A perfect summation of why the standard Republican attack of fear and smear are not going to work this time can be found in this post at dKos.  The Obama campaign has framed the change issue so precisely that the GOP’s use of the same-old fear and smear will seem like the pathetic last howls of the dinosaur sinking into the muck.

In this post, the blogger is addressing a Democratic representative in Oklahoma who won’t endorse Obama because he’s “ultra-liberal”.  Some Dems just have to run from the “liberal” tag, especially in places like Oklahoma, because they’ve been beaten with it in scary attack ads that paint liberals as bogeymen threatening unknown terrible consequences - gasp - and raising your taxes!

So what is to fear from this dreaded “ultra-liberal”?

Daily Kos: State of the Nation
What, will he start some wars? Will the economy go to hell? Will gasoline suddenly cost four bucks a gallon, so that getting from one end of town to the other starts to be something you have to plan for in your family budget? Oh, wait, no — that’s what conservatism has wrought. So what big, scary menace will “liberalism” rain down upon us all?

The horror of free public education? The apocalypse of affordable healthcare for families and the elderly? An energy policy that consists of something other than “hell, let’s just sit on our asses and see what happens”? My God, maybe we’ll have a foreign policy that doesn’t revolve around sucking thousands of dollars out of your constituents’ pockets, lighting all that money on fire, and using the pyre to make super-special Democracy Smores in the middle of the Iraqi desert?

What, are we afraid less American soldiers will die? That our trade deficit will be, if not reversed, at least addressed? Are Oklahomans all huddled in their closets, lest some of the now-legions of outsourced jobs start reappearing in their towns? What? What is it that is so absolutely alarming about the word “liberal” that you’d rather stomach having everything that’s happened to America for the past decade continue, rather than being seen as someone who might secretly have tolerance for, shudder, that word?