The Note: Through the Woods

Oct. 24, 2008— -- Which represents the biggest threat to Sen. John McCain?

His running mate . . .

His staff . . .

Elites . . .

Wallets . . .

The fact that Sen. Barack Obama will get MORE coverage while far from any battleground state . . .

An ad environment that's past the saturation point (or is that a good thing?) . . .

McCain won't have Obama money to put behind it -- but the message in his latest ad is as sharp as they come, and as sharp as he's likely to get (and hits while Obama is visiting grandma, no less).

We hear Sen. Joe Biden's words, and we see tanks, ships, marching terrorists, Chavez, Ahmadinejad -- then a cut to black: "It doesn't have to happen. Vote McCain." (It's 3 am, and we think we're meant to smell daisies.)

There's not far to go beyond this -- and plenty of questions about whether this is too late, if not too little, or too irrelevant (Dow futures down 550 points Friday morning).

We're about to find out if there's a way to still frighten voters about Obama (and between taxes, experiences, and national security -- McCain hopes there are many ways). If nothing else, the new tack scratches an itch in the party base -- but McCain needs it to do more than that at this stage.

Friday brings a new message from Gov. Sarah Palin, too -- her first policy speech of the campaign (!), calling for greater support for special-needs children (and attacking Obama on taxes). (A better story to tell than her "Troopergate" deposition Friday.)

Plus -- pushback on the clothing story: "That is not who we are. . . . That whole thing is just, bad!" Palin tells the Chicago Tribune's Jill Zuckman. "Oh, if people only knew how frugal we are."

Zuckman: " 'It's kind of painful to be criticized for something when all the facts are not out there and are not reported,' said Palin, saying the clothes are not worth $150,000 and were bought for the Republican National Convention. Still, she has been wearing pricey clothes at campaign events this fall. She said they will be given back, auctioned off or sent to charity. Most of them, she said, haven't even left the belly of her campaign plane."

On double standards: "I think Hillary Clinton was held to a different standard in her primary race," Palin said. "I'm not going to complain about it, I'm not going to whine about it, I'm going to plow through that, because we are embarking on something greater than that, than allowing that double standard to adversely affect us."

On her speech Friday: "Palin called the disabilities issues 'a joyful challenge,' " Zuckman writes. "Todd Palin showed off photos of people with Down syndrome who have come to campaign events, and the candidate said one advocacy group sent her a bumper sticker that said 'My kid has more chromosomes than your kid.' 'These children are not a problem, they are a priority,' Palin said."

How it all fits together: "Looking for fresh ways to press the tax issue, John McCain plans to roll out a new attack against Barack Obama on Friday, claiming the Democrat's plan would increase the burden on families with special needs children," The Wall Street Journal's Amy Chozick and Nick Timiraos reports.

"A top adviser to Sen. McCain said the attack was designed to show the 'bizarre, unintended consequences' likely to result from Sen. Obama's proposed tax increases," Chozick and Timiraos write. "Palin . . . will debut the new attack during a rally Friday morning in Pittsburgh, aides said, and the campaign said it could launch television or radio ads featuring special needs families targeting Sen. Obama on the issue."

Mom vote, here we come: Palin hits the trail Sunday with "The View's" Elisabeth Hasselbeck.

Where, exactly, are those promised medical records? ABC's Kate Snow: "After Governor Sarah Palin said it would be 'fine' to release her medical records in an interview Wednesday, the McCain-Palin campaign is feeling no sense of urgency about actually releasing any records. Spokeswoman Maria Comella told ABC News on Thursday: 'When medical information related to Governor Palin's health is ready to be released we will make that information available.' "

And where, exactly, is Joe? "John McCain began his daylong 'Joe the plumber' bus tour of Central Florida's Interstate 4 corridor yesterday without its namesake, the icon of his campaign's invigorated antitax movement who has conspicuously refused entreaties to appear with McCain," Sasha Issenberg writes in The Boston Globe.

(We know where he'll be Friday morning: Joe the Plumber does a live-chat at 11 am Friday, at the Washington Times Website.)

Hard to make it stick? "The renewed effort to depict Obama as a liberal marks a departure from McCain's earlier efforts to paint the Illinois senator as too inexperienced for the Oval Office, but it draws on a familiar Republican tradition of describing opponents as outside the mainstream," Janet Hook writes in the Los Angeles Times.

On the other side: Obama, in Hawaii to visit his grandmother Friday, stands by his "spread the wealth" comments:

"If John McCain's best argument is that he wants to continue the same Bush tax cuts for the very wealthiest Americans that in 2000 he himself opposed and, in the meantime, fails to give tax cuts to 100 million people in America that I would give tax cuts to, John McCain's gonna have some problems 'cause the American people understand that the way we grow this economy is from the bottom up," Obama told ABC's Robin Roberts, on "Good Morning America" Friday.

On the tone: "If you look at the quality of our campaign and theirs, who's been more consistent? Who has been more civil? Who's talked about the issues, as opposed to trying to attack people's character? I think we get a pretty good grade."

(On his grandmother: "I'm still not sure whether she makes it to Election Day. "One of the things I want to make sure of is that I had a chance to sit down with her and talk to her. She's still alert. And she's still got all her faculties. And I want to make sure that I don't miss that opportunity -- right now.")

Don't forget this part of the report card: "For the first time in decades, Democrats appear to have the upper hand in the debate over taxes," Michael Abramowitz and Robert Barnes report in The Washington Post. "Even some Republicans said they worry that Obama has more than neutralized a signature GOP issue with the promise of a tax cut for middle-class Americans, while putting McCain on the defensive by alleging -- unfairly, in the view of independent analysts -- that the Republican would raise taxes on health-care benefits."

How'd that happen, again? Well -- the only thing more impressive than raising $150 million in one month? Spending $105 million in two weeks.

"Barack Obama and John McCain enter the final days of the presidential campaign amid dwindling reserves, with Obama hindered by a sudden drop in fundraising and McCain restrained by spending limits," per the AP's Jim Kuhnhenn. "Obama, the Democratic nominee, spent more than $105 million during the first two weeks of October, according to new campaign finance reports. He reported raising only $36 million for his campaign during that period, about half the fundraising pace he enjoyed in September."