I think we are beginning to see the full measure of the Obama general campaign strategy, framed along ten or so key directives that can allow the election of the most leftward candidate in American political history.

So far the candidate himself needs no coaching, inasmuch he has proved to be one of the most pragmatic, flexible, and ambitious figures in recent memory, with superb handlers who understand the challenge of getting such a hard leftist past the suspicious American electorate.

1. “Maturing” Views. Move to the center on as many problematic issues as possible — whether FISA, NAFTA, talking to dictators, the death penalty, etc. Disguise blatant flip–flops by talking about McCain’s changes of heart — such as his opposition to tax cuts eight years ago. And just as dreams of Obama’s father were once essential in cementing his questionable racial bona fides in Chicago, now the thing to do is drop most mention of the African connection, and instead resurrect his grandparents as proof of his more influential midwestern, working–class Americana credentials. Think “Dreams from My Grandmother.”

Most Americans wake every morning to news that Barack Obama will win next month’s presidential election. Strategists even say the word “landslide” aloud.

Every poll shows it, every pundit echoes it, and every analyst predicts it – therefore it must be true, right?

In the twisted realm of obfuscatory politics, nuances mean a lot. And few places are more twisted than here in Missouri where there has been a kerfuffle over what the top prosecutors in St. Louis city and St. Louis county are up to. It all started with a recent report by St. Louis' CBS affiliate KMOV, which the reporter now claims has been "twisted."

The newsman, John Mills, reported that some Missouri sheriffs, prosecutors and law–enforcement officials have formed "Obama Truth Squads" charged with going after anyone who makes false or misleading claims about their candidate. Intended or not, the report gave the distinct impression that these elected officials –– including prosecutors from St. Louis, Dunklin, Lafayette, Cass, Clay, Ripley, Audrain and Jackson counties –– were going to "hold accountable" Obama critics who "violate ethics laws," but do nothing about McCain's opponents who do the same. Speaking as members of the Obama Truth Squad, the two top prosecutors said "they plan to respond immediately to any ads or statements that might violate Missouri ethics laws."

We have seen many changes in this great nation which have been brought about by left wing activists. As kids, we used to say the Pledge of Allegiance. Now, it's being attacked in the courts. We used to say a prayer in the morning before school or at football games. Socialists in America have deemed that "offensive" and the practice has all but disappeared. Christmas displays honoring the birth of Christ trigger convulsions by the Left, who say that we shouldn't make people feel "uncomfortable" with our manger scenes.

Now, we can't even say what we want to say in public because not only will the thought police be on patrol, but, using a recent event in Florida as an example, saying "Hussein Obama" in public might just get you a visit from the FBI. Just ask Florida's Lee County Sheriff Mike Scott who is under fire –– and investigation –– for referring to Obama at a campaign rally by his –– gasp –– full name. What is going on with America?

Hello and welcome to Advanced Obamanomics at WEEKLY STANDARD U. If you are in this class, you have passed Remedial Rubinomics, Identity and Globalization in the Works of Barack Obama, and Introduction to Contemporary Religion with Professor Jeremiah Wright. Also, your check has cleared. Congratulations.

As noted in the syllabus, the required reading for today's class includes The Audacity of Hope pp. 220–257; Obama's March 27, 2008, speech in New York City on "Renewing the American Economy"; Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein's Nudge; David Leonhardt's indispensable August 24, 2008, New York Times magazine article "Obamanomics," from which the title of this class is drawn; and Robert Kuttner's Obama's Challenge.

Now, most of your classmates probably spent last night experimenting with the booze luge they had constructed out of plywood and a bag of crushed ice. You, however, made it through the required reading without––and this is no small feat––falling asleep. This means that there is a bright future in store for you at either the Bureau of Labor Statistics or the Congressional Budget Office. Good thing you didn't miss this incredible opportunity by going to last night's underwear party, getting wasted, and setting a couch on fire.

Since this is a conservative institution with the highest academic standards, each class will begin with a quiz. Who said the following?

The race card is back.

After Tuesday night's debate, Washington party–crossover dean David Gergen announced it was "too early" to declare victory for Democrat Barack Obama, not because the election is a month away, but because "Obama is black."

