Posted on 10/31/2008 12:31:27 AM PDT by DiogenesLaertius
I’m going to let you in on a few secrets here, and this is not because I enjoy the gossip or the attention directed my way. I’m doing this because I doubt much of you know the true weaknesses of Obama. Another reason for my doing this is that I am lost faith in this campaign, and feel that this choice has been forced on many people in this country. Put simply, you are being manipulated. That was and is our job – to manipulate you (the electorate) and the media (we already had them months ago). Our goal is to create chaos with the other side, not hope. I’ve come to the realization (as the campaign already has) that if this comes to the issues, Barack Obama doesn’t have a chance. His only chance is to foster disorganization, chaos, despair, and a sense of inevitability among the Republicans. It has worked up until now. Joe the Plumber has put the focus on the issues again, and this scares us more than anything. Being in a position to know these things, I will rate what the Obama campaign already knows are their weak links from the most important on down.
1 – Hillary voters. Internal polling suggests that at best, we are taking 70-75% of these voters. Other estimates are as low as 60% in some areas – particularly Ohio and western PA. My biggest problem with this campaign’s strategy was the decision NOT to offer Hillary the VP slot. She was ready and able to take this on, and would have campaigned enthusiastically for it. This selection would have also brought virtually all of her supporters into the fold, and the Obama campaign knew it. Though I have no way of knowing this for certain, and I do admit that I am relying on internal gossip, Senator Obama actually went against the advice of his top advisors. They wanted him to choose her, but the only significant opposition to this within the campaign came from Barack and Michelle Obama. In short, he let personal feelings take precedence over what was the most logical thing to do. Biden, by the way, has been a disaster inside the campaign. Everyone cringes whenever he gives an interview, and he creates so many headaches as the campaign has to stay on their toes in order to disseminate information and spin whatever it was he was trying to say.
2 – Sarah Palin. Don’t believe what the media is telling you about how horrible a choice she was. Again, our internal polling suggest that though she has had a minimal impact on pulling disaffected Hillary Democrats to McCain, she has done wonders in mobilizing the base for McCain. Another thing – we were completely taken by surprise with her pick. In my capacity in the research department, I looked into the backgrounds of Leiberman, Romney, Pawlenty and Ridge, and prepared briefs. I don’t mind bragging that we had pretty good stuff on all of them. With Leiberman, the plan was to paint him as an erratic old-timer who didn’t have a clue as to what he was doing (pretty much a clone of McCain). In Romney, we had him pegged as an evil capitalist who cut jobs. Pawlenty was going to get the “Quayle treatment”, or more precisely: a pretty face, with no valid experience. Tom Ridge was going to be used to provide a direct link from McCain to Bush. As you can see, we were quite enamored of all of them. Then the unexpected happened – Sarah Palin. We had no clue as to how to handle her, and bungled it from the start. Though through our misinformation networks, we have successfully taken some of the shine off. But let there be no doubt. She remains a major obstacle. She has singlehanded solidified “soft” Republican support, mobilized the McCain ground game, and has even had some appeal to independents and Hillary voters. This is what our internal polling confirms.
3 – Obama’s radical connections. Standards operating procedure has been to cry “racism” whenever one of these has been brought up. We even have a detailed strategy ready to go should McCain ever bring Rev. Wright up. Though by themselves they are of minimal worth, taken together, Rev. Wright, Bill Ayers, Father Pfelger, and now, Rashid Khalili, are exactly what the campaign does not need. The more focus on them, the more this election becomes a referendum on Obama. The campaign strategy from the very beginning was to make this election a referendum on Bush. Strategists have been banging their head on how successfully McCain has distanced himself from Bush. This has worked, and right now the tide is in his favor. People are taking a new look at Barack Obama, and our experience when this happens tells us this is not good news at all. When they take a look at him, one or more of these names are bound to be brought up. McCain has wisely not harped on this in recent weeks and let voters decide for themselves. This was a trap we set for him, and he never fully took the bait. Senator Obama openly dared him to bring up Ayers. This was not due to machismo on the part of Obama, but actually due to campaign strategy. Though McCain’s reference to Ayers fell flat in the last debate, people in the Obama campaign were actually disappointed that he didn’t follow through on it more and getting into it. Our focus groups found this out: When McCain brings these connections up, voters are turned off to him. They’d rather take this into consideration themselves, and when this happens, our numbers begin to tank.
4 – The Bradley Effect. Don’t believe these polls for a second. I just went over our numbers and found that we have next to no chance in the following states: Missouri, Indiana, North Carolina, Florida, New Hampshire and Nevada. Ohio leans heavily to McCain, but is too close to call it for him. Virginia, Pennsylvania, Colorado, New Mexico and Iowa are the true “toss up states”. The only two of these the campaign feels “confident” in are Iowa and New Mexico. The reason for such polling discrepancy is the Bradley Effect, and this is a subject of much discussion in the campaign. In general, we tend to take a -10 point percentage in allowing for this, and are not comfortable until the polls give us a spread well over this mark. This is why we are still campaigning in Virginia and Pennsylvania! This is why Ohio is such a desperate hope for us! What truly bothers this campaign is the fact that some pollsters get up to an 80% “refuse to respond” result. You can’t possibly include these into the polls. The truth is, people are afraid to let people know who they are voting for. The vast majority of these respondents are McCain supporters. Obama is the “hip” choice, and we all know it.
