MORNING READ

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R) has helped close the gap in enthusiasm between supporters of Barack Obama and John McCain, according to bloggers who attended a McCain-Palin campaign event. To push back against Palin and McCain, Obama should show outrage and use their own attacks against them, according to liberal bloggers. But while Palin is dominating the news, Obama’s running mate, Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.), has done little to help his ticket, conservative bloggers write.

At a campaign rally in Virginia, thousands, many wearing Palin shirts and carrying signs, turned out to see the Republican ticket, notes Mark Hemingway at The Corner. The word of the day was, ironically, “hope,” as in Palin has given Republicans hope that they’ll win this year, writes The Corner’s Byron York. After Palin left for Alaska, McCain had a tough time by himself at a Philadelphia event, which was cut short because of protests, reports Jason Szep on Reuters’s Tales From The Trail.

To undermine Republican attacks, Democrats should actually embrace the “lipstick on a pig” idiom and use it to describe McCain and Palin’s campaign, which talks about reform but is run by lobbyists, writes TalkingPointsMemo’s Josh Marshall. Just as McCain has mocked a $3.2 million earmark for seal DNA, the Alaska office of his running mate, Palin, has requested that money, notes MyDD’s Josh Orton. Obama should release his “righteous rage” about McCain and President Bush, according to Arianna Huffington, whose site lists all the economic and foreign policy woes facing the country despite the campaign focus on