Obama's buying half hour TV blocks on major networks, and before you wince, there's something here that's terribly clever that everybody seems to be missing.

McCain is already low on funds, as evidenced by his pulling out of Michigan to focus on Ohio. Obama literally has more money than a candidate needs, but he's using it very cleverly to defeat his opponent, in one of the more brilliant applications of Macchiavellian politics I've ever seen. By amping up advertisement to a new, epic level, Obama is forcing McCain to compete, a thing which McCain can't help himself but do. This will result in one of two options:

- McCain ponies up and blows several dozen million more dollars than he has for the national campaign instead of the electoral states. This lowers the amount he has free to spend in the electoral states, putting him at an enormous disadvantage, and soldering off his impact there. Obama can then continue to buy ads on top of the big one.

or

- McCain doesn't slap money down, and continues to focus on the swing states. This exposes his flank to attack, as suddenly Obama is advertising in all states, instead of just the swings. A half hour to attack one's opponent without the opponent being able to defend himself (as lightly as he does, regardless) is deadly in a close campaign. I can foresee several of the tighter red states flipping to blue just by dearth of "Oh, so that's what Obama is like." since McCain must win all ten swing states to win, and Obama only has to win one, this is a brilliant, epic, legendary tactic.

Now, the only disadvantage to this is that McCain will robble-robble about the "uncooperative media" and his imaginary "maverick" status, but nobody pays attention to that shit anyway.

Las Vegas is giving 9 to 1 odds that McCain wins right now. They've stopped taking bets for Obama.