Playing the party card against Obama

GREEN BAY, Wis. -- Polls have repeatedly shown that if Barack Obama has a problem in this campaign year, it's his personal qualities: he does worse with voters than a generic Democrat would. Obama is a charismatic party frontman less poplar than the banner he carries.

McCain, however, is now working not to further separate Obama from his fellow Democrats but tie him to them more directly. "His idea of reform is what his party leaders in Congress order him to do," McCain said twice today, first in Cedar Rapids and later in an evening rally here. He referred to "bosses…who give Senator Obama his marching orders."

It's a fine line for McCain, who recently aired an ad linking Obama to leaders of his party's Senate caucus: Democrats are popular, but Congress broadly is not. Will it work to mock Obama as a puppet of the party voters trust more?