“The issue of economics is not something I’ve understood as well as I should,” McCain said months ago. “I’ve got Greenspan’s book.”

Greenspan --- who some put the blame on for the current economic crisis. He has his book. No wonder McCain is avoiding issues.

The Wisconsin Advertising Project (WiscAds), which since 1998, has undertaken "research initiatives to document how candidates, political parties and special interest groups communicate with voters," issued a press release (.PDF) covering ads from the period from Sept. 28-Oct. 4.

During the week of September 28-October 4, nearly 100 percent of the McCain campaign’s advertisements were negative. During the same period, 34 percent of the Obama campaign’s ads were negative.

It has been said that when a politician is out of ideas and is desperate for whatever votes they can muster, they go negative. The more desperate, the more negative. What does this say about McCain?

And, as we reflect on a President none can call a "brain trust," and consider a nominee who cannot operate a computer, consider the words of conservative, yes, conservative David Brooks:

Obama has the great intellect. I was interviewing Obama a couple years ago, and I'm getting nowhere with the interview, it's late in the night, he's on the phone, walking off the Senate floor, he's cranky. Out of the blue I say, 'Ever read a guy named Reinhold Niebuhr?' And he says, 'Yeah.' So i say, 'What did Niebuhr mean to you?' For the next 20 minutes, he gave me a perfect description of Reinhold Niebuhr's thought, which is a very subtle thought process based on the idea that you have to use power while it corrupts you. And I was dazzled, I felt the tingle up my knee as Chris Matthews would say.

And lest you think Obama is a pure intellectual, as some accused John Kerry of being, which inevitably hurt his campaign in terms of the common man, Brooks continues:

And the other thing that does separate Obama from just a pure intellectual: he has tremendous powers of social perception. And this is why he's a politician, not an academic. A couple of years ago, I was writing columns attacking the Republican congress for spending too much money. And I throw in a few sentences attacking the Democrats to make myself feel better. And one morning I get an email from Obama saying, 'David, if you wanna attack us, fine, but you're only throwing in those sentences to make yourself feel better.' And it was a perfect description of what was going through my mind. And everybody who knows Obama all have these stories to tell about his capacity for social perception.

High praise from the opposition. It is clear why McCain has abandoned substantive campaigning for negativity. It appears his own party is jumping ship.