Is everybody listening? Karl Rove's got the foolproof roadmaps to victory for both John McCain and Barack Obama in today's Wall Street Journal, and everyone involved should really be paying attention (from the looks of the latest polls, especially you, Obama). So what is it that the architect of the last two presidential victories suggests for the '08 candidates?

McCain
Must work toward a "greater public awareness of his character." (This is hard for McCain because of his "warrior ethic.") He must also "persuade Americans he can tackle domestic challenges," as voters currently question "whether he understands their concerns about their jobs, their family's health care, their children's education, the culture's coarseness, and their neighborhood's safety." McCain must also "show voters he remains a maverick," which could be achieved by naming a few Democrats he may consider for cabinet posts. (Or by calling his wife a bad, bad name or turning her into a slutty stripper—that's real maverick-y.)

Obama
"Needs to reassure Americans he's up to the job." This is challenging because McCain is successfully tapping into a growing sense that Obama "is an inexperienced celebrity-politician smitten with his own press clippings." Obama, Rove posits, needs to better demonstrate that he's not "intellectually lazy" and that there are issues beyond withdrawing from Iraq that are important to him. Rove cautions that Obama's ballyhooed outdoor convention speech may "deepen the impression that he's more of a rock star than a person of serious public purpose."

Rove suggests that neither man make "their principal focus the demonization of the opposition," though we'd bet against him seriously giving that advice to campaign operatives on either side. This is, after all, the same guy who reportedly advised fellow campaign operatives that their job was to "undermine the other side's support by casting them as liars, cheaters, stealers, immoral—all of that."