This post is for serious election nerds only. (You know you’re obsessed with the elections, when you not only read an obscure news story but also feel compelled to write about it)

I just read this story by the AP. An anonymous source close to the Obama camp leaked a story to the AP reporters: Apparently, Obama might offer the chief of staff job to Rahm Emanuel, the Democratic congressman from Chicago.

The discipline of the Obama campaign is legendary, so when there’s a media leak from the Obama camp, it means the campaign wants the story to go out. Why would they want Emanuel’s name even more closely associated with Obama?

Because Rahm Emanuel’s no ordinary congressman. He’s the son of Benjamin M. Emanuel, an Israeli born, prior member of a Zionist paramilitary organization.

How’s that for some Florida conservative-jewish-voter street cred?

Of course, the McCain campaign bought right into Obama’s ploy by releasing this statement: “Reports that Obama wants Emanuel to be White House chief of staff undercut any claims to unity and bipartisanship, and should alarm every voter.”

The McCain campaign should’ve ignored the bait. The older jewish retirees in Florida will be delighted, not alarmed, by these reports. And if McCain attacks Emanuel too strongly, these voters will turn away from McCain, skittish as they already are because of Palin’s inclusion.

And so Florida falls.

Johnny Mac’s been outmaneuvered again.

“So, I hear you are going back to India?” asked Dr A, a physician who’s been in the US for more than 3 decades.

“April next year,” I said. “You ever think of going back to India?”

He shook his head, smiled, and shrugged. Why would I ever want to go back? it seemed to suggest.

“You know, the outsourcing will stop, and the Indian economy will suffer,” he said. “The infrastructure is bad, more than 70% of the people still not educated, going to schools that don’t even have a roof, so much poverty still.”

I didn’t argue the point, didn’t correct his statistics. It’s easier to leave home behind, if you think of it as a terrible place.

Just saw this video of a McCain rally.

Check it out. A funny senior moment, but there’s more to this video.

Notice how McCain says, “Senator Obama’s supporters have been saying some pretty nasty things about Western Pennsylvania recently.”

He says it with feigned anger, then pauses and smiles. Not to to get all Freudian on you, but it’s a little boy’s smile, like he’s just been caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

Meanwhile, Cindy McCain reacts with a nod and a wry half smile, looking like an indulgent school teacher who is listening to another complaint about a naughty but somewhat adorable child.

The girl on McCain’s right has the grace to look solemn initially, but when the crowd reacts with polite good natured booing, she breaks into a smile.

All this even before McCain says he agrees with the Obama supporter.

No wonder he forgot his lines. Now consider this: If McCain had appeared genuinely angry about “those nasty comments”. If his posture, his demeanor, his face, his eyes, and his voice, resonated with genuine anger on behalf of these much maligned Western Pennsylvania populace, no one would have been smiling.

If he radiated authentic anger, the crowds would have felt angry.

But as it was, the whole thing had the air of a circus sideshow.

McCain’s negative attacks on Obama, with few exceptions, have rarely seemed genuine. McCain does not seem to emotionally connect with his own words. The psychic conflict is obvious - McCain grimacing, or smiling inappropriately, betraying a deep discomfort about the words that he is uttering.

I guess what I’m saying is that McCain’s authenticity mojo is way down. If I were his campaign manager, here’s what I would say to McCain.

“John,” I would tell him after watching him struggle through another debate or speech.

“Say it if you feel it. Feel it if you say it.”