Obama-McCain: The Early Results

Huffington Post has a good piece on the matchup between Obama and McCain. Short answer: Obama cleans McCain's clock. The reason is McCain is trapped between a rock and a hard place.

McCain spent his speech -- not laying out his own forthright agenda -- but explaining why he's not what Barack Obama says he is, a branch of George Bush. (A task made difficult with his 95% voting record in agreement.) As a result, Sen. McCain painted himself two choices, and he's sunk with both. He can continue to support George Bush, or be "about change." With the first, he's tied to a 28% president. With the second, he loses the G.O.P. base and lets Obama create the ground rules -- making the campaign be about change, the heart of Obama's candidacy.

His campaign so-follows Obama that the new McCain slogan (after messing up the first one) is a direct copy of Obama's. 'Change we can believe in.' If this was corporate product advertising, he'd be sued for copyright infringement. 'Leadership we can believe in.' How can you suggest yourself as an agent of change, when you can't even come up with your own slogan? Worse, McCain is defining himself in Obama's own terms.

I have to agree.