“…as Clinton and Obama peck away at one another over honesty, patriotism and race and the like, John McCain is quietly resting, raising money, staging gauzy ‘biography’ events and laying out campaign positions to little criticism from a distracted left,” wrote Michael Crowley in the UK Observer on Sunday. “And the Republicans are laying the groundwork for the same cynical but deadly brand of politics that has kept them in the White House for eight years.”

Obama the hypocrite: As the Senator’s campaign train wound from one speech where he denounced tit-for-tat politics to the next speech where he denounced tit-for-tat politics, his campaign hosted a conference call to engage in the practice the candidate was busy denouncing. I suppose it would have been an even greater act of chutzpah for the Obama campaign to host the conference call while Sen. Obama was denouncing that kind of behavior, but not much more of one. — John Dickerson, Slate

McCain employs the Lindsay pamphlet technique:  John McCain’s campaign sent supporters a fundraising e-mail Friday that claims Hamas approves of Democrat Barack Obama’s foreign policy vision, and is hoping for his victory this fall. “Barack Obama’s foreign policy plans have even won him praise from Hamas leaders,” writes McCain deputy campaign manager Christian Ferry. “Ahmed Yousef, chief political adviser to the Hamas Prime Minister said, ‘We like Mr. Obama and we hope he will win the election. He has a vision to change America.’” The McCain fundraising e-mail says Obama’s stands have earned him “kind words” from Hamas. — CNN Political Ticker

Too late for Clinton: If it is too late for Clinton, 60, to turn the race around, she has only herself to blame, according to Karl Rove, the architect of George W Bush’s two presidential election victories. Democrats regard him as the master of the art of negative campaigning. “Her problem is not the attack on Obama, it is the timing,” he told The Sunday Times. “She was complacent at the beginning and took him for granted.” — Sarah Baxter, The Times UK

Rock the vote: Unlike their Boomer parents – those millions of 50- and 60-something activists born of protest and conflict who accept politics as a blood sport – the younger generation has come of age in an era of burgeoning new technologies providing tangible evidence of the promise of change. “Unlike the conservative Gen-Xers who preceded them, or the harshly divided Baby Boomer Generation, the Millennials are united across gender and race in their desire to find win-win solutions to America’s problems,” Winograd and Hais write. — San Francisco Chronicle

Step up Bama: The thorny questions Obama got in the debate were absolutely predictable, yet he seemed utterly unprepared and annoyed by them. He did not do well for the same reason he failed to outmaneuver Hillary in a year’s worth of debates: he disdains the convention, the need for sound bites and witty flick-offs and game-changing jabs. He needs to be less philosophical and abstract, and more visceral and personal. Some of the topics he acted dismissive about are real things on the minds of many Americans. — Maureen Dowd, New York Times