Via Gateway Pundit, I missed the memo on why it’s somehow unfair to talk about Maverick’s age, especially now that he’s got a would-be VP with as terrifyingly little experience as, um, Barack Obama. Explain it to me in the comments. In the meantime, as a complement to the exchange here about Democratic disarray, enjoy Politico’s round-up tonight of liberals on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Imagine their surprise to find that a guy who built his career spouting vacant Oprah-isms like “yes, we can,” is having problems delivering a “concrete message” to voters:

A major Democratic fund-raiser described it a good bit more starkly after digesting the polls of recent days: “I’m so depressed. It’s happening again. It’s a nightmare.”Adding to Democratic restlessness, McCain has largely neutralized some issue advantages that have long favored Democrats…

Yet the latest polls – and the seeming ability of Palin to instantly transform this race – would seem to indicate that voters got no overarching message from the Obama campaign other than he is a gifted, even inspirational political performer who aspires to change the country. The economic message Obama is now scrambling to hammer home was either absent or mixed in with a variety of other topics…

Yet still, the Obama campaign seems to be struggling to find a consistent, cohesive economic message. One can understand why aides would not want to muddy his mantra of change and his image as a post-partisan, revolutionary figure. But blue-collar voters in Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia and Michigan likely won’t vote for Obama because of some meta-narrative or a series of fabulous speeches.

Exit question via John Judis: We’re all so familiar with McCain’s bio that we take it for granted, but never underestimate how little the general public pays attention to stuff like that until it’s time to vote. Could the POW tributes at the convention be what’s driving Maverick’s surge in the polls?