Posted on 08/02/2008 6:27:49 PM PDT by Free ThinkerNY
When is the McCain campaign going to get serious? It seems to be marking time with softball ads, more appropriate to the soundbites campaign media spokespeople exchange with one another than to strategic paid media hits. One ad talks about how the media loves Obama. Another mocks him as a celebrity. Each throws pitty-pat punches, far short of the kind of knockout blows one would expect from a presidential campaign. Were I a donor to McCain's campaign, paying for these pathetic spots, I would demand a refund. Or sue for malpractice.
Yet despite this softball nonsense, Obama remains vulnerable, no better than two points ahead despite the bounce from his overseas trip.
Are the McCain people waiting for September to get serious? If so, they are making a big mistake and missing an important opportunity. History indicates that the best time to beat a new candidate is in the summer. August to be precise.
Dukakis, Mondale, and Kerry all were destroyed in the summer, long before the fall campaign began. In 1984, the offensive against Geraldine Ferraro crippled Mondale well before Labor Day. In 1988, the pledge of allegiance, revolving door, and Willie Horton ads all ran in the summer. Dukakis was dead by September. And the swift boat attack on Kerry defeated him well before the summer was over.
McCain needs to make voters afraid of Obama. Not, as he suggests self-servingly, by emphasizing that he "doesn't look like all the other presidents on dollar bills," but by hitting him on the two fronts where it would really hurt -- the economy and national security. Obama's inexperience and the wildly liberal proposals he has made in his primary campaigning, both set him up for a crippling blow this month.
(Excerpt) Read more at realclearpolitics.com ...
McLame HAS the same policies as B’roke. He can’t criticize his own LIBERAL DEMOCRAT policies. The GOP is stuck on stupid with this idiot.
There's no way Obo can win on policy.
The middle won’t do him any good since he FAILS to connect with Conservatives.
McCain's tack could be deadly.
McCain’s mantra should be:
The surge worked and Obama didn’t want it!
Drill here, drill now!
Obama supported infanticide.
that would do it for me.
I'm not happy with McC. I would have rather had Mitt, but, that is not to be and I'm not going to throw my vote away. I think conservatives as a whole will make that same choice.
I have to agree with Morris on the softball ads.
While they may be humorous and cutsie, they lack substance. And the ones laughting at them probably wouldn’t vote for Obama anyway.
McCain needs to be giving un-decideds a reason to vote for him. Cutsie ads won’t get do it. Heck, he needs to be giving the conservatives in his own party a reason to vote for him.
Attacking Obama’s celebrity makes the McCain camp seem rather petty, and that probably is not going to win McCain many votes nor lose Obama many votes from un-decideds.
True, the “One” take that stuff seriously, to poke fun at them is to hit at the heart of the Obamao’s Campaign:
“The people love and trust me to be their glorious leader, they want me in the Office, they need me in the Office”
But the Obamao has been campaign has looked silly adopting two positions that McCain has had for months, Drilling, and the Surge was a Success.
Barack’s worshipers are mainly caught up in the obama style. So McCain should hit barack on this style thing. He'll be hitting barack where barack is strongest. So attacks on obama’s style will devastate the morale of obama’s shallow worshipers.
Then you have learned nothing from 2006.
You have been awarded the trophy for the dumbest comment on FR today. Congratulations!
I dunno, the lead shrunk NINE points in 4-5 days. Hard to complain about the ads with that fact staring you in the face.
Wrong! You obviously are under the impression that the Americans who we need to convince not to vote for Obama have enough gray matter to comprehend policy. They do not. The “pathetic” spots as you call them are exactly what is needed. They are short and simple enough that the so-called independents can understand them. These people are simpletons, who vote on things like looks, race, type of underwear the candidate wears and so on. Please don’t give them more credit than they deserve.
No one cares what you think. Buzz off.
Morris’s analysis is flat wrong.
McCain, much to my suprise, is playing it exactly right: letting his organization snipe at Obama on style (his strong-suit) in ways that could potentially backfire (not that they have, indeed the response form Obama’s folk has been nearly optimal from McCain’s POV), early. Any benefits will be lasting, any harm can be brushed aside by firing a low-level aid and saying something santimonious. It puts Obama off his game by obliging him to continue working on style rather than trying to get up to speed on substance. After the conventions, I presume McCain will hit him on policy fairly relentlessly, and probably only on policy.
McCain is hitting Obama with the no experience tag. He can go after policy later.
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