Skip to content
Categories:

Wednesday’s campaign round-up

Post date:
Author:

Today’s installment of campaign-related news items that wouldn’t generate a post of their own, but may be of interest to political observers:

* A biopsy of John McCain’s latest facial spot turned out to be negative: “A biopsy of a spot removed from the right cheek of Senator John McCain revealed no evidence of skin cancer, an official at the Mayo Clinic said Tuesday in a statement released by the McCain campaign. Mr. McCain, who has had four melanomas, had a spot removed for testing at his regular checkup at the Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale, Ariz.”

* In response to the McCain campaign’s ad blaming Barack Obama for high gas prices, the Obama campaign has responded with a response ad that talks to voters as if they were grown-ups. The spot, called “Old Politics,” will air in the same states McCain’s ad is airing.

* Obama was on the Hill yesterday to meet with the House Democratic Caucus. “The caucus room of the Cannon House Office Building was so crowded that some members of Congress did not have seats.”

* Obama’s Latino outreach is being well received: “Members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC) on Tuesday praised an effort by Barack Obama’s campaign to use $20 million to ‘engage and inspire’ Latino voters ahead of the election. Calling the $20 million sum ‘unprecedented,’ the CHC members, many of whom supported Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s (D-N.Y.) presidential campaign, said the effort to target Latino voters in Colorado, Florida, Nevada and New Mexico is both a recognition that Hispanics will be a critical voting bloc in the general election and that Sen. Obama (D-Ill.) must not take these voters for granted.”

* When campaign web stunts go awry: The day’s clever RNC attack on Obama seems to be in the process of being swallowed by the Internets. After Obama supporters swarmed BarackBook with a series of not-so-friendly discussion threads, the GOP seems to have disabled the discussion feature and deleted the mockery. The ‘review’ feature is still on, however, so the first thing readers see on the page is ‘E-Viagra for crotchety old Republicans: Destined to be the #1 website in Czechoslovakia and the Iraq/Pakistan border region.'”

* Mike Huckabee equated McCain with Bob Dole yesterday. I suspect that was not well received at McCain HQ.

* The Obama campaign has named a new national coordinator for Muslim affairs, Mazen Asbahi, who will also head the campaign’s outreach efforts to Arab Americans.

* Hillary Clinton is hosting a dinner to help retire some of her campaign debt. “In her latest plea to supporters, Mrs. Clinton has sent a breezily written e-mail about the ‘simple pleasures’ of summer, including ‘family vacations, baseball games, and dinner out under the stars.’ And guess what? For those who contribute, Mrs. Clinton says, ‘you and I could be enjoying a summer dinner together soon!'”

* And in Alaska, the latest Rasmussen poll shows with Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich (D) leading Sen. Ted Stevens by nine, 50% to 41%. The poll was conducted before Stevens was brought up on criminal charges.

Comments

  • Racer X

    says:

    “Obama appoints Muslim liaison”

    I can hear the wingnuts now, looking up what “liason” means. Obviously some form of terrorist sympathizer.

  • scott_m

    says:


    I can hear the wingnuts now, looking up what “liason” means.

    I’m bracing for the moment that they find out that the word is French.

  • Steve

    says:

    The “Old Politics” spot should be running in all 50 states—that way, instead of just doing damage control on the latest McLie falsehood, Obama could actually get out in front of the smear, rendering it impotent, and forcing McLie’s minions to spend more money for a new ad.

    that’s the key to beating these scum—get out in front of them, like Reagan did to the USSR by going berserker-ish on defense spending—and force them to bankrupt themselves in a political game of “catch-up.” we have the ability this time to bury them—so let’s just bury them. Better still, crush them beyond all semblance of political recognition, and then bury them….

  • doubtful

    says:

    I suspect that was not well received at McCain HQ.

    I suspect that was not well received at Dole HQ.

  • Racer X

    says:

    What Steve said.

    Time to spend that money on some hard-hitting ads, and then ask for more.

    We need to take the fight to them NOW.

