Obama overrated

My latest column at the American Spectator:

. . . IF OBAMA IS OVERRATED, that's another residue of the primary campaign, when the promise of Hope and Change persuaded 17 million Democrats (and 463 super-delegates) that a candidate with only three years in the Senate was the man who could break the Republican hold on the White House.
Once Hillary bowed out in June, Team Obama worked to keep those expectations high. Plouffe gave a Power Point briefing for reporters in which he talked of a "50 state strategy" and named 18 "battleground" states. That list included such Republican bastions as North Carolina and Georgia (McCain now leads in both), but at the time, Eleanor Clift raved that Plouffe had mapped an Obama victory with "surgical precision." . . .
Now, two months after an L.A. Times poll showed Obama leading by 12 points, the same poll shows him in a statistical dead heat with McCain. But none of the press wizards who gushed about the "surgical precision" of Team Obama's strategy seem to have started wondering if Axelrod and Plouffe actually know what they're doing.
Instead, with just 75 days until the election, the media is immersed in speculation about whom the Democrat will choose as his running mate. Perhaps Team Obama should consult Frank Mankiewicz, who knows a thing or two about that.

READ THE WHOLE THING

UPDATE: Too late for inclusion in my column, a Real Clear Politics map shows John McCain moving ahead in the Electoral College for the first time. As Insty notes, this includes "leaners" and it might be a bit early to start making D.C. hotel reservations for Jan. 20, but . . .