in the next two or three days.

The tactic worked, somewhat. Inside dopester stories in the press duly followed on the possible picks, from Joe Biden (foreign policy experience, albeit a remorseless gabber) to Evan Bayh (white-bread Indiana Republican lightweight). But on Wednesday the Reuters-Zogby poll reported that McCain had suddenly surged ahead, and was leading Obama nationally 46-41. Reuters-Zogby is well regarded, but this year has a somewhat spotty record. Two other big polls reporting Thursday had Obama leading McCain 45-42.

Polls aside, it's obvious Obama has lost the initiative. Ominously, Democrats are beginning to recall with a shiver John Kerry's disastrous summer in 2004, when his candidacy sagged in the face of a ruthless battering of his war record. It's not just a matter of no-win situations like Saddleback or Obama's refusal to call for Russia’s immediate annihilation. Obama now lags behind McCain as the man the public trusts on economic policy, a topic on which McCain publicly confessed ignorance earlier this year.

Obama even managed to lose the initiative on off-shore oil drilling, a hot issue along the entire US coastline. In July, McCain began taking the oil industry line by saying that, in the interests of the always mythical 'US Energy Independence', irksome environmental restrictions on off-shore drilling should be tossed aside.

Since public cynicism about the oil companies has been increasing in direct proportion to the oil companies' record profits this summer, it shouldn't have been hard for Obama to paint McCain as a whore for Big Oil and a foe of marine life, usable beaches and a seabed unobstructed by vast platforms. The opportunity was enhanced by a 419,000 gallon oil spill into the Mississippi River the very week McCain was pushing off-shore drilling in Louisiana. But Obama, almost always respectful towards large corporations, declined this golden opportunity.

The problem might be that a man who's come to think of himself as the conduit of Mankind's purest hopes doesn’t want to scuff his shoes by kicking mud in McCain's