The primaries are still under way, and Sen. Hillary Clinton is still very much in the Democratic race. But Tuesday night in Madison, Wis., Sen. Barack Obama in effect launched his side of the general election campaign he fully expects to wage in November. Speaking in a key swing state, he declared the advent of "The New American Majority" he had first envisioned in a speech in New Hampshire, and launched into his most extensive, prime-time attack yet on the likely Republican nominee, Sen. John McCain. (Obama had begun that pivot two days ago, when it became clear that he was going to win the Potomac Primary.) On Tuesday night, Hillary was all but forgotten in Obamaland.

Before a roaring crowd of 17,000, Obama slipped McCain into the slot that had been reserved for Clinton for months--the one about representing the past, not the future. The Illinois senator attacked McCain on the war in Iraq (the 100-year pledge) and his recent fealty to George Bush's tax cuts. "The Straight Talk Express lost its wheels!" Obama said.

The moment he finished, the cable networks switched to McCain's victory speech in Northern Virginia. Maybe the fall campaign won’t be framed in terms of "future and past," but at first glance, at least visually, it sure looked that way.
 
A new rule of politics should be: never speak after Obama, especially after Obama electrifies a rally. And yet McCain showed how feisty he is, and what a formidable foe he could be as he pledged a strong defense of the country's security. "We are the makers of history, not its victims," McCain declared.

Then McCain took on Obama directly, focusing on the Democrat’s signature obsession with the idea of hope. "Hope is a powerful thing," said McCain, but there is no hope in "rhetoric rather than sound ideas. That's not a not a promise of hope, it's a platitude." McCain seemed to dismiss Obama as a callow narcissist without mentioning his name. "I don't seek the presidency on the presumption that I am blessed with such personal greatness that history has anointed me.

"I am fired up and ready to go!" he concluded, stealing one of Obama's signature lines.

Game on.