The Note: Grounded Control

Oct. 30, 2008— -- Should we care that . . .

Sarah Palin and Barack Obama are both pondering futures they don't want to anticipate?

John McCain wants to make the race about another professor (even if he still has Bill Ayers on his mind)?

Plenty of Democratic senators and governors will say nice things about Obama on camera?

Joe Biden is suddenly boring?

Even Borat wants us not to vote (but not really -- and not even for Bob Barr?)?

All of our assumptions just might be dealt atop a house of cards?

For the moment, toss those worries away: Five days out, Obama has wrested control of the race with his typical disciplined style -- and someone's going to have to scramble to take it from him.

Consider his extraordinary Wednesday evening, framed by 30 minutes of primetime television where Obama did not mention the words "John McCain." (Can you imagine McCain going on TV for 30 seconds at this stage of the race without mentioning Obama?)

It was gauzy, sad at times, and it was as unusual as a four-inning World Series clincher. It featured too many starry-eyed politicians, and too much cheesy music. It was also masterfully executed. And the fact that it could be done speaks to more than the wallet behind it.

Cognizant of what got him here, and mindful of what might get him there, Obama highlighted not just himself but the idea he represents. It delivers a message on a tactical level, with solutions for all the hot-button issues, yet mostly it works on an inspirational level -- getting voters to believe in something bigger than themselves, which made Obama's candidacy possible in the first place.

Wednesday may not be the night he clinched anything, but it may end up being the night he made the turn for home. By the time No. 42 finally turned it on for a would-be No. 44, this looked like Obama's race, with McCain and the rest of us just living in it.

"Every single line during that 30 minutes was something that the campaign knows works and appeals to those undecided voters," ABC's George Stephanopoulos reports. "What you saw here was a highly competent, professional, virtuoso performance. The fact that they could go 28 minutes in and hit live to a campaign rally in Florida and right down to the final Obama Biden logo even showed a rising sun. One of the things the campaign knows is that the most optimistic presidential candidate always wins."

"Aired on seven network and cable stations, the ad served as a national get-out-the-vote organizing tool for Obama operatives," Cathleen Decker writes in the Los Angeles Times. "It offered even the swiftest channel-flipper the chance to see Obama looking presidential, helping to condition voters to that possibility. And once again it proved to John McCain, and everyone else, how Obama's deep pool of campaign cash has allowed him to rewrite the rules of the campaign."

"Barack Obama effectively knocked on every door in the nation Wednesday night," David Saltonstall writes in the New York Daily News.

"Barack Obama pulled out all the political and technological stops," Kathy Kiely writes for USA Today.

New politics of pile-on: "Six days before the election, Obama's team produced a 'shock and awe' Wednesday, throwing up a stunning number of assets at John McCain," reports Lynn Sweet of the Chicago Sun-Times.

"The program gave a new meaning to the word 'infomercial' and, for that matter, to all notions of political advertising," Jim Rutenberg reports in The New York Times. "The infomercial was part slickly produced reality program; part Lifetime biography; and part wonkish policy lecture with music that could have come from 'The West Wing.' . . . It was largely in keeping with Mr. Obama's strategic imperative this year: Make voters comfortable with the idea of him in the Oval Office while at the same time presenting him as a candidate who can connect with everyday, middle-class voters struggling through the toughest economic times in generations."

And he capped it with some mended fences:

"The pair, introduced as 'the 42nd president and the next president,' took the stage to cheers from a crowd of 35,000," Peter Slevin writes in The Washington Post. "Declaring that Obama 'represents the future,' Clinton predicted that Obama would be a smart president 'who wants to understand, and he can understand.' "

Slevin reports: "The timing of the Obama-Clinton appearance is a tactic the campaign intends to repeat in the coming days. An aide said a central goal is to maximize face time on local news broadcasts -- and to cover as much ground as possible before he votes Tuesday in Chicago."

"Clinton praised Obama's philosophy, policies, decision making, and capacity to execute his plans in the White House, saying crisply: 'This man should be our president,' " writes Time's Mark Halperin. "There still may be doubt within their circle of supporters that Obama is fully ready to run the country, but the Clintons themselves are now convinced Obama will win the job."

"This is what it's like to have a great president," Obama said.

"He always respects his audience," Obama said of Bill Clinton, in an interview with ABC's Chris Cuomo, airing on "Good Morning America" Thursday.

Advice from the big guy (who knows a thing or two about closing): "Don't change the subject, don't let people forget what it's about," the former president told Cuomo. "Don't let them grow complacent because momentarily, the price of oil dropped, or because we haven't had a full economic collapse. Remind that people are still in trouble. . . . Keep it on that."

On what it took to get him on the trail: "Well, Hillary's my first choice, but we always said -- I said in the first caucus states, that if she didn't win, and he did, that I would support him."

(Did Biden make a mistake with his line about the world looking to "test" Obama? "I don't know. I think that -- look, Sen. Biden -- one of the reasons that he's going to be a good vice president is that he's candid sometimes to a fault. But I was tested.")

Taking care of this, at last: "Barack Obama and former President Bill Clinton are moving from a cold war to a cool peace," George Stephanopoulos reports. "Obama has been praising the Clinton record more and more in his speeches, something he hasn't done before. He has also been reaching out to Clinton privately more and more, sources tell ABC News. Obama called Clinton a couple of times during the financial crisis and consulted with him after President George W. Bush announced that he would have the foreign leaders come to deal with the financial crisis after the election."

The comfort zone: "His 'time for change' closing argument in this moment of national anxiety focuses heavily on the economic issues that are at the core of voter concerns right now, skipping quickly past the questions of war and peace that animated his campaign when it started nearly two years ago," Peter Baker and Jeff Zeleny write in The New York Times.

"The closing Obama speech is cautious, calibrated to cement the inroads he has made with voters whose comfort level with him has grown," they write. "Even as he sums up the case for his candidacy, Mr. Obama is seeking to defuse any remaining uncertainty about electing a largely untested first-term senator and dispel his critics' depiction of him as an inexperienced, unproven leader who would raise taxes, redistribute wealth and go soft on terrorists."

Sealing the deal? "Obama's use of his campaign cash and of Clinton comes as the Illinois senator looks to hold on to his substantial lead in polls nationwide and in a number of battleground states, including several where a Democratic presidential nominee has not won in years. If Obama can sustain his momentum for six more days, he will be well positioned to win the presidency with a large mandate from voters," Scott Helman writes in The Boston Globe.

"As for Obama himself, he must maintain his steady, cool demeanor, which, ironically, was once viewed as a political liability. But now it has come to symbolize the candidate's sure hand in the middle of the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression," Sridhar Pappu writes in the Washington Independent.