Obama Strategy

Everyone has been whining about the tightening numbers and that Obama is not attacking enough and that he is going to lose and that he's like Kerry or Dukakis or whatever else they are whining about. I understand their concerns to a point, but this is getting pathetic. As I have said before, Obama will win and I believe he is doing a good job. The numbers were going to tighten. This is a Red/Blue country. Obama is still leading by 3-7 in the composite. There was no way a black Democrat was going to walk all over the old white POW. It's almost like people are pretending or intentionally ignoring the dynamics of this race. Obama has the right idea here and let me tell you why.

VP Speculation

I called that Obama would make his selection before the Olympics. He didn't and there is a strategy behind it. What has everyone been talking about for the past two weeks? What does CNN, AP and every other blog write about everyday? They speculate who his VP will be. They write about people speculating about who it will be and they speculate about people speculating who will be the VP. This is free and easy coverage. Obama has thrown so many names around as well. He's listed people from Indiana, New Mexico, Connecticut, the military, Arkansas, Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Kansas and many other states. This inclusion plays well to the voters in those states. It shows that Obama is in-line with their worries and their issues. I don't even want to speculate anymore. I will wait for my international text from the Obama camp and then I will go with it. When the announcement is made, it will be all the news for the week. McCain will try to pull something slimy, but it won't stick. This speculation has served him well.

Attack Strategy

This is the one that has the Kossacks and all the other liberal netizens up in arms. "Why is Obama doing this?!!", "He needs to fire his press team!!", "He's worse than Kerry!!" and my personal favorite, "Obama just lost the election!!!". All bloggers assume their wisdom is the best and therefore feel like they can write posts that seem to be talking AT Obama. I do not do that. I talk to myself. Obama has the right strategy on this and the primary season tells us why. Like all GOP strategies, they chose the short-sighted path and tried to interfer with the Democratic primary so the Dems could kill their chances of unifying before convention. They realeased the all the Wright, Rezco and Ayers stuff hoping that Obama would be so bruised and the Hillary hate would allow for a smooth McCain victory. The Wright stuff hurt, but Obama has now cruised past it. If McCain brings it up again, it will only seem stale and a little desparte. It would not be as effective.

This is what Obama was thinking. Let McCain dish out his first round of garbage (of which possessed no substance), endure it and refute it to around convention time. Obama's theme has been more positive, so his convention needs to reflect that. But after convention, the negative ads will start rolling out and the money is going to pour in. He let McCain go first and now McCain's attacks are getting old and most people think that it is a poor reflection on McCain's character. If Obama had started releasing a lot of McCain=Bush ads now, by October that would be stale and not as effective.

The branding starts now. Obama planted the seed and took the high road first. Sure he might have lost a couple points now, but he's only got one place to go.

Here are his new ads airing this week.

The Effectiveness of the "Swift Boat"

The "Swift Boat" of 2004 was much more potent than the one in Vietnam and is proving to be more potent than the current 2008 version. I say the 2008 version, but I must qualify that designation. To be fair, there has not been a "Swift Boating" yet. A "Swift Boat" does not look anything like what this past week has produced. And furthermore, I think that the current state of the MSM and its somewhat hostile relationship with the increasingly relevant blogosphere is proof that there will be more oversight, more accuracy and perhaps even some elements of professional journalism. I said "perhaps".


This theory hinges on the assumption that the Media is torn as to who their true darling is and how much the left blogs can keep the Media, and therefore campaign reality, in check. We can already see the apprehensiveness in what and how the Media will report such smears. At the start of this Clark issue, they began as they usually do: Report an out-of-context clip that makes it seem like a below the belt shot was taken at their long-time darling, St. McCain. However, when Clark did not back down from the multi-fronted attack, the liberal blogs went into action and when others started agreeing with Clark, the Media was forced to look at how they reported the story and, in a slight instance of journalistic integrity, they started running the entire or at least more accurate story WITH context. This, with the exception of Fox News, is an indication of why the Swift Boat of 2008 isn't nearly as detrimental than the 2004 model. For it to work again, there has to be a complete lack of even minimal journalistic skills and a breakdown of the left blogosphere. I simply don't seeing either of those two conditions being met.

McCain has also limited himself insofar as that he condemned the 2004 Swifter's, but is now accepting their donations while at the same time demanding that Obama "cuts Clark loose". In effect, he has renounced and distanced himself from attacks that are deemed a "Swift Boat", so when his surrogates get ready to release The Case Against Barack Obama where will he stand? The last thing he needs (or just the thing that Obama needs) is to be further labeled a flip-flopper and especially not in this case where his ethics will be called into question.

While many pundits still have man-crushes on John McCain, I think that Obama's darling status rivals it well and will give us a glimpse into the Media's true role. It will get worse I'm sure, but we need to do our part to make sure that the Media does theirs.

A More Complete Picture

The Clark/Webb-related events of the past few days have opened a door and given the public a more complete idea of who McCain is and how he deals with people and unfriendly situations. As his experience was called into question by more senior military officials (something that has not been done publicly), we were given a picture of an aging, whiny man who is so arrogant that he expects and demands respect from everyone and if he doesn't get it, it leads to openly erratic behavior. Is John McCain sooo "delicate" that he can't take criticism even when it is accurate and well said? Does he have to rely on Fox and shallow expressions and claims of patriotism to bite back? Why can't he handle criticism? More importantly, how will he react when entire nations will be openly criticizing him, if he can't even handle it from a few individual people?

By reacting the way he has and certainly continuing it after Obama said, "Enough!" with the whole thing, McCain made the horrendous error of demanding that it was time to "cut Clark loose". Obama will do no such thing. Now, Obama has earned hand and McCain looks like a whiny old man. Having Clark and Webb highlighting these weaknesses in a backwards and illogical world where Obama can't because he didn't "serve", is just what Obama needs. McCain's reaction is a product of over a decade of favorable Media coverage, a lifetime of demanding his ass to be kissed and very little public criticism. Clark was dead-on when he suggested McCain was "untested", but now it also includes national public life.

Wait. I spoke to soon. He was "tested" by Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega on a diplomatic mission in 1987.

"McCain was down at the end of the table and we were talking to the head of the guerrilla group here at this end of the table and I don't know what attracted my attention," Cochran said in an interview with The Sun Herald in Biloxi, Miss. "But I saw some kind of quick movement at the bottom of the table and I looked down there and John had reached over and grabbed this guy by the shirt collar and had snatched him up like he was throwing him up out of the chair to tell him what he thought about him or whatever ...

"I don't know what he was telling him but I thought, 'Good grief, everybody around here has got guns and we were there on a diplomatic mission.' I don't know what had happened to provoke John, but he obviously got mad at the guy ... and he just reached over there and snatched ... him."

And that was on a diplomatic mission. McCain has to be the alpha male and bully in every situation and this is not what we need. We're just finishing up with a non-physical bully, and now McCain thinks we need more PLUS a little extra.

The bigger issue is not whether I think McCain is a sissy that can't hack it. I do and he can't. The once-hidden image of a hotheaded bully that rose in politics because of family connections and physical threats is back on the table and now that the majority of the MSM has openly displayed reluctance to let McCain off the hook and rail into Obama, he might be in some trouble.

My Question: We have already heard the word "Swift Boat" hundreds of times in the past few days and the sound of that raises hairs on the backs of Democratic voters because we know how slimy the GOP can be. However, the media has been heavily criticized this season and felt threatened by blogs, forums and youtube and have forced themselves to be slightly more objective. So will their fear of further criticism cause them to label all baseless smears as a "Swift Boat", therefore putting them to rest before they get to the point they did last election?