so on these ads (4.00 / 1)

It was pretty predictable that cable news would show the ad for free since we've seen it before (Swiftboats, 3AM).

But what can the campaign do?  Should there have been a 30 sec response ad that the news would feel obliged (or would want) to play too?  Maybe that would not work, but these situations are ridiculous.  

New Jersey politics at Blue Jersey.

---

by: Hopeful in NJ @ Wed Jul 30, 2008 at 15:07:36 PM UTC

Slinging mud and trading coarse insults is a good Barack strategy (0.00 / 0)

"Elite" and "arrogant" don't fit with pit-bull attacks. He should start and never stop. Call McCain everything in the book. Not cleverly either.  

---

by: shagbark @ Wed Jul 30, 2008 at 16:34:28 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

On Kevin Martin ... (0.00 / 0)

don't get too impressed with the guy .. just becaue he is great on one issue ... doesn't mean you should get all giddy about the guy .. yeah .. he deserves props for this one issue .. but you can't let up on the pressure

---

by: Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle @ Wed Jul 30, 2008 at 15:11:23 PM UTC

Abercrombie (D-HI) (0.00 / 0)

I'm pretty sure I read about his efforts here at OpenLeft, but now he is on CNN.com live with an "Energy Plan Briefing" and he is denouncing both parties.  WTF?


New Jersey politics at Blue Jersey.

---

by: Hopeful in NJ @ Wed Jul 30, 2008 at 15:15:11 PM UTC

I"m in Missouri right now (0.00 / 0)

and it's pretty clear by now that McCain is outspending Obama here by a pretty wide margin, at least on TV.  

---

by: Valatan @ Wed Jul 30, 2008 at 16:18:59 PM UTC

I saw an Obama ad yesterday (0.00 / 0)

This was the first one I had seen since the primary.

Re the symbolic quote: I am going to cry. You even have to take the clipped version out of context to make it presumptuous. What has much of the netroots been seeing in Obama all this time other than a symbol?  

Darkness has a hunger that's insatiable, and lightness has a call that's hard to hear.  

---

by: 4jkb4ia @ Wed Jul 30, 2008 at 18:33:27 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

New VP name (0.00 / 0)

Trapper John at Kos, who predicted John McCain would get the nod when others were counting him out, guesses that Obama might pick Tom Daschle as his VP.  Daschle was one of the very first to sign on with Obama, and former staff members make up much of the core of Obama's staff.  The two are close, with Daschle somewhat of a mentor.  Daschle is part of the pre-Clinton Dem Party, and was the Majority/Minority leader in the first Bush term.  

He has recently been a lobbyist, and his wife is a lobbyist.  He is a very controversial figure in these parts (see post by Matt), perhaps epitomizing the idea of "post-partisanship" that ironically is so polarizing here.

Before everyone cuts the idea to pieces, I want to reprint Mike Lux's comment to that post, since he has actually worked with the man and may be unavailable to chime in:

First is just a factual error in Matt's post: Gephardt was the one who undercut Biden's negotiations to pass a much tougher resolution [on the Iraq War], Daschle was very much on Biden's side on that.
The other is a more general point. Tom Daschle, in my experience with him on capitol hill, was one of the most decent and honorable, and yes, progressive Dem leaders that I have dealt with up there. If you actually look at the way he held that caucus together to stand up to Bush on a wide range of issues, it's actually pretty remarkable- I won't go into the details I personally know about here, but perhaps I should do a post about it someday, because it's mostly behind the scenes stuff that very few people know about. (snip)

There's a whole lot of allegations in Matt's post, and I'm not going to argue them point by point. The general topic of Democrats becoming corporate lobbyists is an important one, and I find myself somewhat more mixed on it than Matt. It's obviously something I haven't chosen to do myself, and I'm not a fan of Dems doing it, but I don't think it's all as black and white as Matt suggests. Some Dems, Daschle included, specifically won't lobby for companies and issues they don't like.

What I see Daschle being able to do is help Obama negotiate things through Congress by peeling off enough of the remaining GOP semi-moderates, such as the Ladies from Maine, Voino, Specter and McCain's replacement (I'm betting he will retire if he loses), while Obama appeals to the public at large.  Daschle is the closest to LBJ (in terms of knowing how to work the Senate) that we have, without LBJ's insecurities and other faults, and the Senate, everyone agrees, is where the obstacles will lie.  He certainly would fulfill Obama's criterion of helping him govern, more than any of the other mentions.

The more I think about it the more sense it makes.  

John McCain--He's not who you think he is.

---

by: Mimikatz @ Wed Jul 30, 2008 at 16:57:20 PM UTC

Put him on the whitehouse staff (4.00 / 2)

Just don't pick him for VP

John McCain doesn't care about Vets.

---

by: MC @ Thu Jul 31, 2008 at 03:43:15 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

While there is very good logic in what you say ... (0.00 / 0)

I wonder if Obama would go that route for one reason ..  who would come after him? .. Does he want someone to have a leg up in succeeding him come 2016? .. I'd be hard pressed he'd go the Bush route as far as VP goes(meaning not leaving a succession plan in place)

---

by: Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle @ Thu Jul 31, 2008 at 05:14:18 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

there need to be strong "contrast" ads (4.00 / 1)

All of the following about 100% True and issues based:

1.  McCain wants to take away your employer-paid health care plan and make you buy your own instead.

2.  McCain says he wants to stay in Iraq for 100 years and that he wants the troops out in 16 months.

3.  McCain thinks current Social Security is a disgrace and thinks it should be privatized.

4.  McCain says he doesn't know much about the economy, and that Bush's economy is strong.

Maybe they are waiting for September, but I'd like to start seeing them now.

McCain ran to the crazy right in the primaries and now has flip-flopped on everything.

New Jersey politics at Blue Jersey.

---

by: Hopeful in NJ @ Wed Jul 30, 2008 at 17:46:00 PM UTC

Same as the swifties (0.00 / 0)

The result, Mr. Rutenberg writes, is "a public relations coup that allowed him to show his toughest campaign advertisement of the year - one widely panned as misleading - to millions of people, largely free, through television news media hungry for political news with arresting visual imagery."

This is exactly how the swift boat ads got so much air time.

Conduct your own interview of Sarah Palin!

---

by: fwiffo @ Wed Jul 30, 2008 at 17:49:13 PM UTC

No Florida ads? (0.00 / 0)

I'm seeing more McCain than Obama ads in Florida. That study must be wrong.

Conduct your own interview of Sarah Palin!

---

by: fwiffo @ Wed Jul 30, 2008 at 17:49:54 PM UTC

Hasia Diner, Jews of the United States (0.00 / 0)

I schnorred this from the Wash.U. Campus Store two years ago already, so Matt may have already read it. Important to get a sense of how American Jews worked as a broad community in American history and how being American was always very important to them. From the O perspective it is very easy to see the hashkafic conflicts in the Jewish community without thinking about how it is embedded in an American context.

Tisha B'Av August 10--don't forget.  

Darkness has a hunger that's insatiable, and lightness has a call that's hard to hear.  

---

by: 4jkb4ia @ Wed Jul 30, 2008 at 18:40:32 PM UTC