The Whites of Their Eyes

Mark Thoma wonders what's going on:

Then here’s the question. Why hasn’t the Obama campaign opened their Christmas gifts and made use of them? Why haven’t they gone after McCain’s “disgrace” remark regarding Social Security? Have they said anything at all about that? Why haven’t they hammered away at some of his statements and the inconsistencies surrounding them about carve-out privatization plans? Will they do anything with the implication identified above that McCain must be planning to cut benefits? Why so much silence from the Obama campaign on the Social Security issue?

He's not the only one. All I'd observe is that I recall Obama supporters having very similar sentiments about Obama's campaign against Hillary Clinton about 12 months ago. People wanted to see hard-hitting attacks and they were disappointed. Attacks came eventually, of course, but not until substantially later. And beyond that, the attacks mostly came as counterpunching efforts, a kind of judo. Now maybe this means that Obama's team has a brilliant strategy of patience that they're implementing. Or maybe it means that they made the wrong decision last summer and wound up getting lucky and winning anyway by accident and have no learned the wrong lessons.