I have a few thing to add to Chris Bowers’ advice for Barack Obama. Go after McCain’s strengths. Do it now and do it at the convention. Let your surrogates off the leash.
What are McCain’s strengths?
1) The media loves him. People hate the media. Show well-known pundits drooling over McCain and make fun of them (and McCain). Make McCain the poster-child for inside-the-Beltway-wankerism and out-of-touchness.
2) He’s supposed to be a Maverick. Never lose an opportunity to point out how much of an orthodox right-winger McCain is on the issues. Never praise him for some alleged break with his party or independent stance he may have taken in the past. Don’t say that he’s changed from the maverick he once was. Say that he never was a maverick in the first place.
3) His military record and experience working on issues related to our national defense gives him an appearance of being qualified for the job. Point out how wrong McCain has been on predicting the future. Point it out over and over and over and over and over again.
Unless McCain’s strengths are neutered, he will remain in contention. But his weaknesses need to be exploited as well. Chief among his weaknesses are his bad temperament, his poor relations with his senate colleagues, and his horrible reputation with the base of his party. Drive wedges between McCain and the rest of his party at every opportunity. This is the chief argument in favor of including Republicans and former Republicans in the campaign message machine.
McCain’s positions on the issues are a weakness as well, but that should take second place to ripping him down off his pedestal and diving a wedge between him and his party.
When it comes to the national meta-narrative, it should be all about how McCain is the darling of the Beltway elite punditocracy, how he’s a far-right winger that is indistinguishable from Bush/Cheney (shows no independence), and that he has no power of prediction (he makes horrible judgments). He’s hot-tempered and distrusted by his colleagues, and he’s showing age-related mental diminishment.
This is tough stuff, but it’s all true. And this election is too important to leave things to chance. McCain needs a fist in his mouth every day so that he has no room to maneuver.
boo, you’re gonna break davie brook’s little wanker’s heart.
l won’t elevate his wankery by including a quote, but suffice it to say…it’s all obama’s and the blogger’s fault…it’s hall of fame quality.
but control the scripts.
I agree with each of your points. However, message discipline is very important. We could destroy McCain’s lie of a reputation, but it will take a lot of work and a lot of footsoldiers. Wes Clark on the military thing, that POW who did the OP-ED on McCain’s lies about his POW experience (during WWII, POWs were DESPISED by soldiers – why are you a hero if you are stupid enough to lose not one but 2 30 million dollar aircraft?)
Get Kerry out there. Get all Dem senators. Get Dem govs.
Let the dogs out.
control the scripts’…???!!!
the obama campaign has controlled the scripts for 2 months, and what have they accomplished other than squandering what should be, at this point gointg into the conventions, an almost insurmountable lead?
yeah, hiring all those re-tread, dlc-type losers and, for all intents and purposes, abandoning the strategy that that won the nomination’s worked real well.
mcstain is vulnerable in so many areas that it would take a 15,000 word essay to describe them…and we’re stuck in a horse race?
all the blame cannot be laid at the feet of the media, plouffe & co. are weaving the rope that the RATs are going to hang them with by not taking a hard line and attacking his rather obvious faults.
it was their’s to lose, and they’re doing a fine job of it.
my 2¢ ymmv
We need more messages out there. We need to win the fucking news cycle, which has not happened for about 3 weeks. We need “Obama said” and “McCain reacted”
We need to go on the O, not the fucking D.
and they need to go after quisling’s like LIEberman:
it’s official, LIEberman will speak at the rnc:
he’s in
badgood company. others on the speakers list include chimpy, “dick”, and rudy “911” giuliani…the “keynote” speaker and the go-to guy who’s assuming the position of designated attacker/ on the issue of Obama’s foreign policy adviser going to Syria.why isn’t this fair game? team obama ought to be using his standing in the senate as the presumptive nominee…the convention isn’t over…to see that joseph is stripped of his seniority and chairmanships, post haste, that would set the tenor of change you
cancould believe in.they’re losing the media battle, badly.
I got sick to my stomach today watching Lieberman on the news with McCain.
from huffpost:
yeah, you better do that harry, and quick…because it’s not unlikely you aren’t going to be majority leader next year…spineless twit.
can you spell Dodd? l thought you could.
Everybody is in panic mode.
Theda Skocpol also has some great advice over at TPM
Ask Kerry, he played nice.
And you can’t win an election playing nice. McWar does not keep his word. Hey, he forgets what he said this morning. He’s in it to win it.
If you don’t fight back, you are the slapper’s bitch.
Obama had better start talking tough, and using some of that Chicago tough-guy stuff, or he will be McCain’s bitch.
i like all your points
number one is so important, not only to discredit McCain but to put the media on defensive.
Very good advice, BooMan. Now, will Obama & Co follow it or have the Democrats selected another wuss as their candidate? Perhaps, Obama should choose a real fighter as his Veep. Like Biden, or, God forbid, Hillary C.! To beat McCain and what he represents (WWIII), I think I would vote for the Devil himself.
Bush, Cheney, McCain, Rove are like the four horsemen of the Apocalypse. Death and destruction ride again into our lives.
The biggest strategic blunder of the last two conventions was the failure to attack the Republican candidate and the Republican party. The RNC won’t send you to the stage if you don’t somehow smear the Democrats in your speech.
I’ve read that the convention this year will contains “contrasts” with McCain. That can mean one of two things — a nice way of saying we will smear McCain, or an indication that they will discuss policies in an intelligent and even-handed (read: weak, wimpy) manner.
Hate to say it, but the two most important speeches (other than Barack) are Hillary Clinton and the VP. They MUST slam McCain hard, especially Hillary. Sure, she can talk about her grand place in feminist history, but she must make it clear that McCain is the worst candidate for women in history. She showed a vicious streak against Obama; now it is time to show it against McCain.
“He talks the talk, but he doesn’t walk the walk”.
I see McCain ads here with words like TAXES; ECONOMIC DISASTER superimposed over closeups of Obama! Simple images for simple minds.
I want to see ads of Pictures McCain and GW (together) superimposed over words like LIES: GAS PRICES: WAR PHOTOS: (IRAQ IN RUINS) MILITARY CASKETS WITH OUR FLAG OVER THEM: CLOSED U.S. FACTORIES: HOUSES WITH FOR SALE SIGNS
YOUNG ADULTS WORKING AT MCBURGERS and so forth. Call them on the ongoing disaster that has been the last eight years and KEEP CALLING THEM ON IT!!
Obama is running for President of the U.S.A., not the local homeowners association!