The key is to hold the GOP accountable, the media refuses to do it.

[ProSense]

Obama Needs Better Ads

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The other campaign I'd do is not one ad but a series of them. During the final night of Democratic Convention in Denver, the Obama campaign had seven or eight 'ordinary' people speak to the assembled crowd at Invesco Field. They were working class, middle-aged white and Hispanic voters, who conveniently all happened to be from swing states. But they were actually pretty persuasive, and produced some of the more moving moments of the convention:

Video: http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/09/obama-needs-more-better-ads.html">Democratic National Convention- Pam Cash-Roper

So I would put together five or six of these spots, featuring these people or people like them speaking directly to camera, with interspersed images of their hometowns and their families, reserving 5 seconds at the end for a few phrases on blackscreen:

The Obama Economic Plan"
"Tax Cuts for Working Families"
"5 Million New Green Energy Jobs"
"Health Care for Every American"
"The Change That We Need"

You get the idea. It's a little unconventional but would be buzzworthy and would seek to counter some of Palin's homespun appeal.

Good ideas, but if implemented, how do we (or will we) know that it will result in changing the dynamics? The Dem Convention was spectacular. The media managed to trample on that momentum by creating the perception that the Republican Convention had the same impact. Everytime we move the bar, the Republicans stay the course: lying.

McCain is lying

Palin is lying

The polls are bizarre: MCCAIN BOUNCE, BUT SPLIT FROM BUSH?

Democrats need to concentrate on ways to hold Republicans accountable during the campaign (push back against perception that they're being effective -- hint: panic doesn't help). The only other opportunity to do that will be voting them out.

There's no question at this point that John McCain has received a significant bump in the polls from this time last week. The Gallup daily tracking poll has gone from +8 Obama to +5 McCain, a swing of 13 points in one week, and understandably, many Democrats are starting to panic.

I confess that I'm not immune to this feeling. Being a Democrat these days is a lot like being a Red Sox fan prior to 2004. No matter how good your team is, no matter how big a lead you have, you always feel like the other guys are going to come back and win it. There would come a point in every season and in every playoff series when the Yanks made their move and you got that feeling in the pit of your stomach, that feeling that evil was going to triumph over good yet again. And, on the flip side, Yankee fans, having been spoiled by success (as well as much bigger budget than any other team) were absolutely confident they would prevail, even when things looked bad for them.

But as 2004 proved, sometimes the Yankees lose, even when they look to have everything wrapped up. Which is I guess a long way of saying that it's too early to panic. Remember, as of one week ago, several polls showed Obama at 50% or higher. Those voters are all still gettable; they're all folks who are open to the idea of voting for Obama.

That said, McCain has enjoyed a pretty significant bounce over the last week. The key question now is whether that shift represents a fleeting convention bounce or a more permanent change in the dynamic of the race. The question for pollsters (and I'm sure the Obama campaign's internal pollsters are working overtime on this) is why the shift occurred. In other words, who are the people who shifted from Obama to McCain over the last week and why did they do so. Did they switch because they remembered how much they liked John McCain? Did they switch because they really like Sarah Palin? Or did they switch because GOP attacks raised doubts in their minds about Obama?

Answering these questions will be key to developing a strategy to win these voters back. And there's still plenty of time to do so.

link

State of the race: 9/8 (panic edition)

For this edition, it's Obama 309, McCain 229.

[ProSense]

1. No comment? n/t

[Life Long Dem]

2. I agree

"seven' was good. Bu before that they were weak. After,"seven" I see one today playing, about McSame/Bush being alike, with a song to go along with the matching McSame/Bush wording.

[Blarch]

3. Why would the media hold the accontable ?

Our own party leaders won't even hold them accountable.