This morning's
Wall Street Journal has this quote below:
At campaign headquarters in Chicago, the Palin phenomenon is clearly getting under the skin of some aides, who complain she is getting "celebrity" treatment. "The McCain campaign attacks Obama as a celebrity, but they are completely managing Palin's celebrity -- with only handpicked interviews and magazine covers in People and Us," one Obama adviser said. "We're not running for American Idol here -- ultimately we believe the country is smarter than this."
The country is NOT smarter than this. If the country truly were smarter than this, then we would have a President Stevenson, President Gore, and President Kerry. Yet, this electorate re-elected George W. Bush, the dumbest President ever, to a second term because they felt he could protect them better than Kerry.
And why not? Kerry didn't fight hard enough, he let himself be swiftboated, and that gave the perception to the voters that if Kerry was willing to let himself be swiftboated in taking the high road, that Kerry wouldn't FIGHT for the voters.
The
Washington Post also chimes in on the barrage of attacks from the McCain campaign team:
The attacks over the first three days of this week have come at a sometimes dizzying pace. Within 24 hours, the McCain campaign released a television advertisement saying Obama favored "comprehensive sex education" for kindergartners, produced an Internet ad charging that the Democrat had referred to Palin as a pig, then concluded with another ad saying, "Obama's politics of hope? Empty words."
All three of the spots drew outraged responses and charges of dirty politics from Obama and his supporters. "We've got an energy crisis," the candidate said at a campaign event where he had planned to focus entirely on education policy. "We have an education system that is not working for too many of our children and making us less competitive. We have an economy that is creating hardship for families all across America. We've got two wars going on, veterans coming home not being cared for -- and this is what they want to talk about."
Senator Obama, you let them call you a pedophile. Where are your hard-hitting response ads to that? All that came out was a hard-hitting press statement. And nothing else in response to that while those ads are playing in battleground states. You let yourself be swiftboated in not responding to these ads. And another part of that problem, is that you're always been on the defensive, and have been throughout the entire summer.
You were
asked about this by a voter at a town hall meeting:
During a question session in Norfolk, a voter told Sen. Obama he was frightened that tactics that led to John Kerry's 2004 defeat by President Bush could throw his candidacy off track. Sen. Obama replied that he would respond by emphasizing issues such as the economy, education, health care, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In 2000, Gore led on the issues. In 2004, Kerry led on the issues. In 2008, Obama leads on the issues.
The thing is, voters don't vote on issues. They vote on emotionally-based appeals. They do not vote rationally, and if they did, we would not have a President George W. Bush for the past eight years.
In 2004, Josh Marshall of
Talking Points Memo wrote the famous
bitch-slap theory of politics:
Let's call it the Republicans' Bitch-Slap theory of electoral politics.
It goes something like this.
On one level, of course, the aim behind these attacks is to cast suspicion upon Kerry's military service record and label him a liar. But that's only part of what's going on.
Consider for a moment what the big game is here. This is a battle between two candidates to demonstrate toughness on national security. Toughness is a unitary quality, really -- a personal, characterological quality rather than one rooted in policy or divisible in any real way. So both sides are trying to prove to undecided voters either that they're tougher than the other guy or at least tough enough for the job.
In a post-9/11 environment, obviously, this question of strength, toughness or resolve is particularly salient. That, of course, is why so much of this debate is about war and military service in the first place.
One way -- perhaps the best way -- to demonstrate someone's lack of toughness or strength is to attack them and show they are either unwilling or unable to defend themselves -- thus the rough slang I used above. And that I think is a big part of what is happening here. Someone who can't or won't defend themselves certainly isn't someone you can depend upon to defend you.
Demonstrating Kerry's unwillingness to defend himself (if Bush can do that) is a far more tangible sign of what he's made of than wartime experiences of thirty years ago.
Hitting someone and not having them hit back hurts the morale of that person's supporters, buoys the confidence of your own backers (particularly if many tend toward an authoritarian mindset) and tends to make the person who's receiving the hits into an object of contempt (even if also possibly also one of sympathy) in the eyes of the uncommitted.
This is certainly what Bush's father did to Michael Dukakis and, sadly, it is what Bush himself did, to a great degree, to Al Gore.
Senator Obama, I was very happy to meet you last night at the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Gala, where you talked about the importance of the Hispanic vote, and I am one of those Hispanic-Americans planning to vote for you. You've already got my vote and my support in the on-ground efforts, and now it's your responsibility to earn the support of those undecided independent voters.
Now it's time for you to use your message on the issues on emotion-based appeals. Make the voters worry about the consequences of another four years under John McCain. Show them viscerally what that would be like. Show them what it would be like to have a continued war in Iraq--show the bodies of their sons and daughters coming home from Iraq, and then John McCain's song, "Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran!"
And most of all, remind the voters of what've happened to them in the past eight years under George W. Bush. Show them what the future could be like under a President Obama's White House administration.
Show them that you'll fight hard for the voters in battleground states by bitch-slapping John McCain like no one's business.
Don't wait for the last punch, Senator Obama. Unleash a barrage of these punches, and make John McCain wish he'd never gotten into the Presidential race. Make him cry. Make him scared.
Beat that old man, Senator Obama.
If you don't beat McCain, Obama, that old man is going to die in the White House and Palin's going to be the President. If that thought doesn't put the fire into you, Senator Obama, then nothing else will.
In other ways, Bush's bully-boy campaign tactics play to his strengths, albeit unstated and unlovely ones. Many of the polls of the president have shown that while people don't necessarily agree with the specific policies he's pursued abroad many also intuitively believe that there's no one who will hit back harder. There's some of that 'he may be a son-of-a-bitch but he's our son-of-a-bitch' quality to the president's support on national security issues.
IF you agree with me, you can call the Obama Headquarters at (866) 675-2008 and press 6 after the menu to speak to a live volunteer. They do share input of callers with the media team.
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