  • Steve

    says:

    I’m bracing for the moment that they find out that the word is French.

    scott, we could always take it one step further. Get CB to translate the the page-heading—just for one day, even—to French, thus:

    Le Rapport de Profiteur nordiste : le Commentaire et l’Analyse sur la Politique en Amérique par Steve Benen

    …and instead of watching the Olympics, you can just pop yourself a big bowl of popcorn, sit back, and watch the trolls explode….

  • Michigoose

    says:

    OT:

    OMG! I just saw a new McCain ad on YouTube “starring” Britney Spears and Paris Hilton–somebody tell me quick that I hallucinated that!

  • Shalimar

    says:

    Obama was on the Hill yesterday to meet with the House Democratic Caucus.

    And Wolf Blitzer took the opportunity to make a back-handed comment, “one of the rare times he has been in Washington 2 days in a row”. How dare that Obama guy not show up for work, I’m voting for McCain now. /snark

    And then Cafferty made the point that being seen with the most unpopular Congress ever might not be a good thing. I can’t watch cable news anymore, I’m not even a big Obama fan but it’s still disgusting that every single thing he does is somehow a bad move. Meanwhile, McCain keeps chugging along making multiple stupid gaffes a day that aren’t even mentioned at all.

  • MsJoanne

    says:

    The ‘review’ feature is still on, however, so the first thing readers see on the page is ‘E-Viagra for crotchety old Republicans: Destined to be the #1 website in Czechoslovakia and the Iraq/Pakistan border region.’”

    To be deleted int 3…2…1…

  • Dale

    says:

    The Obama campaign has named a new national coordinator for Muslim affairs

    Well, you know what they say about Muslim affairs. Everybody must get stoned.

  • MsJoanne

    says:

    ******** NOTICE *********

    I am hosting a dinner to retire my current (and any possible future) debt. Enjoy the simple pleasures of playing a rousing game of Fetch with my dog (or me, should you donate enough!)

    We’ll enjoy some ribs, discuss the politics du jour, and gaze longingly at the moon and stars and commiserate about what might have been.

    You are all invited. Bring your checkbooks and let’s have a good time!

  • JS

    says:

    Libby Dole in NC is said to be returning her Stevens money, didn’t McCain get some too?
    Wonder why McCain’s son mysteriously resigned from his big banking job. The McCain beer dynasty said to be trading with Cuba. Just thought I would put in a few useless thoughts.

  • MsJoanne

    says:

    Thanks, Michigoose.

    JS, the younger McCain needs to spend more time with his family. Or he is pursuing other interests. Or he’s a lying scumbag who could possibly be in deep shit which requires more corporate welfare a government bailout.

  • jen

    says:

    Every time I flip the channel to CNN, John McCain is speaking. Do they keep a loop running of his few coherent moments?

  • Prup (aka Jim Benton)

    says:

    This could go under most threads here, today or for the past month, but I’ll put it here because I have a hunch this is the section people read first.

    There are two GIGANTIC facts that the commenters here — and Steve, and the blogosphere, and the MSM — seem to be ignoring or missing.

    The first is that so many of us write as if Obama has spent the last six weeks ‘vacationing on Mars.’ Guys, Obama has been watching the McCain campaign carefully. Haven’t you noticed that Obama is the Ted Williams of politics? Not just the level of skill he has contnued to show, but the way he treats it.

    What made Williams so great a hitter was not just that he had certain natural physical advantages, but that he continually used his intellect in hitting. He thought, planned, watched the opposing pitcher — even without the advatange of video that we have now he could tell exactly what the pitcher’s patterns were, what they were going to throw in a given situation, and respond to it. And he never ‘gave away’ at bats. If he already had three hits in a game, and the score was 15-2 in the Red Sox favor against a last place team, he’d come up in the eighth inning and treat it as if the score was tied and the game was crucial.

    And that is the way Obama has treated politics. He, I am sure, has paid attention to every appearance of McCain, every word he has said. I have no doubt he has a plan of campaigning that is sketched out for the rest of the months before election. Again, he uses his intellect.

