I watched Chris Matthews, parts of ABC Sunday Morning and Meet the Press (which come on at the same time unfortunately) and Face the Nation.

Matthews had a better panel than the last times I watched. He had Kelly O'Donnell, Dan Rather, Cynthia Tucker, and Howard Feinstein. The first half of the show was a discussion of whether or not McCain can win in a campaign of change. This was a discussion of whether or not one of McCain's latest tactics, which is to also bill himself as a "change" agent, can succeed.

McCain is doing this by saying in speeches, a couple of which Matthews showed clips, in which McCain says that he agrees that w change, but we need the "right" kind of change. McCain also has run his now becoming infamous TV ad in which he says, "we're worse off now than we were 4 years ago," a quasi-kamikazi action to try and distance himself from Bush, but which ties him, as a Republican, to the current economic disaster. What is interesting to me is that the USA Today reported in a little blurb a couple days ago that McCain was pulling that ad, and had only run it "6" times. But here, it continues to run - over and over and over again.

Bottom line on discussion with Matthew's panel is that McCain cannot win on a change campaign - in that he tries to convince the public that he is "better change" than Obama. I do agree with their panel. But, the panel went on to say that they all believed that McCain would abandon that campaign tactic and move toward all out attack on Obama in order to make the election into a referendum on whether Obama is "ready" to be president, and whether he is "American enough" to be president. This undoubtedly will be done through a Karl Rove type of smear campaign that we probably can't even imagine. So get ready to get slimed, cause it's coming.

I switched back and forth between the talking head discussions on both Meet the Press and ABC Sunday Morning. The ABC panel talked about whether or not Obama could cut into the Republican's dominance of the "evangelical" vote. Both McCain and Obama had just appeared at Rev. Warren's forum in California last night. The general consensus was that Obama would probably get more votes from that constituency than Kerry got, and, if he got as much as Clinton got, some 35% of that vote (i'm sure they are regretting that too, much to the detriment of Obama), that he would win handily in November.

The Meet the Press panel had an interesting blurb from a top Republican in Texas, I didn't catch his name, but they had several paragraphs from the guy who was saying that the negative campaign against Obama would fail. Chuck Todd, the NBC political director, said, however, that the McCain people were cocky about the "success" of their negative campaign thus far, and that we could expect more. I agree with him.

Andrea Mitchell spoke on the Georgia/Russia conflict, and had the interesting comment that Obama, speaking in "nuances" about diplomacy with both Russia and Georgia was the right policy, but not conducive to political soundbites.

There was considerable discussion on all the shows about the VP picks. I found the Meet the Press discussion to be the most interesting. The NBC pundits did agree that Obama was looking for an attack dog that would go after the Republicans. But then, they pointed toward Biden. Biden is in Georgia now, meeting with the Georgian government, but isn't that like meeting with jello? What about a meeting with Putin? Who is doing that? But why would pick Biden, who got like almost no votes for President, when you have Sen. Clinton, who got like 18 million votes, and still controls a sizeable voting block that Obama needs? If Obama doesn't pick Clinton as his running mate, in my opinion, his judgment is flawed. She is the attack dog that he needs, and she can deliver the women's vote. But If these pundits are right about Biden, then I have a lot to learn about the stupidity of national politics.

They are pretty much saying that Romney is the pick for McCain. McCain doesnt' have a good pick, although it was interesting that all of the shows mentioned Lieberman as a possible running mate for McCain. My advice to McCain is to go for it with Lieberman. He has proven himself to be unsuccessful as a running mate, and that would be perfect for McCain.

One interesting segment on Meet the Press was Chuck Todd's analysis of the latest polls. While McCain is raising a lot of money, (not as much as Obama) and going way negative, Todd reported that states that some states that were "toss up" states had moved into the likely or strong for Obama - mentioning in specific Oregon and New Jersey. And, he noted that McCain was not putting any states that could be considered leaning toward Republican away. In specific, Todd mentioned Indiana and North Carolina. Finally, both Mitchell and Todd discussed how Virginia and Colorado were still in play for Obama. This seems to be contradictory to what a lot of the pundits and polls are trying to say these days.

Face the Nation had Evan Bayh and Tim Pawlenty. These are two highly punditized candidates for VP - Bayh a Democratic U.S. Senator from Indiana and Pawlenty, a Republican governor of Minnesota, were auditioning for the VP position, it seemed, and both did well. I actually thought Bayh slightly won the debate, although I still think that nominating someone like Bayh, who didn't go through the bruising campaign, will alienate a lot of females. Obama does not need that.

The bottom line on McCain's campaign is that we can expect, after Labor Day, an all out assault on Obama's patriotism, his Americanism, and in other issues that are clearly on the table but will be handled much more subtly. These include such things as religion and race. It's going to get slimy, and Obama is going to have to find a way to fight back without getting slimed himself. It's a heck of a challenge, and whether he can meet the challenge will probably mean the difference between whether or not we get Obama change and McCain change.