A number of McCain campaign aides, close associates and anonymous sources from within the GOP machine have in the past 48 hours confirmed that the war is on. There won’t be any backing down; anything they can find or make up to hurt Obama, will be used. That strategy holds a big risk for the 72 year old.

When he tried the same approach, about three weeks ago, he got chastised for spouting discredited lies by not only the Obama campaign, but also the press. But it worked; Obama’s numbers started going down, McCain’s went up – and then the financial meltdown happened, upsetting the McCain game plan.

So now he’s going to go back on the attack, but with a true vengeance. Palin started today, raking up Obama’s old connections to some people. Except for Jeremiah Wright, no subjects are off-limits. But McCain had better be careful still, because there’s a new risk involved.

By now, with only a month before Election Day, voters are deciding on their choice, and they’re now adding the ‘is my candidate of choice presidential material’ question.

Bill Clinton knows how incredibly important it is to come across as being stable, cool, not worried. It makes you look presidential. That’s what he told Barack Obama during that lunch, about a month ago: “Act like a president.” And that Obama did during his first debate with McCain. The latter continuously attacked Obama and the pundits thought McCain had won the night.

But the voters didn’t think so. All the polls after the debate showed that Obama had not only clearly won the debate, but he’d also…surprised them by coming across as ‘presidential material’.

So he is viable. Presidential.

McCain has been trying to shape himself as presidential material as well – his stunt to suspend his campaign and go to Washington a day later because of the financial crisis, was evidence of that.

But now McCain is in danger of putting himself in a position he can’t get out of. That of being seen as an aggressive idiot, a screamer who spouts lies and slanders people.

That’s not perceived as being very ‘presidential’ by many people.

Still, and judging from what happened in 2000 and 2004, former Bush campaign aide Steve Schmidt, who now runs McCain’s campaign,  and given that many voters are susceptible to believing lies, McCain might get away with it.

Oral info? Anonymous sources? Three of them Democrats, one Republican…? I’m a reporter myself, by trade. And this is what I call ‘skating on thin ice’.

Today, Team McCain blasts the Grey Lady, and categorically denies the story, and — what’s more — it says it can prove that the newspaper of record is wrong. It also calls out the newspaper, demanding that it show the world its evidence.

Now, the people running The New York Times are not stupid. Or so I should hope. So I’m assuming that the editors feared that this would happen, and that they have documented evidence to back up their accusation, which they will publish within hours. Otherwise, one would think, they would never have published it.

So. Let’s hope, for the Grey Lady’s sake, that the editors weren’t stupid. Because if they botch this, they will have lost all credibility.

The AP writer thrashes McCain’s mudslinging of the past days. The problem: McCain was a target of mudslinging in 2000, when his then-rival George W. Bush started an outrageous slander campaign against him. So McCain took the moral high ground and said that he’d never engage in such a campaign himself.

But now he’s doing it to Obama, and McCain’s not showing any remorse over it. He thought he could get away with it, but the AP-story is just the first big one to change the narrative about the McCain campaign: from simply being an information broker, dishing out McCain’s mud, it switched to writing about the candidate’s campaign, and the mud and lies involved.

Others, such as Halperin but also the Washington Post, the New York Times, Politico.com, ABC News’s Jake Tapper and even the Wall Street Journal, have also wondered about the direction McCain’s campaign has taken. Until now, they’ve only mentioned it as asides – a few lines in paragraphs, down below at the end of big stories – but in today’s news business, it could snowball to gigantic proportions within hours.

And they’d have a point.

Because there is an element which the Associated Press writer doesn’t mention in his article (which he should have), but which is probably troubling him and other reporters. As a news organisation manned by professional journalists, you want to do your utmost to bring neutral, objective facts. If anything, the facts you are reporting must be correct.

So it is harrowing when a candidate for office – who demands that you also report his side of the story – purposely feeds you with lies about his opponent, and stands by those lies, even if it has been established publicly that they are, in fact, lies. Because at that moment, the reporters feel that they’ve been scammed, and that their medium is being used to spread lies, mud and deceit. Readers might feel the same way and start looking badly on the news media in question.

His mudslinging could potentially backlash mightily on McCain. As a politician, journalists are never your friends, That’s a fact. But it is also unwise to make them your enemies.

If McCain’s conducting of his campaign becomes the narrative the next news cycles, he’s in real trouble because that could potentially wipe out the advances he made in the past week.

Like I said, every four years. But this year’s voter vintage seems exceptionally stupid.

Honestly, you can approximately tell half of the voters anything you want, and they’ll believe you. If a politician says that his opponent wants to raise your taxes? Believe him. Don’t check it, don’t go onto the internet, and by all means, don’t read a newspaper. The guy who said it was wearing a suit, right? And he was on TV, right? Well, then it’s gotta be true, Bubba!

Don’t believe it? Think I’m being too harsh on your average American voter? They’re “not stupid!” you scream as you sit there in front of your screen, foaming while your arms flail in utter disgust at the remarks above? Well, read this informative excerpt from the Washington Post:

A Washington Post-ABC News poll taken Sept. 5 to Sept. 7 found that 51 percent of voters think Obama would raise their taxes, even though his plan would actually cut taxes for the overwhelming majority of Americans. Obama has proposed eliminating income taxes on seniors making less than $50,000 a year, but 41 percent of those seniors say their income taxes would go up in an Obama administration.

I don’t know about you, but I was flabbergasted. At least we now know why the Republicans are always doing their best to destroy the education system – they want more of those stupid idiots!

So. As I said. You can make voters believe anything you want. And Team McCain knows it. The Republicans have been winning elections this way for years. Of course, it does mean that you end up with people like George W. Bush at the helm.

I’m beginning to think that the country deserves another 4 years of disaster.