I talked to someone earlier this week who worked tangentially on some previous campaigns with David Axelrod, the Obama campaign’s chief strategist. He told me, “Axelrod’s not the type to drop a refrigerator on a guy’s head. He’ll take the refrigerator apart, drop one piece at a time, and save the biggest piece for last.”
I mention this because there’s no shortage of handwringing in Democratic circles about Obama hitting back against John McCain’s negative/personal/dishonest campaign, but not hitting back nearly enough.
The parries come more than a week after his Republican opponent launched a string of increasingly personal attacks on Obama. McCain has said that his rival would lose a war in order to win a campaign, accused him of going to a gym rather than visiting wounded troops, and, while aides asserted that he had “played the race card,” hinted that Obama has a messiah complex and portrayed him as a celebrity comparable to Paris Hilton or Britney Spears. That final line of assault continued yesterday with a new McCain ad, again mocking Obama as “the biggest celebrity in the world.”
Such attacks have raised worries among Democratic strategists — haunted by John F. Kerry’s 2004 run and Al Gore’s razor-thin loss in 2000 — that Obama has not responded in kind with a parallel assault on McCain’s character. Interviews with nearly a dozen Democratic strategists found those concerns to be widespread, although few wished to be quoted by name while Obama’s campaign is demanding unity.
“Democrats are worried,” said Tad Devine, a top strategist for Kerry who thinks Obama must stay on the high road. “We’ve been through two very tough elections at the national level, and it’s very easy to lose confidence.”
Well, sure. Looking back, neither Gore nor Kerry stooped as low as Bush’s gang, and neither was rewarded by voters for claiming the moral and ethical high ground. If voters are going to respond to negative and mendacious attacks, Obama has been positive and honest, and the polls narrowed a bit after McCain’s attacks began in earnest, it stands to reason that Dems are going to feel some anxiety.
But my advice to the party, at least with regards to Obama’s strategy is simple: Relax, we’ve only seen the small parts of the refrigerator.
To be sure, from my role as an arm-chair quarterback, I can think of a couple of open receivers the campaign could have hit but didn’t. When McCain called the Social Security system a “disgrace,” I expected the Obama campaign to pounce. It didn’t. When McCain’s chief economic advisor called us a “nation of whiners,” I expected it to be an Obama campaign staple for a month. It wasn’t.
That said, it looks like this week, in particular, has been something of a turning point.
On Monday, Obama’s team unveiled a contrast ad, which argued, “After one president in the pocket of big oil, we can’t afford another.” A few hours later, Obama delivered a pretty hard-hitting speech, detailing McCain’s ridiculous voting record on energy, and the fact that McCain hasn’t done anything on energy in the quarter-century he’s been in Congress.
On Tuesday, Obama’s team unveiled another contrast ad, and delivered an even harder-hitting speech criticizing McCain, saying Republicans seem to “take pride in being ignorant.”
On Wednesday, we saw the first purely-negative ad from the Obama campaign, hitting McCain’s absurd claim as the “original maverick,” followed by another aggressive speech.
Yes, there’s a qualitative difference between Obama’s ads and McCain’s. The Republican’s attacks are personal and character focused; Obama’s are focused on policy. If Obama wanted to get a little dirtier, he could alert voters to McCain’s role in the Keating Five scandal, his extravagant and ostentatious wealth, his scandalous personal life and record of adultery, and McCain’s status as a septuagenarian. Obama is apparently reluctant to pursue this, and I’m not especially surprised.
I am, however, willing to be patient.
Obama spokesman Burton said the campaign sees no reason to shift strategy.
“This is a classic Washington story, anonymous quotes from armchair quarterbacks with no sense of our strategy, data or plan,” he said.