A round-up of this morning's must-read stories.

LOTS OF FIREWORKS, LITTLE MEAT
(James Rainey, Los Angeles Times)
My colleagues at Yahoo News and the Associated Press bring you this blockbuster in time for the holiday weekend: Americans would rather have Barack Obama than John McCain at their summer cookout. Yes, an online sample of 1,759 adults crowned Obama the weenie-roast king, 52% to 45%. With all the drivel fouling the campaign trail of late, I'm surprised the preferred barbecue guest wasn't "Neither." They don't have do-overs in the campaign season. But if they did, this is a week that would merit one. There was no real news -- just barely news and almost news. The mainstream media avoided some of it. But the rest found a place, partly because the Internet always has room, partly because the candidates are always ready to fill it. 

IS BARACK A TYPICAL POL?
(Noam Scheiber, New Republic)
McCain abruptly made the contrast between his honor and Obama's cynicism the central theme of his campaign. "For John McCain, country first is how he has lived his life," read a "memo" released by strategist Steve Schmidt last Thursday. "We have seen Barack Obama forced to choose between principle and the interests of himself and his party. He has always chosen the latter."... To which the proper response for an Obama supporter should be: Right on! John McCain may win the contest over "who is willing to put principle above personal ambition and self-interest," as Rove wrote in last Thursday's Wall Street Journal. But that contest will have very little to do with who wins this fall's election. The easiest way to see this is to consider one of the most persistent poll results of the campaign so far: The percentage of voters who identify themselves as Democrats is eight to 15 points higher than the percentage who identify as Republicans. Even if the GOP were to somehow convince Americans that Obama was typical, they would have to paint McCain as phenomenally atypical to overcome this disadvantage.

THE FLIP-FLOP FALLACY
(Jonathan Chait, New Republic)
I think McCain's strategy is a little more potent than Noam gives it credit for. First, bad press is bad press. Noam argues that McCain is hitting Obama with the wrong line of attack, but the bottom line is that McCain's painting of Obama as a flip-flopper is producing a lot of skeptical coverage of Obama. Maybe it's not the exact kind of skeptical coverage that would be most damaging to Obama. But skeptical coverage of Obama of any sort is preferable for McCain to positive or neutral coverage of Obama. If people are reading or watching critical reports about Obama, they're going to think less of him. Second, I think a "flip-flopper" image is extremely damaging no matter what the general circumstances. A politician's perceived trustworthiness is the basic platform for his entire message. If the voters don't trust him, then they tend to discount everything he says about any topic at all. Noam says the more damaging accusation against Obama is that he's not "one of us." I agree. But if voters don't trust him, then they won't believe him when he explains that he's a Christian who really does love America. So the "flip-flopper" label, if it sinks in, can leech into other issues.

THE CANDIDATES AS HIGH-ROLLERS
(Michael Scherer and Michael Weisskopf, Time)
The casino craps player is a social animal, a thrill seeker who wants not just to win but to win with a crowd. Unlike cards or a roulette wheel, well-thrown dice reward most everyone on the rail, yielding a collective yawp that drowns out the slots. It is a game for showmen, Hollywood stars and basketball legends with girls on their arms. It is also a favorite pastime of the presumptive Republican nominee for President, John McCain. The backroom poker player, on the other hand, is more cautious and self-absorbed. Card games may be social, but they are played in solitude. No need for drama. The quiet card counter is king, and only a novice banks on luck. In this game, a good bluff trumps blind faith, and the studied observer beats the showman. So it is fitting that the presumptive Democratic nominee, Barack Obama, raked in so many pots in his late-night games with political friends. For centuries, the nation's political leaders have loved their games of chance... But even among this crowd, McCain and Obama are distinctive. For both men, games of chance have been not just a hobby but also a fundamental feature in their development as people and politicians. For Obama, weekly poker games with lobbyists and fellow state senators helped cement his position as a rising star in Illinois politics. For McCain, jaunts to the craps table helped burnish his image as a political hot dog who relished the thrill of a good fight, even if the risk of failure was high.

OBAMA, MCCAIN VIEW MOUNTAIN STATES AS PIVOTAL
(Amy Chozick and Elizabeth Holmes, Wall Street Journal)
Speaking near the foot of the Rocky Mountains, Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama pledged to create new incentives to motivate Americans to serve their country. His campaign has laid out a more-pressing proposal: to defeat John McCain in the Republican-leaning Mountain states. Although these states account for a small portion of electoral votes, they could make the difference in a tight race. Both presidential hopefuls have made the West a focus of their general-election strategies, with a particular emphasis on Nevada, New Mexico and Colorado, states with independent-minded voters who have mostly mostly gone Republican in recent elections.

