NEW OBAMA AD, GEORGIA, NO MORE MR. MAVERICK, CONVENTION KEYNOTE SCHEDULE

The Obama campaign, which just this morning rolled out a new television ad that, according to a statement from the campaign, “addresses the numerous ways in which the special interests in Washington have embraced John McCain and how McCain has hugged right back.” It calls him a Washington celebrity, using clips of the senator’s appearances on late-night talk shows in an obvious ploy by the Obama campaign to turn that celebrity-label back at the opponent.

As the conflict between Russia and Georgia escalates both candidates also spent the weekend refining their positions on the situation.

In a television ad last week, the McCain campaign touted the presumptive Republican nominee as “the original maverick,” but the Los Angeles Times’s Nicholas Riccardi and Maeve Reston see larger issues for Mr. McCain, whose maverick status has lately been called into question:

This debate over McCain’s maverick-ness reflects a new challenge in his second bid for the presidency: the dilution of the McCain brand. To win the GOP primary this year, McCain embraced party dogma in ways big and small, from switching his opposition to President Bush’s tax cuts, which he had criticized as skewed to the rich, to making amends with religious leaders he once denounced as “agents of intolerance.”

The campaign has also undercut McCain’s image as a straight-talker by dramatically limiting the national media’s access to the candidate, who once charmed reporters and voters alike with his easy, free-wheeling, common-man conversational style on his campaign bus.

Convention Update: The Democratic Party has announced some of the keynote speakers at the Democratic National Convention later this month. They include Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, former President Bill Clinton, and Michelle Obama, who will speak on the convention’s opening night.