If Obama campaign honchos David Axelrod and David Plouffe are worried about the next steps for their candidate, help is on the way.

With 51 days to go and polls showing that Republican nominee John McCain is either slightly ahead or tied with Barack Obama, there is plenty of advice this Sunday morning specifically geared to help the Democratic nominee.

Willie Brown, former Mayor of San Francisco, tells Obama to knock off the jokes.

And forget the comedy, Barack. You are not naturally funny and you do not speak "street." You speak like a professor. And you do not know how to set up a joke. That "lipstick on a pig" line clearly backfired.

If you had said, "As John McCain said about Hillary Clinton's health care ... lipstick on a pig is still a pig," at least you would have had a frame of reference to fall back on.

You didn't, you left yourself left wide open and you got nailed. Now everything you say will be double-examined for sexism.

Columnist Errol Lewis over at the New York Daily News says forget about Sarah Palin - focus your energy on John McCain.

Every day, in every speech, Obama needs to hammer home the Bush administration's record of failure and remind voters that "McSame" has presented an astonishingly thin plan for rescuing the American middle class from lower wages, rising tuition prices and falling home values.

Obama's message to swing voters infatuated with Palin should be: Sure, you like her, and why not? But teaching abstinence isn't going to lower your taxes, help with your kid's college tuition or save your job from being outsourced - and I have a plan that will. Take a look.

Columnist Frank Rich at the New York Times says the Obama campaign needs to follow the advice of Karl Rove in dealing with Palin.

How do you run against that flashy flimflam? You don’t. Karl Rove for once gave the Democrats a real tip rather than a bum steer when he wrote last week that if Obama wants to win, “he needs to remember he’s running against John McCain for president,” not Palin for vice president. Obama should keep stepping up the blitz on McCain’s flip-flops, confusion, ignorance and blurriness on major issues (from education to an exit date from Iraq), rather than her gaffes and résumé. If he focuses voters on the 2008 McCain, the Palin question will take care of itself.

Joan Vennochi at the Boston Globe says don't forget Senator Clinton.

Today, Obama needs Clinton. He needs her to repeat often what she said to her supporters in Denver: "I want you to ask yourselves: Were you in this campaign just for me?"

It's a good question for Clinton, too.

Just forget Palin says Toby Harnden over at Real Clear Politics.

It's folly, of course, for Obama to be engaging with Palin. It diminishes him by equating him with the number two on the other ticket. And far from neutralizing the question mark over his experience, the discussion of her qualifications has ensured that his thin resume will remain front and center.

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