A DOSE OF DISCIPLINE FOR MCCAIN'S CAMPAIGN
(Mike Allen and Jonathan Martin, Politico)
The Sergeant has been promoted. Whenever Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) needed an answer to a political question during long days on buses and planes with reporters during the GOP primary, he would turn to a linebacker of a campaign adviser. “Sergeant Schmidt?” McCain would ask with an impish grin, turning to the cueball-headed, barrel-chested Steve Schmidt for input. Often, Schmidt, his gaze set on his BlackBerry and his thumb relentlessly working its trackball, would barely look up when grunting his answer. In turn, McCain would threaten his serious, unsmiling and on-message senior adviser with demotion to corporal. Now, though, a year to the day after he laid off dozens of staffers in the campaign’s first major shakeup, McCain has again turned to his favorite NCO, giving Schmidt a battlefield promotion to commanding general at a moment when his campaign needed another dose of discipline... During a meeting at the Bush reelection campaign, senior adviser Karl Rove gave him the nickname “Bullet” because of his bald head and because of his seemingly lethal impact. But despite his intimidating visage, Schmidt has inspired a legion of 20- and 30-something loyalists who’ve learned dawn-to-midnight, smashmouth politics at his knee.

OBAMA PICKS UP FUNDRAISING PACE
(Michael Luo and Christopher Drew, New York Times)
In the wake of Senator Barack Obama’s decision last month to bypass public financing for the general election, his campaign is embarking on a spree of pricey fund-raising events across the country. As Mr. Obama shattered fund-raising records over the last year and a half and collected nearly $300 million, much of the attention has been on his army of small contributors over the Internet. He cited that broad base of small-dollar donors in justifying his decision to reverse his pledge to take part in the public financing system if his opponent did as well. But Mr. Obama’s stepped-up schedule of big-money fund-raisers — the campaign has more than a dozen events planned over the next two weeks — showcases a formidable high-dollar donor network that is gaining more heft with an influx of former supporters of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton.

MORE: Can Barack Buy the Presidency? (Karl Rove, Wall Street Journal)
Mr. Obama has used his money advantage to launch the air war. Starting June 20, Mr. Obama spent $4.3 million for 10 days of a televised, biographical ad covering 18 states. Mr. McCain countered on Monday with roughly $2.1 million for a week of ads in 11 states. Mr. Obama has now volleyed back, expanding his buy to 21 states for two additional weeks at a cost of $15 million – half for his original bio ad and half for a new ad on welfare reform. But early television may not be as smart as it appears. Is it wise for Mr. Obama to spend almost as much on ads in three weeks in July as he raised in May? His fund raising peaked in February. June's fund-raising numbers, due in mid-July, will show whether his current pace of spending can be sustained. And TV becomes less effective in a general election, since so much free media attention is focused on the presidential candidates, whose actions have a larger impact than ads... Mr. Obama may be overreaching by running ads in North Carolina, Georgia, South Carolina, Indiana, Nebraska, Montana, Alaska and North Dakota – states Republicans won by comfortable margins in recent years. It would require a shift of between one-sixth and over one-quarter of the vote to win any of them. Shifts that large rarely happen.

MCCAIN WORKS THE ROOM, ONE TOWN HALL AT A TIME
(Bob Drogin, Los Angeles Times)
More than any major-party candidate in modern times, McCain is relying on low-key question-and-answer sessions, rather than boisterous rallies and set speeches, as the linchpin of his campaign."It's never been done before, so no one knows if it will work," said Todd Harris, a Republican strategist who served as spokesman for McCain's unsuccessful 2000 presidential bid. "But we've never had a candidate like John McCain." Aides and supporters say the freewheeling sessions showcase the Arizona senator as a straight-talking candidate who is an expert on policy issues and ready to be president. It also lets him display a sense of humor that, they admit, is more appealing than his formal speeches, which can sound stilted. Even some GOP leaders have panned his delivery. Working the room like a lounge act, McCain clearly enjoys the banter and the intellectual challenge of mixing it up with voters. Although many supporters lob softballs, McCain also engages with critics and cranks in the crowd... That worries some supporters. They say McCain's unstructured sessions often overshadow efforts to communicate a single, clear message each day. Worse, they fear, the routine events now only produce national news when he makes an error. Indeed, McCain has made his worst gaffes during town hall meetings.

OBAMA DRAWS ON LESSONS FROM CHICAGO STREETS TO PROPEL CAMPAIGN
(Indira A.R. Lakshmanan, Bloomberg News)
When Barack Obama launched his presidential campaign, he called his three years as a community organizer in Chicago in the 1980s ``the best education I ever had.'' He's putting those lessons to good use in his drive for the White House, say many of those who worked with him then. The same tactics Obama honed in mobilizing people to agitate for neighborhood improvements he's now using to draw millions of volunteers and voters to his campaign. His experiences with a church-based group also helped shape his views on individual responsibility and the role of government, according to dozens of people who knew him 20 years ago. "The idea he expresses now, that people are linked by a common purpose'' is an effort to transfer those lessons `"from a neighborhood to a nation,'' says Mike Kruglik, 66, who trained Obama and worked with him from 1985 to 1988. Obama, 46, an Illinois senator and the presumed Democratic presidential nominee, often cites his days organizing people in the shadow of shuttered steel mills as evidence he understands grassroots activism and to underline his distrust of bureaucracies. The setting for his political education was Chicago's South Side, a sprawling expanse of predominantly black and economically depressed communities.