    (McCain, on the other hand seems totally guided by ‘instinct, emotion, and ego.’ — the “I AM JOHN McCAIN” bit — meaning “I don’t have to check out my facts, I don’t have to think about what i said yesterday, I don’t have to plan, to vet my supporters, to question myself about anything at all because I AM JOHN McCAIN!” To return to the baseball analogy, he’s like Yogi Berra “Whadya mean’ what do I think about going up to the plate?’ How can ya think and hit at the same time?” Yeah, it worked for Yogi, but that’s why a lot of naturally talented hitters wound up with great careers in Triple-A and never could stay in the Majors.)

    But this isn’t the thing people are missing, and that will make a separate comment.

  • Prup (aka Jim Benton)

    says:

    Nobody I have seen comment, here or anywhere, seems to be remembering one simple fact, or thinking the implications through.

    Barack Obama and John McCain are both Senators.

    So what? Well, for most of us, even the true junkies here, are still seeing McCain ‘close-up’ for the first time. We keep being surprised at his weaknesses, his inanity, his confusing, his unwillingness to check his own statements, as well as his temper, his ability to make himself unlikable even to those who might support him.

    For the past three and a half years, Obama has seen John McCain almost every working day. He has seen him in floor fights — and he’s seen him in the Senate cafeteria. He’s heard his speeches — and he’s watched him interact with his own colleagues. We’ve heard about the McCain temper, Obama has seen it close-up and has seen what things can ‘set him off.’ To go back to my Ted Williams analogy — he’s watched all the ways McCain ‘tips his pitches.’

    He’s had the chance to see things, little give-aways, that none of us could ever know — and Obama has shown that he watches such things. (What sort of things? Oh maybe — these are purely illustrative, not meant to be literal — when McCain wears a blue tie, it means he’s in an over-confident mood, or that he gets distracted if someone in the room has a pink shirt on. Maybe he always fiddles with pens in his pocket before he loses his temper. Maybe certain phrases tip off whether McCain is going to ‘play nice’ or ‘try a quick kick in the balls.’)

    Whatever these ways of ‘tipping his pitches’ actually are, have no doubt that Obama knows them, and will exploit them when the times are right. (Some of us would have him hold a press conference before the game telling everybody, including the opposing pitcher, what they are. Smart, really smart.)

    And yes, McCain has had the opportunity of noticing similar things about Obama, but the thing about the sort of egomaniac McCain is, they think that paying attention to other people is ‘beneath them’ or unnecessary. They think they deserve all the attention, and that showing they are paying attention to the other person will get other people looking that way, when the spotlight should be on the great JOHN McCAIN!!

    Sometime I truly feel sorry for the poor, sad, nasty old man, never a great Senator or a great politician, but now destined to go down in history with Dukakis and Cox as suffering the greatest defeats ever in a race which did not feature an incumbent President.

  • Steve

    says:

    Although I would not argue with Prup’s notice regarding Obama’s using intellect, I need to note that this time around, there is something different on a wholesale level in the political spectrum.

    Dems, for once, have all the cards in their favor. The GOP cannot outspend us, they cannot outspin us, they cannot beat us up on the blogs, or out in the back lot of the neighborhood bar.

    This is OUR year, the moment when the high tide ebbs; the eastern sky begins to brighten with the coming sunrise; the storm’s cloud-wrack breaks to reveal stars beyond any notion of counting on a moonless night. The concept of attacking is not to merely drive back the wave, or hasten the sunrise, or bring out the stars—those things will happen.

    But we now find ourselves at a critical juncture; one through which November provides not only political victory for Dems in the WH contest, but likewise down-ballot races. 2008 is not just about regaining the presidency; it is not about SCOTUS nominees; it is not about stronger majorities in the Congress—those things will happen.

