Posted on 09/26/2008 10:51:22 PM PDT by Lancey Howard
For last night's debate Obama's handlers decided that in order for their man to try to elevate his stature and gain equal footing with John McCain in the eyes of the viewing public he should refer to his opponent as "John" whenever the opportunity arose. Not, "my opponent". Not, "Senator McCain". Simply, "John".
Quick freeper poll: Does anybody think this tactic worked?
It's my feeling that Obama wanted so hard to employ this tactic that he threw in a few too many, "I agree with John..." responses. In other words, Obama's desire to use the tactic (which he must have thought was a pretty clever idea) ended up making him look like a go-along follower, as he responded with several variations of, "John is right...".
It's good to see that the McCain campaign was quick to produce an ad making precisely that point.
I also find it telling that the Obama campaign figured that the "John" tactic was needed in the first place. Obviously, the campaign believes there is a "stature gap" that must be overcome.
I also wonder how many old Clinton hands are working with Obama on his debate tactics? Who can ever forget Clinton's use of the same kind of tactic when he wagged his finger at the TV camera and referred to the young, barely-out-of-high-school-intern, Monica Lewinsky, as "that woman" in order to try to elevate her stature so that people might be less inclined to view him, Clinton, as a "dirty old man"? Ironically, with the help of his allies in the Democrat "mainstream" press, the tactic mostly worked!
it made Bamey look silly and disrespectful and McCain presidential....all well and good for Bamey if he was going for the silly and disrespectful look.
It either came across as condescending and rude, or as a young junior Senator from Illinois trying to act as though one of the lions of the Senate should pay him heed.
It’s standard tactic for the left. Kerry always called GWB “George Bush” and never “President Bush”, and it’s always “Ms. Palin” and not “Gov. Palin”, Obmama is just adopting the same tactics.
Lancey, I had my doubts but I think it will work out fine.
He screwed up by calling him “Jim” once,I thought that was the first Gaffe.
OOPs. My mistake.
Obama was trying to pretend he was in the same grade as Senator McCain with that approach. It didn’t work.
Yes, and "the left" includes the Democrat "mainstream" newsrooms. I read here yesterday that Perky Katie instructed the producers of her interview with Alaska Governor Sarah Palin to remove any references to Palin as "Governor Palin" from the graphics and images, etc. The scumbags are all on the same page.
Just goes to show......you really can't get by with on-the-job training....and bluff your way to the top. He's a house of cards.
Right, and that was part of the "John" tactic as well - - to try to make Obama look like an old familiar hand in the United States Senate rather than a first-term junior Senator who has actually only "worked" in the Senate for about 140 days.
Keep in mind his job was to tie Bush to McCain at every moment. That was lost then comes back after an hour, then gets lost again. Obama was on defense all night.
Can’t stand Kennedy but McCain wishing him well was just an example of politeness and good manners - if nothing else - that McCain exhibits. As first responder, BO certainly had an opportunity to upstage McCain on this one but didn’t. Wonder why I didn’t hear anybody pick up on it. BO doesn’t know McCain well enough to call him by his first name!
That reminds me.
Did you see the look of pure, unadulterated hatred on Perky's face when she was interviewing Gov. Palin? It wasn't in every shot, but it came through loud and clear several times when the camera was on her face.
And that brings up another shameful thing I noticed about that interview.
Several times while Gov. Palin was speaking, the camera switched to Perky listening to her. I thought this was highly disrespectful to a Vice Presidential candidate, and was a subliminal effort to give the viewer the impression that Sarah wasn't the real subject of the interview -- Katie's reactions to her was.
I wanted to punch someone, but who? Give me a clue here...
Good Point. That was the first moment McCain took over. Wishing Kennedy well when Bambi had opening remarks and never mentioned it.
I think that Obama is intimidated by McCain because there is no way a community organizer got the same training as someone trained at Pensacola.
McCain could think of it as BURY, as in Kruschev’s “We will bury You”.
Right before the debate started Brit Hume said Barack had been working to shorten up his answers. I jokingly said to my wife "if Obama removes all of the ums his answers will be very short". That part he managed to do pretty well.
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