More like this, please.

McCain also has a new ad out, which you can view here. I did watch it this morning. It mostly consists of photos of Obama with the word “TAXES” across his face and a long, dark shadow of something that might be the Capitol Building. The voiceover is something like “Taxes. More taxes. Evil Taxes. Evil flesh-eating taxes. Evil flesh-eating taxes that are hiding under your bed with the bogyman and gonna GETCHA.”

That’s how I remember it, anyway.

Meanwhile, Joe Biden made the reasonable observation that for upper-income people, paying taxes is patriotic. I have to link to the AP again, sorry —

Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden said Thursday that paying more in taxes is the patriotic thing to do for wealthier Americans. In a new TV ad that repeats widely debunked claims about the Democratic tax plan, the Republican campaign calls Obama’s tax increases “painful.”

Under the economic plan proposed by Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, people earning more than $250,000 a year would pay more in taxes while those earning less — the vast majority of American taxpayers — would receive a tax cut.

Although Republican John McCain claims that Obama would raise taxes, the independent Tax Policy Center and other groups conclude that four out of five U.S. households would receive tax cuts under Obama’s proposals.

Again, we see the startling new movement among journalists to do, um, journalism, and provide actual information. It’s been a while.

Anyway, Biden’s connection of taxes with patriotism has inspired many snorts and hoots of derision from the Right. Give money to the government? Puh-leeze.

Let’s see — They want a strong military and they want to run the military into the ground in the Middle East, but they won’t volunteer to fight — better things to do, you know — and they don’t want to pay for the war but instead want to continue to borrow money from China and cripple their children with debt.

Sing along —

Wing-nuts, yeah
What are they good for
Absolutely nothing
Uh-huh
Wing-nuts, yeah
What are they good for
Absolutely nothing
Say it again, y’all

Wing-nuts, good God
What are they good for
Absolutely nothing
Listen to me

Etc. They’re parasites, I say.

There are little indications here and there that the Obama campaign is regaining momentum while the Palin bubble is losing air.

There’s a tiny uptick for Obama in the Gallup daily tracking poll. Some other polls show that Sarah Palin’s popularity is fading fast.

The Obama campaign has released a two-minute ad explaining Obama’s economic plan. I understand this is already beginning to run in battleground states.

If you can stomach it, you can watch McCain’s new ad about the economy here. It amounts to blah blah blah American workers blah blah reform blah.

There’s a discussion at Washington Monthly about whether a two-minute ad is a good idea. Personally, I like it, and I think it is a good idea. The American people on the whole aren’t as stupid as some make them out to be. We have more than our share of idiots, yes, and the idiots make a lot of noise. But, particularly regarding domestic issues, most Americans really can come to sensible conclusions and sort shit from shinola if they are given accurate information. That last part is nearly always the catch. But not always.

For example, remember when President Bush was going all out to sell his social security privatization scheme to the public (and ain’t it good that didn’t happen)? A majority of Americans pretty much figured out by themselves — because news media weren’t helping much — that Bush’s plan was dangerous. The more they heard about it, the less they liked it.

One commenter at Washington Monthly remembered Ross Perot’s infomercials, which went on for a whole lot longer than two minutes. Think what you want of Perot (and you’re probably right), those infomercials helped a lot of Americans understand for the first time why a big federal budget deficit is bad.

This sort of calm, straightforward explanation of complex issues was a hallmark of the Franklin Roosevelt administration, and people loved FDR for it. Are Americans appreciably dumber now than they were then? We’ll see.

Meanwhile, news media are actually pointing out the McCain campaign’s, um, lies. See CNN:

Here’s the Associated Press — Yeah, I know, it’s the Associated Press, but I’m going to link to it anyway — “McCain has 2 faces: Washington in- and outsider.” So much for Mr. Straight Talker.

See also: Elitism for Elites.

Former Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, now an adviser to John McCain, says Sarah Palin lacks the experience to run Hewlett Packard. Michael D. Shear writes for The Trail:

Fiorina made the comments on the McGraw-Hill Show on St. Louis KTRS Radio, a statement that was first reported by Huffington Post.

During the final minute of the interview, the host asked: “Do you think she has the experience to run a major company, like Hewlett Packard?”

“No, I don’t,” responded Fiorina. “But you know what? That’s not what she’s running for.”

There’s also a “McCain invented the Blackberry” story going around. This clearly is an attempt to get even for the phony “Al Gore invented the Internet” story the Right pushed awhile back.

Greg Sargent has the text of a speech Obama gave today. Really good. The economic crisis has suppressed the stupid “lipstick on a pig” distractions, for a time, anyway.

Update: McCain, Obama or Biden couldn’t run Hewlett Packard, either, Fiorina says. And Fiorina’s bio says she couldn’t run it, either. Must be a tough job.