    2008 is more than a changing of the guard at the federal level, whereby the thousands upon thousands of Bushylvanian cronies, misfits, miscreants, maniacs, and sycophantic spew are relegated to unemployment lines, late-night radio broadcasts, prison cells, ex-pat enclaves, and Sunday morning talking-head, drama-queen sitcoms (and yes—I’m talking about FOX, CNN, and MSNBC programming here)—those things will happen.

    2008 is about “down-ballot.” It is about damaging the GOP brand beyond all conceivable recognition. It is about giving something to conservatives who might want something better than what the wicked stepchild that is the Bush/McCain political cartel has dropped in their laps, harnessed ’round their necks, and strapped to their shoulders and backs.

    2008 is about turning red states blue, and turning blue states into something beyond blue; something not just blue; something much more than merely blue.

    2008 is about fighting the fight with an insurmountable passion, and with every last tool available, so that we can not only unquestionable beat this psychotic creature—this evil concoction of Hitlerism and Stalinism and Cheneyism called Bushylvanianism into the mud—but so that our children, their children, and their children’s children’s children, to the nth degree of nth degrees and beyond, do not have to fight this fight ever again.

  • Prup (aka Jim Benton)

    says:

    Steve, we agree one hundred percent on this. We only differ on what we think are effective tools to accomplish ALL these goals. We have the Republicans on the run, we have a candidate — for the first time in many years — who people want to vote FOR, we have every issue on our side, and we have the ability to turn the typical Republican campaign tactics against them — if we don’t try and duplicate them.

    Again, I think back to the civil rights era — and I continue to believe that Obama truly is using MLK as a model. When Bull Connor brought out the attack dogs against the Selma marchers, King didn’t say ‘go get bigger dogs and let them loose.’ (If he’d thought that way — and a lot of people criticized him for his use of Gandhian ‘truth-force’ which was mistakenly thought of as simply ‘non-violence’ — we’d still be seeing white-only drinking fountains.) He knew that he could use the desperation that the dogs symbolized as a signal that even his opponents knew they were losing, could use them as a symbol of every evil that Connor was the public face of.

    Again, it is still only July. Just sit back and watch Obama make people as ashamed of having once supported Bush and McCain as Martin made onlookers ashamed that they had once not seen the evil of segregation.

    Again, he hasn’t been ‘vacationing on Mars’ and the reason we are both supporting him — I hope — is because he feels and knows these things you mention as strongly as we do.

  • Ted

    says:

    * In response to the McCain campaign’s ad blaming Barack Obama for high gas prices, the Obama campaign has responded with a response ad that talks to voters as if they were grown-ups.

    I would have thought they’d know better than to do something like that.

  • ROTFLMLiberalAO

    says:

    The spot, called “Old Politics,” will air in the same states McCain’s ad is airing.

    OLD POLITICS.
    Absolutely love it!
    Talking about McCain being too old is a big media taboo…
    But OLD POLITICS?
    Say hey! Are the McMedia police going to ban that ancient phrase as politically incorrect?

    OLD POLITICS!
    That’s the ticket baby!
    Rub McGrampy’s face in it….
    Make that old puss of his… sour up even more.

  • Steve

    says:

    This, Jim, is the difference I see—you want to bring out all the effective tools, whereas I want to bring out all the tools—period. I’m looking at this from the old Shinto battle proverb of “a single stroke from a single warrior can tip scales of war.” Likewise, a single drop of water begins the flood; a single snowflake begins the avalanche. It doesn’t matter if the grain of rice, or the drop of water, or the snowflake is “effective” or “pristine” or even “well thought out;” all that does matter is that it is there, in the precise location and at the precise moment in time to trigger the scale’s movement, or the deluge, or the icy cataclysm.

    Do we lie? Absolutely not. But we can perceive McCain’s attack constructs and get in front of them, debunking them before they even have a chance to be produced. To be pro-actively blunt, “a man cannot shoot you with a gun if you un-invent his gun.”

