... Obama has run a rather standard Democratic campaign, largely obeisant to party constituencies and allergic to difficult choices. Run it brilliantly, yes, but not with much more than a passing hint of the new politics he envisions. Better angels, it seems, do not make the best campaign strategists.

Accepting his party's nomination in Denver, Obama decried the use of "stale tactics to scare voters." A few weeks later, he was airing ads warning that John McCain wanted to privatize Social Security and would slash seniors' benefits almost in half. You can't get much staler than that.

Certainly, John McCain did not shy away from the cheap shot or the divisive argument; the palling-around-with-terrorists, Obama-as-socialist themes were not the elevated campaign that he, too, pledged to run.

I don't blame Obama for responding in kind as much as I bristle at his simultaneous posture that he is above that sort of gutter politics. Even more, I question his assumption that the pressures that led him to such campaign tactics will somehow melt away after the election.