity in this: McCain has dwindling chances to regain momentum, and the upcoming debates are critical."

"The terrain of the election has shifted mightily to economic fear and Obama is moving his campaign to exploit that. Meanwhile the McCain campaign retains its lamentable focus on press tactics at the expense of a real strategy," GOP strategist Mike Murphy writes in his Time blog. "McCain is losing. To regain a chance to win, McCain must run as who he truly is; pragmatic, tough, bi-partisan and ready to break some special interest china to get the right things done in Washington. Fix the message, and you will fix the states."

We know who's started this one, because they told us what they were doing: "Sen. John McCain and his Republican allies are readying a newly aggressive assault on Sen. Barack Obama's character, believing that to win in November they must shift the conversation back to questions about the Democrat's judgment, honesty and personal associations," Michael D. Shear reported in Saturday's Washington Post.

And yet: "The Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. appears to be off limits after McCain condemned the North Carolina Republican Party in April for an ad that linked Obama to his former pastor," Shear adds.

"The dust-up comes as Obama's poll numbers have risen in recent weeks, even in some traditionally Republican states, as Wall Street's woes dominate the news," Maeve Reston and Seema Mehta write in the Los Angeles Times.

"The new GOP tack comes as the economic crisis increasingly dominates the campaign and new polls show Obama growing stronger in key battleground states," USA Today's Jill Lawrence writes. "A Columbus Dispatch poll put the race at Obama 49%, McCain 42% in Ohio, while a Minneapolis Star Tribune poll gave Obama an 18-point lead in Minnesota. A Denver Post poll of Colorado showed the race deadlocked 44%-44%."