Running against any other GOP candidate, the state of Arizona would be a natural battleground for Barack Obama, alongside other western states that lean towards him, like New Mexico, Colorado and Nevada. But with John McCain as the Republican nominee, a serious push to win Arizona was off the table.

Until now.

Obama’s senior aides are intrigued by several late polls that show a narrowing of the presidential contest in Arizona. Most recently, a Cronkite-Eight poll on Tuesday (for Arizona State University and the local PBS affiliate) showed the state a statistical tie, with the Arizona senator just two points ahead of Obama. That poll suggests Arizona is too close to call, with Obama making significant gains among women and independents.

The campaign is now seriously examining a late surge into the state. That may include ramping up TV advertising, on-the-ground staff, or even deploying the candidate to stop there. Obama is scheduled to make a western swing late this week, making an Arizona visit possible.

According to Pollster.com’s averages, Arizona is a six-point race in McCain’s favor, compared to Pennsylvania – McCain’s best hope of picking up a blue state – which is an 11-point race in Obama’s favor. That means Obama has more reason to travel to Arizona than McCain does to Pennsylvania, no matter how far-fetched it once seemed to try to win McCain’s home state.

Six days out, John McCain still hasn’t brought up Barack Obama’s former pastor Jeremiah Wright, but the GOP nominee appears to be ratcheting up his attack on Obama’s ties to 60s era radical Bill Ayers and, in the process, picking a fight with the media. It all started Tuesday, when the McCain campaign called on the Los Angeles Times to release a video it had mentioned in a story published last April, which described a 2003 banquet honoring Rashid Khalidi, a Columbia University professor and Palestinian scholar who has been highly critical of Israel. The story, which was about Obama’s friendships with Palestinian Americans in Chicago, quoted from a speech Obama gave at the event, in which he talked of his friendship with Khalidi. The paper reported it had viewed a videotape of the dinner provided to it by an unnamed source.

Five months after the story was published, talk of the videotape resurfaced in blogs and subsequently in a McCain campaign release yesterday calling on the paper to release the tape. McCain spokesman Michael Goldfarb accused the paper of “intentionally suppressing information that provide a clearer link” between Obama and Khalidi. “The election is one week away, and it’s unfortunate that the press so obviously favors Barack Obama that this campaign must publicly request that the Los Angeles Times do its job—make information public.”

This morning, McCain took it a step further, telling a radio station in Miami that Ayers also attended the event and implying that the Times was guilty of a double standard for not releasing the tape. “The Los Angeles Times refuses to make that videotape public,” McCain said. “I’m not in the business about talking about media bias but what if there was a tape with John McCain with a neo-Nazi outfit being held by some media outlet. I think the treatment of the issue would be slightly different.”

Less than an hour later, Sarah Palin, at a rally in Ohio, echoed the talking points. “Maybe some politicians would love to have a pet newspaper of their very own,” she said. “In this case we have a newspaper willing to throw aside even the public’s right to know in order to protect a candidate that its own editorial board has endorsed. And if there’s a Pulitzer Prize category for excelling in kowtowing, then the LA Times, you’re winning. But it’s not too late, and if there is an ounce of credibility there, if the newspaper wants to keep that shred of credibility, let alone its dignity, than I say the public has a right to know. Let’s go to the videotape, LA Times.”

It’s unclear where McCain got the information that Ayers may also be connected to the video. That detail has not been published anywhere. Asked about where the candidate had gotten the information, a McCain senior adviser talking to reporters on the plane this afternoon simply repeated the call for the Times to release the video.

For its part, the Times, in a story published today, said it had promised its source that it would not release the video. Citing criticism from the McCain camp that its decision was somehow tied to protecting Obama’s election chances, the paper pointed out that it was the first news organization to even report on the video. 'The Times is not suppressing anything," said Jamie Gold, a Times readers representative. "Just the opposite. The LA Times brought this matter to light."

Spotted in the McCain audience today in Miami: a large plastic banner that read "Stop Socialism. Vote McCain."

George W. Bush may be a no-show on the campaign trail for John McCain, but his little brother isn’t. Jeb Bush is on the stage this morning with McCain at a small rally at a lumber yard in Miami’s Little Havana. It wasn’t long ago that Jeb Bush was rumored as a possible 2008 contender, and he’s still very popular today, especially among South Florida’s Cuban community. When the former Florida governor arrived on stage this morning, the crowd on hand cheered wildly, as much (if not a little more) than they did for McCain. Also on hand today: Gov. Charlie Crist, looking VERY tan as always; and Sens. Mel Martinez, Joe Lieberman and Lindsey Graham.

McCain will be in Florida all day today before heading to Ohio this evening, where he’ll launch a statewide bus tour tomorrow. Florida is among a handful of states that voted Republican in 2004 that McCain is desperately trying to hold onto this time around. Yet McCain’s schedule here isn’t built around rallies where undecided voters will be able to see him. This morning’s event was a small ticketed event, attracting a crowd of a few hundred or so. Later, he’ll go to Tampa for a national security roundtable, and then to a so-called “Joe the Plumber” event at a sign company in West Palm Beach.

McCain aides have long said their guy won’t attract the big crowds that Barack Obama gets. (They are leaving that up to Sarah Palin.) But their strategy these final days seems to be centered on getting images of McCain on local television talking to small groups of “real” people. Indeed, the McCain campaign again played the Barack Obama as celebrity card in a new ad out today, timed to Obama’s 30-minute ad tonight set to air on TV. McCain aides felt the “celebrity” attack brought their campaign within striking distance this summer. We’ll have to see if it works again.

One of the earliest questions about Obama’s self-styled new kind of politics was how he could stay above the fray and yet still land apunch. For most of this election, his campaign has simply switched between positive and negative ads, mixing the two enough to avoid seeming too nice or too nasty.

Then there are the rare moments when the campaign manages to do something new: running a negative ad that sounds like it could be positive, as it did Wednesday.

It’s no coincidence that the hybrid ad’s subject should be something Team Obama has only approached gingerly until now: Sarah Palin. To be precise, the subject of the new ad “His Choice” is John McCain’s selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate. And its goal is to highlight both McCain’s lack of economic expertise and Palin’s lack of qualifications.

How do you do that without sounding mean? The unusual feature of the ad is that it contains no voice until Obama approves the message at the end. It has none of the spooky music associated with attack ads. Indeed the guitar and piano soundtrack to the ad is faintly upbeat.

The ad asks a lot of its audience: they have to read McCain’s quotes about his own lack of economic knowledge and his suggestion that he might pick a veep with such expertise. But the punchline is a striking visual snippet: Palin winking at the camera in the vice-presidential debate.

You might never know you’d watched a negative ad. It might not be a new kind of politics, but it is a new kind of attack ad.