July
22 Obama "Hype"

If the release today of a new McCain campaign video and a new David Bossie doc are any clue, the Republicans have their storyline about Barack Obama: Elite, cocky, overhyped, and held up by the media and Hollywood machine.

McCain's vids reflect what has to be genuine frustration on the campaign's part as the media focuses on Obama's trip overseas this week, and the GOP nominee struggles to get attention. But the campaign masks It's a genuine concern: As was blasted on Drudgereport and elsewhere, McCain arrived late Monday night in Manchester, N.H., to just one reporter waiting on the tarmac.

Bossie, notorious for pushing the limits of opposition research, offers another target doc assembled from "best-of" clips on the campaign trail. The trailer for "Hype: The Obama Effect," below, includes some of the same footage as the McCain videos, this time with Obama looking a bit more nefarious and grainy in poorly recorded (I assume on purpose) tape stock. Starting with a shot of Obama dancing with Ellen DeGeneres, it then offers a hodge podge of images, including Stevie Wonder singing his name ("Bah rock Oh baaa Ma!"), Chris Matthews saying that he gets a "thrill going up my leg" when the candidate speak, and Obama telling a crowd, "We are the ones we have been waiting for." Then there is the candidate himself grousing, "Can't I just eat my waffle?"

Judging from the trailer, the "other side" of Obama is largely delivered by the usual suspects --- Dick Morris, Tucker Carlson and Mike Huckabee, as well as Duncan Hunter (you may not remember that he too was once a candidate). They don't exactly match swift boat veterans, but it's still early. Bossie plans to debut the film the night before the Democratic National Convention, reports the Politico's Jeffrey Ressner.

The Obama campaign has no comment on the movie, other than a posting on Bossie on its "Behind the Smears" portion of the campaign Website in which prominent Republicans like George H.W. Bush and Newt Gingrich question his campaign tactics.