The Thrill Is Gone Along With The Ethics

It seems like B. Obama is having some trouble in Wisconsin.

GREEN BAY, Wis. — Hoping to shore up support in his suddenly undependable backyard, Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama flew here Monday to talk about how he’d handle economic crises as president.

Recent polls have shown that Wisconsin — once pretty solidly in Obama’s column — is now a statistical dead heat between Obama and Republican John McCain.

“You all know that you hold this election in your hands,” Sen. Russ Feingold, a Democrat who said he worked on ethics legislation with Obama, told a crowd of about 6,000 cheering Obama fans in the arena next to Lambeau Field. “We just barely won this state for Al Gore in 2000 and we just barely won this state for John Kerry in 2004.”

The numbers in Wisconsin and Minnesota are getting close enough that the Obama campaign closed its 11 campaign offices in North Dakota and moved the 50 staffers there to these two states.

Just a week ago, John McCain and his vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin — who can bring out crowds the way Obama can — appeared in this same stadium, Resch Center, to a crowd of 10,000 fans. There were an uncharacteristic amount of empty orange seats for Obama’s rally.

Well Wisconsin and Minnesota are not his only trouble spots. He looks to be having trouble in Michigan [pdf] as well. And yet according to today's Real Clear Politics Obama is up 2.5% in the vote nationally and up 8 votes in the Electoral College.

What do I attribute the shift to? McCain ads tying Obama to Jim Johnson and a bunch of Unsavory Characters and The Crooks from Cook County (Chicago) and The Housing Problem and Higher Taxes and The Detroit Mayor and Franklin Raines are beginning to bite.

And Obama working on ethics legislation? I'd say ethics was the core of his problem.