Last week, McCain and Obama traded barbs over the Iraq war. McCain first derided Obama for voting against the war supplemental, then Obama called out McCain for his farcical pronouncement that Baghdad is secure, and McCain finally ended the exchange by smugly correcting the Obama team's spelling of "fla[c]k jacket."

Mitt Romney's campaign just sent out an e-mail comparing his agenda with Barack Obama's. The obvious question is, why? Does Obama really engender greater anger or fear with the Republican base than Hillary Clinton?

This would seem to be a big boost for Obama, who, as far as I can tell, has done nothing in the past two weeks to so suddenly become the Democratic foil of choice.

The easy answer is that Both Romney and Obama published articles in Foreign Affairs this month, but Romney could just have easily compared his article with the policy speeches of others had he wanted to.

And interestingly, most of the excerpts of Obama's article that the Romney campaign highlights in its e-mail aren't particularly controversial, except with a very small part of the Republican base. In fact, what Romney points out in Obama's piece seems moderate, sensible, and, to put it bluntly, not particularly far-reaching.

Needless to say, in the middle of the Democratic primary, the attention from Republicans bodes well for the Obama campaign.

I've copied the e-mail into my full post over at The Washington Note. I do plan to read the articles and reflect on anything I see as notable in either one.

Scott Paul