McCain, who has portrayed Obama as an elitist, is the son and grandson of admirals. The Associated Press estimates his wife, a beer heiress, is worth $100 million. Obama was raised by a single mother who relied at times on food stamps, and went to top schools on scholarships and loans. His income has increased from book sales since he spoke at the 2004 Democratic convention.

First, Republicans always — always — campaign by portraying the Democratic candidate as an out-of-touch elitist, while their guy is a man of the people. Al Gore grew up in a penthouse apartment! (In a shabby residence hotel, but never mind.) John Kerry windsurfs! Meanwhile, George Bush vacations at his ranch (bought as a prop for the 2000 campaign — and he doesn’t ride horses — but somehow that never got brought up.)

Protesting that the candidate is really a wonderful guy doesn’t work. Stupid as it may seem, counterattack is the only option. If the Gore campaign had gone after the fakeness of the Bush ranch, or the cronyism that made Bush rich, the world would be a different place today.

Expanding the theme, it's worth noting that the rightwing attack machine has been effective in the past because it serves a singular purpose: diminishing opponents through mockery and marginalization. Bloggers have referred to recent presidential campaigns as "genital-swinging contests" (we're using the clean version). That crude image underlines the strategy: make your opponent look small - or smaller. Shrinkage, for Seinfeld buffs. Think of how Coulter, Hannity, Limbaugh and their cohorts operate - it's all about the laughter, the joking, the snide remarks, the scoffing. It's about cutting someone down to size, making them look meek and meager.

Democrats have been stumped by the technique, missing the underlying purpose and getting sidetracked by the minutiae of the attacks. 'Rovian' is an overused adjective, but it is mistaken as a strategy of attacking an opponent's strength as an end in itself, when that's just one tactic in the larger mission of systematically belittling the opponent. Going after their strength is a logical part of reducing their stature.

Democratic/progressive attacks generally run the gamut from negative character association (X is just like Y) to policy contrasts (we can handle the economy better than X) to one-off hits and 'Macaca moments' (X flubbed the name of a country) to impugning the attacker (look how nasty my opponent is). These can be effective, particularly the latter, but they are qualitatively different from the rightwing machine's diminishment of an opponent's character. That's something that Democrats don't do as well. It's less about negative frames, contrasts, rapid response, and all the other mainstays of political strategy and more about making your opponent the butt of a joke.

Soros himself is now cautious about who he funds, refusing to act as lead donor in controversial initiatives where his presence could endanger the project's credibility. Similarly, various programs and groups are now more cautious about taking Soros's money because they're worried about the association. Thus, these projects don't get funded, and good work doesn't get done.

It's been a remarkable coup for the Right, who realized, in 2004, that Soros was readying to step up as an aggressive liberal donor and politicized his money so effectively that he couldn't fully inhabit his role in the liberal fundraising universe. It's been an extraordinarily effective effort to starve edgy initiatives of funding. Conversely, liberals have never put much energy into marginalizing conservative donors. If you called something Olin-funded, or Coors-funded, people would scratch their heads. Sheldon Adelson, the gambling tycoon who's pumping tens of millions into the right wing advocacy group Freedom's Watch, isn't even a household name among liberal political professionals. Yet Soros, who spent most of his life funding democratization efforts in the post-Soviet bloc, is somehow radioactive. It's nuts.