    We can adopt the tactic employed by McCain and adapt it to truthfulness. Tear away at HIS character. Call into question HIS job performance. Mock HIS philosophy. Discredit HIS associations. Challenge HIS experience. Doubt HIS credibility. Shine the raw, glaring spotlamp on HIS past.

    In the end, even the least effective tool in the shed could be the one that finally trips him up, exposes him for the inept political fraud that he his, and begins the cascading downburst that ruptures the GOP as a political entity.

    “Perfect storms” oft-times have the “least effective” of beginnings. After all—look at how America came into being in the first place….

  • Steve

    says:

    “Tip scales of war” should be “tip the scales of war—and “grain of rice” should be “single shotu”.

  • Prup (aka Jim Benton)

    says:

    Steve: Maybe, if the race were closer, or we were desperate, your argument might have weight, but it isn’t. We’ve won — all we have to do is make sure we don’t lose. The tools — some of them, though your explanation is much stronger than your original posts — can hurt us more than they do them, and in some cases, can hurt the country worse than either. The reason why ‘nuking’ anyone is bad — literally or figuratively — is that the fallout is worse than the enemy.

    When I was in my teens, and ‘red’ meant ‘Communist’ the most ludicrous argument I heard — arguing in favor of a nuclear war with the ‘dirty godless Commies’ was “better dead than red.”

    Now that ‘red’ means ‘Republican,’ don’t let ourselves make the same argument.

  • zeitgeist

    says:

    Prup, my problem is not with your conclusions – it is that I don’t buy the premises.

    You say this race is not close, you say that the masses will see for themselves and be embarassed to have ever thought favorably of McCain – all evidence frankly to the contrary (in both this race to date and every other election since 1968) on both counts. And you attribute to Obama an almost omniscient sort of ability to read Team McCain’s mind and formulate the most effective and perfectly-timed response; again, I think that is more faith than we can afford to place in any merely mortal candidate. (As more of a quibble than a debate over the premises, I would also take issue with your characterization of Dukakis as running as “not the other guy.” Dukakis had a very particular and positive message – that government and governance should be a true meritocracy, that candidates should be judged on measurable results like his Massachusetts Miracle. That positive message failed miserably and supports my lack of faith in the voting public.)

    The reality is that no one – not Obama, not me, not you, not Axelrod, not the media – knows precisely when any given potential voter starts paying attention and starts internalizing memes. We know that historically and in the aggregate it is usually not until the conventions, but the races have been so extremely close in 2000 and 2004 that the aggregate behavior doesn’t matter – the margins are where this is won and lost. As a result, Obama cannot afford to take the chance that no one is paying attention to McCain’s largely unanswered attacks in July. Kerry never realized the Swiftboat attacks had any traction either until it was too late to undo the damage. We will all kick ourselves if come September 1 we are looking back saying the same about this race – the opportunity squandered.

    yes we should draw moral limits very different than those drawn by Republicans. but the truly progressive, high-minded good-government ideals have to wait until we are actually governing. losing with nobility is still losing – and we take both the nation and the world down with us every time we lose a winnable battle to Republicans who are willing to fight harder (i.e. dirtier) and we know they will govern the same way – maybe moreso. all our dignity doesn’t save the lives of soldiers and civilians in Iraq. that we held to our ideals in losing wont cleanse the oil from the arctic wildlife. the only way to do anyone any good is to win. period. and no one has ever done that by being slow to respond to attacks or campaigning solely from the high road. (with the possible and idiosyncratic exception of Carter in 76, and then Ford was a decent guy who didn’t attack much – when Reagan attacked, Carter was whipped.)

  • MaBelle

    says:

    * Hillary Clinton is hosting a dinner to help retire some of her campaign debt. “In her latest plea to supporters, Mrs. Clinton has sent a breezily written e-mail about the ’simple pleasures’ of summer, including ‘family vacations, baseball games, and dinner out under the stars.’ And guess what? For those who contribute, Mrs. Clinton says, ‘you and I could be enjoying a summer dinner together soon!’”

