Obama Passes Over Hillary Clinton With Snub Biden Pick

A big development this morning is the McCain campaign's release of a brilliant new ad buy hammering Barack Obama for passing over Hillary Clinton as running mate:

NARRATOR: She won millions of votes.

But isn't on his ticket.

Why?

For speaking the truth.

On his plans:

HILLARY CLINTON: "You never hear the specifics."

NARRATOR: On the Rezko scandal:

HILLARY CLINTON: "We still don't have a lot of answers about Senator Obama."

NARRATOR: On his attacks:

HILLARY CLINTON: "Senator Obama's campaign has become increasingly Negative."

NARRATOR: The truth hurt.

And Obama didn't like it.

JOHN MCCAIN: I'm John McCain and I approved this message.

The New York Times and the Washington Post have stories. McCain's targeting the gender vote still smarting at the perceived sexism of the primaries (Rassmussen finds women in general less than thrilled with the selection of Joe Biden as Democratic running mate).

This morning's commercial is the latest in McCain's smart aggressiveness hoping to blunt any positive bounce for Obama during the Democrats' big week in Denver. Yesterday, the campaign released a spot showing Biden saying he'd be honored to serve with John McCain "because I think the country would be better off."

Friday the campaign published a strategy press release predicting a 15 percentage-point convention bounce of Obama (floating high expectations).

On top of all this, of course, will be McCain's strategically-timed vice-presidential announcement. Planned for August 29, the day after Obama's INVESCO triumph-of-the-will acceptance speech, a solid veep selection for the GOP will tamp down public enthusiasm for the Democrats and shift the campaign narrative back to Obama's failure to pull out a big lead in public opinion.

Latest polling shows the presidential horse race holding steady. Today's Washington Post poll, conducted before the announcement of Biden as running mate, has Obama up four points among likely voters, which is just a little better than the rolling average we've seen this last couple of weeks.

The selection of Biden does little to help Obama in public opinion. On top of that, Biden's selection has enraged top Clinton advisors, so Tuesday night's Hillary Clinton speech to the delegates may be one of the most consequential turning points in this campaign.