After GOP running mate Sarah Palin criticized Obama for seeing America as "imperfect enough that he's palling around with terrorists who would target their country," an Associated Press story suggested that "her attack was unsubstantiated and carried a racially tinged subtext that John McCain himself may come to regret."

One of the perhaps most confusing sub–texts of the 2008 election has been the curious and in some cases surprising support that the candidates have and have not received from evangelical Christians. But if one looks at the record, and not merely the high rhetoric one thing for certain should be easily distinguishable – Barack Obama's record of votes, his view of government, and the ideas to which he aligns himself do not match the values, principles, and truths for biblical Christians.

JUPITER, Fla. –– A few days ago, Lawrence and Patty Kaplan, retirees from Massachusetts living in Jupiter in southern Florida, received an email from a grandson, Michael, in Colorado. The usual salutations were dispensed with quickly.

Michael wanted to check on how the old folk were planning to vote next month. Specifically, he wanted to be sure that they weren't harboring any thoughts of supporting John McCain.

Editor's Note: In a last–ditch attempt to reverse its sagging poll numbers, the McCain campaign is attacking Barack Obama for his flimsy ties in Chicago to former '60s radical Bill Ayers. That's not surprising. The same thing happened during the Democratic primary, when Hillary Clinton made similar claims against Obama. In this piece from the May 19 edition of The Nation, Ari Berman explored Obama's relationship with Ayers and their respective ties to the Chicago–based Woods Fund.

Go to Barack Obama’s website and you can find a “Kids for Obama” section, which says, “For the first time in campaign history, children ages 12 and under, have a place to go and actually vote—through their voice.” Children 12 and under? Really?

Campaign '08: Barack Obama now says he knew who Bill Ayers was but thought he was "rehabilitated." And they say McCain is erratic! Where are the fact–checkers when you need them?

In an interview with sympathetic Philadelphia radio talk show host Michael Smerconish, taped Thursday and broadcast Friday, Obama changed the story of his relationship with Weatherman terrorist William Ayers yet again. He even had the chutzpah to lay the matter at the feet of Ronald Reagan.

"Ultimately, I ended up learning about the fact that (Ayers) had engaged in this reprehensible act 40 years ago, but I was 8 years old at the time and I assumed that he had been rehabilitated," Obama said.

"I need you to go out and talk to your friends and talk to your neighbors," Barack Obama told a crowd in Elko, Nev. "I want you to talk to them whether they are independent or whether they are Republican. I want you to argue with them and get in their face." Actually, Obama supporters are doing a lot more than getting into people's faces. They seem determined to shut people up.

That's what Obama supporters, alerted by campaign emails, did when conservative Stanley Kurtz appeared on Milt Rosenberg's WGN radio program in Chicago. Kurtz had been researching Obama's relationship with unrepentant Weather Underground terrorist William Ayers in Chicago Annenberg Challenge papers in the Richard J. Daley Library in Chicago –– papers that were closed off to him for some days, apparently at the behest of Obama supporters.

Barack Obama's supporters often try to sidestep questions about his character and judgment by saying that we should stick to what they arbitrarily define as "the real issues." But Senator Obama's record on specific issues is as bad as his record of repeatedly allying himself over the years with people who make no attempt to hide their hatred of America.

Among the so–called "real issues" are earmarks for Senators' pet projects, like the "bridge to nowhere." These are among the most indefensible parts of the inbred Washington political culture, which Obama has so often claimed to be against, as part of his promise of "change" to "clean up the mess in Washington."

Yet Senator Obama not only voted in favor of the bridge to nowhere, he voted against anti–earmark amendments proposed by Senator John McCain.

WASHINGTON –– Convicted felon Tony Rezko. Unrepentant terrorist Bill Ayers. And the race–baiting Rev. Jeremiah Wright. It is hard to think of any presidential candidate before Barack Obama sporting associations with three more execrable characters. Yet let the McCain campaign raise the issue, and the mainstream media begin fulminating about dirty campaigning tinged with racism and McCarthyite guilt by association.