    Yeah, and a person only has to contribute $5 to be entered! Sounds soooooo evil and selfish, doesn’t it?

    Seems Obama’s donors aren’t stepping up to the plate to help out because, y’know, the O-god has blown Clinton off and the left did such a magnificent job of painting Hillary Clinton as Evil Incarnate that people looking for a convenient scapegoat to blame the last 8 years on despises Hillary Clinton. So, they won’t help out — even though Clinton’s donors have given well over $1 million smackers to Obama’s campaign.

    I find it fascinating that the left just can’t let go of Hillary Clinton, under any circumstances, but hat they are always more than willing to engage in some snarky, juvenile, pisant comments about what she is and isn’t doing.

  • Prup (aka Jim Benton)

    says:

    Zeit:
    Maybe I wasn’t clear about this. I am saying that Obama can — and will — handle the attacks on himself, without — as Steve and others are saying — resorting to personal attacks on McCain.

    Case in point — quoting Obama today in CBs end of day thread:
    ““You know, I don’t pay attention to John McCain’s ads, although I do notice he doesn’t seem to have anything to say very positive about himself. He seems to only be talking about me… You need to ask John McCain what he’s for and not just what he’s against.”

    Three sentences and every one is deadly. (Even the jab at the press.) I am not saying Obama ‘shouldn’t fight back.’ The reason I support him is because he’s shown himself to be so GOOD a fighter. He doesn’t whack a pinata. He waits, and then strikes a very carefully measured blow — and the result is like the cartoons where Daffy walks away going ‘see, he never touched me’ and then falls apart into five pieces. (I watched him do that to Hillary time after time.)

    And I didn’t say Obama had some ‘mystical way’ of predicting what McCain will do. I said that, since he’d worked with the man for four years, he understands him far better than an outsider can — and that, because he uses his intellect and thinks about what he’s doing, he knows how and when to push McCain’s buttons until he explodes into inanity — which is why I always felt he should have agreed to more debates.

    As for people ‘paying attention’ more of them are, and what are the results? Three incredible margins in by-elections that ‘should’ have been totally safe for the Republicans. Ted Stevens being behind by ten points BEFORE he was indicted. (How many people here would have thought there was a chance Stevens could even be challenged closely? He was — everybody thought — a sure thing.) Every Republican candidate having to fight for his seat. Races in the single digits in states that were thought to be deep red. And this is before the conventions.

    To deal with the Kerry thing, ‘swiftboating’ didn’t defeat kerry, or wasn’t the main thing that did. Bush was an incumbent during a war, and neither his personal popularity or that of the war had begun to bottom the way it has. Bush had the Religious Right enthusiastically serving as his GOTV effort. The economy hadn’t yet tanked. And Kerry was a LOUSY candidate, wooden, boring, running desperately away from anything that could get him called ‘liberal.’ (Remember, he WANTED McCain as VP.)

    None of the above is true of Obama. This is NOT going to be ‘decided at the margins’ any more than Clinton-Dole or Reagan-Mondale or Johnson-Goldwater were. If I thought it was, I might argue the way you are. But McCain really is “the single most ridiculous major party presidential nominee of the modern political era.” Every day, CB finds yet another example of McCain’s campaign being criticized by Republicans. (They’d love to replace him, but who with? Jeb? Not when his last name is “Bush.” Romney? There goes whatever advantage ‘experience in foreign affairs gives them’ and he managed to make himself hated by the other candidates. Huckabee? He really is an uncontrollable maverick — not too bright, but a true maverick’ and the Republicans don’t want the RR to have any real power, just to vote and hope.)

    Zeit, didn’t you watch the way Obama defeated Hillary? And she was a good candidate, the odds on favorite, and threw the kitchen sink at him. And she had the ‘first woman President’ thing going for her. (McCain doesn’t even have the ‘first senile President’ thing — not after Reagan.)

