Mark Halperin lists fifteen ways that John McCain underestimates Barack Obama. Halperin doesn't offer any concrete insight into McCain's campaign, however, so who knows whether McCain is really that blind. But many of Halperin's points do seem relevant, in particular his point #3 is particularly apt:

3. The inherent difficulty/sensitivity of running against two figures at once. McCain will have to 1) explicitly criticize a sitting Republican president before Republican audiences and 2) prevent the historic event of electing the nation’s first African-American president that many in the country (and the media) desire.

It occurs to me that there's a relatively painless solution to this problem: don't criticize Bush/Cheney, just criticize Cheney. He's the real lightning rod in the administration, the most powerful vice president in our nation's history.

(via RCP.)