As part of my research duties, I scour right wing blogs and websites to get somewhat of a “feel” as to what is being talked about on the other side. Much of it is nonsense, but there are some exceptions which give the campaign jitters. A spirited campaign has been made to infiltrate many pro-Hillary sites and discredit them. A more disorganized, but genuine effort has also been made to sow doubts among the unapologetically right wing sites such as redstate.com. Don’t you guys get it? This has been the Obama campaign’s sole strategy from the very beginning! The only way he wins is over a dispirited, disorganized, and demobilized opposition. This is how it has been for all of his campaigns. What surprises me is that everyone has fallen for it. You may point to the polls as proof of the inevitability of all of this. If so, you have fallen for the oldest trick in the book. How did we skew these polls, you might ask? It all starts with the media “buzz” which has been generated over the campaign. Many stories are generated on the powerful Obama ground game, and how many new voters were registered. None of this happens by coincidence. It is all part of the poll-skewing process. This makes pollsters change their mixes to reflect these new voters and tilt the mix more towards Democratic voters. What is not mentioned or reported on is not the “under-reported cell phone users or young voters” we hear so much about. What is underreported is you.
I changed my somewhat positive opinion of this campaign during the unfair and sexist campaign against Sarah Palin. I will never agree with her on the issues and will probably never vote for her, but I am embarrassed of what has happened. I can’t ignore our own hand in all of this. What I do know is that I will not be voting for Obama this time around. Treat that as you will.
In that case, perhaps the whole purpose of it is to discourage the use of Wright in the last few days. I agree, they would much prefer to let sleeping dogs lie.
Sarah P sounds like Margaret Thatcher....yeah that is the ticket....the followup at the PUMA site from Sarah P is interesting.
Good post! The only thing I disagree with is the Bradley effect. I don’t think real conservatives are subject to the Bradley effect because they aren’t racists. Liberals are truly the racists. I don’t think most intelligent people are entertained or enamored by surveys and polls. Sueveys and polls are designed to make you “feel” like you have contributed your opinion and that they will really listen to you. These people taking surveys don’t give a crap about what you think.
Truth be told, any sane person would have run as far as they could from the Klinton’s.
The poster also contradicts himself, saying that Palin "has had a minimal impact on pulling disaffected Hillary Democrats," and then later in the same paragraph stating that she "had some appeal to independents and Hillary voters." Which one is it?
This "Annonymous" writer puts together a list of states where Obama "has no chance," and a lot of them are going to be truly competitive, and look very promising for McCain, but then he drops New Hampshire on the list. McCain has a fighting chance there, but there's no way that anybody can say that Obama "has no chance" in New Hampshire. I think we'll pull it off, but to say Obama "has no chance" would indicate McCain could pull up roots there today and be sure he could coast through to victory. Not so.
The Bradley Effect, if there is one, is also not ten percentage points. Also, during the primaries, there was actually a reverse Bradley Effect in states with high percentages of blacks, like Virginia and North Carolina, where Obama ended up getting far more votes than expected. So to say that they're being written off because of the Bradley Effect means the poster doesn't actually understand what the Bradley Effect supposedly does (if it's real at all — there's a lot of debate about that, too).
I'll take any good news I can ahead of Tuesday's election, and I'm saying daily prayers for victory, but I'd say the value of this article is more in the weight of its ideas than the veracity of its source.
“Fake, but accurate.”
That’s how I took this.
We had Operation Chaos. What’s to say that Operation PUMA wasn’t concocted by the left?
I dunno check this out. People have gone over the edge!
Mother teaches son, “Obama Rules”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AGGBDAMHZU&feature=related
“Fake, but accurate.”
That best sums it up.
This is the second “rogue” Obama campaigner to make a “confession” over the past 3 days.
I can’t decipher the motivation, but the information itself appears to be accurate.
To be fair to Obama here, if the only thing standing between Hillary and the Presidency was your beating heart, would you feel safe?
“i think it is a conservative with an imagination, trying to vicariously live out the role of the heroic Obama supporter who has seen the light and tells us all their secrets. It’s a fantasy”
or it’s Rove.
That is one of my worries.
“What’s to say that Operation PUMA wasn’t concocted by the left?”
Have you spent time on their websites?
They are genuinely ticked off.
Last week they posted old threads for the newcomer republicans describing the nasty e-mail from Donna Brazille that inspired their movement.
I cannot possibly see the benefit to the left.
These people are showing up at McCain offices and working to get out the vote -making calls - attending rallies - putting up their signs.
Nope - this is a genuine re-alignment the msm refuses to acknowledge.
Like Dan Rather: Fake, but accurate?
I brought this up to a lib. She wrote it off as just a disgruntled ex-employee.
Note to Self: Nothing's gonna sway the left wing, better to focus on the "fence-sitters" at this point.
I used to think the same thing TOL- but there are countless websites run by disgrunted Hillary supporters- we know some of them from Cavuto’s interviews with them on FOX. When you go to their blogs and read their posts- they make a compelling case against Obama (not that we need convincing) and there are lists for signing up volunteers, meeting places, working for “Democrats for McCain etc.
I tend to think they are real and will have an effect on the 4th.
“I don’t think this is real.”
You may be right, but I don’t see any obvious cracks. It could be real.
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