    Relax guy. Don’t stop fighting, don’t stop making Obama’s margin larger, don’t stop calling the Republicans on their slime and absurdity. But don’t doubt for a minute you are on the winning side, and that what you want, a Democratic Congress with a Democratic President, with margins large enough that the ‘Blue Dogs” will be irrelevant, is what you’ll have, barring some totally unexpected catastrophe.

  • Steve

    says:

    Jim, the race is close—because the media is controlling what content goes out during prime-time, and what content goes out at 2 in the morning. We’ve all joked and grumbled about the Friday Afternoon “dump”—but this is a 24/7/365 version of it.

    Every hit-piece on Obama gets primo airtime and ink; most of the Obama counters get buried in the social section, or the late-night links, or the early morning broadcasts—and then, they disappear.

    And to even suggest that “we are not desperate” is pure fantasy. I am desperate. Tens of millions of my fellow citizens are desperate.

    The world, with the exception of Bush and his ilk, is desperate.

    This Republic will not continue to stand, should another four years of the current political course come to be. Will we continue to snub the rot that was once New Orleans, or continue to stand idly by as qualified servants of the public trust are replaced with mini-Quislings bent on destruction for profit, or continue to tolerate “jokes” about murdering people because of their skin-tone, or race, or ethnicity, or political leanings?

    The “high road” empowered the Bushylvanian Nightmare in November of 2000. It re-empowered that Nightmare four years later.

    The “high road” is nothing more than a twenty-first century version of the piece of paper that Neville Chamberlain waved around after his negotiations with a certain Austrian corporal. As a matter of fact, it isn’t even that—Chamberlain’s “paper” held a promise; these Bushite scum laugh at the thought of doing such a thing, and openly dare the world to do anything to them for their transgressions.

    There is no “high road” in dealing with a malignancy; you bombard it with radiation, and you carve it with a knife—or you die.

    Such is the malignancy from which this Republic suffers; the cancer that is Bushylvanian philosophy. We nuke it and we knife it, or as a nation, we die….

  • zeitgeist

    says:

    Jim, I will give you that he ran a masterful campaign against Clinton, although she also ran a worse campaign than I would have expected given what she had going for her.

    What concerns me is that what I have seen from Team Obama since they beat Clinton does not look to me to be the same as what I saw when they were beating Clinton, and I don’t know exactly why. It is if when they recalibrated for the general they got a little out of sync or off their game a bit.

    Because you are not suggesting we don’t fight, and I am not suggesting we engage in McCain-like fabrication, I suspect we really aren’t that far apart with the exception of what we consider “personal” attacks and whether we trust Team Obama on timing or whether we question the delay in spending money. (And perhaps whether it was wise of Obama to call off the 527s and ask the money be funneled to him instead). I just know that I would be a lot more comfortable if I thought our side was a bit more out in front of the narratives defining this campaign, or putting them down a lot more forcefully than what I have seen to date.

  • Bruno

    says:

    the “Old Politics” spot could have used the following tidbit as well.

    McCain has been accusing me of not having enough experience, yet after having spent 25 years in the senate, John blames me for high oil prices. I think that we can fix the energy crisis in less than 25 years. McCain had his chance and chose to do nothing.

  • Steve

    says:

    …the way Obama defeated Hillary?

    Sorry to bump into your discussion, guys, but I seem to recall that a good portion of “Obama beating Hillary” was “Hillary beating Hillary.” The Billy-J gaffes, the disaster of keeping Penn when she should have unloaded him, the stupidity of Kitchen Sink 1.0, the utter stupidity of Kitchen Sink 2.0, the utter suicidal stupidity of Kitchen Sink 3.0, the catering to FOX and to Scaife—all contributed to her political demise.

    Oh, and by the way—Kitchen Sink 4.0 and beyond all belong to McCain and the hillary-is-44 herd. They cannot simply be “not paid attention to.” This needs to be gotten in front of, blocked at the point of conception, and shoved back down McCain’s throat. Doing that makes his campaign impotent, and that’s the best way to make him go all berserker in front of the cameras, so that all of America can see what this so-called “hero” really is: a fraudulent little hack.