But associations are important. They provide a significant insight into character. They are particularly relevant in relation to a potential president as new, unknown, opaque and self–contained as Obama. With the economy overshadowing everything, it may be too late politically to be raising this issue. But that does not make it, as conventional wisdom holds, in any way illegitimate.

Election '08: Bill Ayers isn't out bombing anymore, but he has never stopped being a radical. His ties to hostile Marxist regimes remain, raising more questions about Barack Obama's refusal to fully repudiate him.

Distancing himself, as Obama did, from the "detestable acts" of the founder of the Weather Underground terror organization, is one thing. Ayers' terror attacks — in armed robbery, police murder, attempted killings of U.S. troops, and bombings of U.S. democratic institutions to advance a Marxist revolution — were quite easy to disavow.

But Ayers' supporters say his violence was all a long time ago.

John McCain traces the rancorous tone of the presidential campaign back to last summer when he invited Barack Obama to have lots and lots of town–hall meetings with him all around the country. When Obama turned him down, obviously McCain had no choice but to start depicting his opponent as a terrorist–loving advocate of talking dirty to kindergarteners.

Finally this week, the two men did meet in a town–hall showdown, which turned out to be like all other debates, except with much less excitement and much more pacing around. It seems unlikely that many people switched off their sets and said: "Gee, I could sit through a dozen of these."

McCain may feel compelled to go back to his guilt–by–association theme. And this has me feeling very guilty about my associates.

A casualty of the left’s hatred for President George W. Bush has been a destructive inability to separate fact from fiction in the ongoing history of the war in Iraq. The latest case, which, sadly, has dug its way into the head of the Democratic presidential nominee, is the allegation that American troops, when they liberated Baghdad in April 2003, were not welcome as liberators. This inaccurate appraisal, shocking given that it’s made by people who watched the liberation on TV, was leveled again on Tuesday evening by Barack Obama for the second time in consecutive presidential debates. Both times, Obama criticized John McCain for predicting that Americans would be greeted as liberators in Iraq.

Election '08: Why would a man linked with the Wall Street culture Barack Obama hates top his list for Treasury chief? Obama knows something many don't about billionaire Warren Buffett.

Despite his storied investing prowess, Buffett is a liberal who sees eye–to–eye with Obama on economic policy. That's why he's contributed $4,600 to Obama's campaign — along with $28,500 to the DNC — and not a dime to John McCain or Republicans during this election cycle.

During the Nashville debate, Obama put forth an ideological litmus for the Treasury job, a post that has taken on even more importance amid the financial meltdown. He said he would want to make sure the next secretary shares his views on improving tax fairness and income redistribution.

I realized something after Tuesday night's debate: If (big if) Barack Obama is not elected president next month, it will not be John McCain who defeats him.

McCain may be Obama's official opponent, but he isn't making the core case against him: namely, the case against Obama's deep roots in radicalism, which the Democratic nominee has never pulled up and grown away from.

The secret to selling bad ideas is to make sure they are the only ones available. This is how totalitarian regimes take power. Whether it was Adolf Hitler in Nazi Germany or Vladimir Lenin in Communist Russia, the pattern is largely the same – totalitarian dictators come to power by enshrining themselves as cults of personality and then creating political monopolies through often less than delicate campaigns of indoctrination and censorship – especially censorship enshrouded in the intimidating aura of state power. Ironically, these cloven–tongued leaders often rise to dominance by preaching power to those they will dominate, provision to those they will impoverish, and liberty to those they will force into state labor. Whether they claim to be left or right, revolutionary or reactionary, communist or fascist, the result is always the same – tyranny.

Barack Obama's supporters have trivialized his connections to former Weather Underground terrorists William Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn. "This is a guy who lives in my neighborhood," Obama told ABC's George Stephanopoulos on April 16. Campaign strategist David Axelrod told CNN Monday that Obama "certainly didn't know the history" of these two barbarians when they hosted a reception for him when he launched his political career.

Obama might not have heard of Ayers and Dohrn's brutality from the '60s through the '80s had they merely tossed a rock or two in anger. But these two went much, much farther.