Not surprisingly, the Ayers attacks don’t appear to have worked. You can argue it’s because McCain wasn’t comfortable enough with them, or if only he’d been more full-throated–and included Wright–it would have made a difference. I doubt it. Attacking Ayers had to be just a cog in a much larger case against Obama (we tried to outline it here). Now people like Dick Morris seem to think linking Acorn and Obama will make a huge difference. Acorn obviously deserves all the obloquy being heaped on it (see our editorial here), but I can’t see many people voting on the issue. People are focused on the financial crisis, and unless/until McCain has a compelling, future-oriented message and program on the economy, nothing else is going to help him much. Check out this post from Ben Smith. A Republican consultant wrote him about a focus group where he aired an incredibly harsh anti-Obama spot that everyone in the room believed–but it still didn’t matter. Here’s a quote from one woman in the focus group: “Well, I don’t know much about this terrorist group Barack used to be in with that Weather guy but I’m sick of paying for health insurance at work and that’s why I’m supporting Barack.”