On a similar theme, Michael Crowley writes in response to this LA Times article on Obama:

I sympathize with Obama’s desire to “elevate” politics but unfortunately I just don’t think it generally works. Certainly not the way he’s been doing it. Readers of, say, Matt Yglesias may thrill over swipes at the “conventional” DC foreign policy establishment.  But I suspect the only way Obama is going to get real traction with voters is if he’s willing to go after her character–on questions of trust and honesty.

It would also help him if his swipes at the “conventional” DC foreign policy establishment were supported by his actually charting out what an “unconventional” foreign policy would look like in some way that didn’t draw praise from the likes of Kagan, Giuliani and The Wall Street Journal.  In any case, trying to “elevate” politics clearly does not do much to elevate one’s poll numbers beyond a core constituency of true believers. 

Update: Via The Caucus, we can see that the random Obama supporter, Tod, who introduces the Senator is actually much more forceful in his criticism of Clinton than is Obama.  The Caucus post also points out that Obama’s latest Social Security-related ad is supposed to be an attack on Clinton, but the attack is so indirect and subtle that only people who already know Clinton’s position could decipher it as a criticism.