The Obama campaign really does seem to be in a weird Hillaryesque Twilight Zone, the laws of which don’t allow the candidate to get out of the way of his own bad luck. The McCain-as-Luddite meme has been circulating for months and months, and no one dug up the evidence about McCain’s injuries prohibiting him from using a computer. That is until Obama decided to pick up on the meme and have a little fun with it.

But these bad luck spells don’t come out of nowhere. The lipstick comment escaped Obama’s mouth because he’s been utterly rattled, and this ad was intended as a much-needed battery recharge for a campaign sinking beneath the weight of its own seriousness. As such, they went with a silly and popular charge (promoted mostly by the Beagle Blogger, by the way) and got burned when venturing into new territory.