Oh Come On

by: Matt Stoller

Fri Dec 21, 2007 at 12:26

Now that Obama is surging, Obama's campaign is suddenly this amazing error-free organization with no internal dissent. Take this article titled 'Obama runs tight campaign ship' by Ben Smith at the Politico. Six weeks ago, Smith was writing articles titled 'Jittery donors want Obama to step it up'. The articles aren't inconsistent, in that professional operatives were correctly saying six weeks ago that Obama was doing fine. But the headlines and overall narratives are driven by a mixture of polling and weird conventional wisdom.

At best, campaigns are garbage moving in the right direction. That's why Clinton's error-free professional machine has suddenly morphed into a clumsy campaign. It was never that good at the top, and it's not that bad right now.

I don't have special insight here suggesting Obama's campaign isn't great, though I've seen a lot of mistakes and I worry deeply about a campaign that gets nothing but good press being unprepared for a general election where the tilt of the press coverage changes dramatically. I also worry about Clinton's campaign, because nitpicky legalistic arguments are very Gore-Kerry. Both campaigns have assets as well; somehow Obama gets good press, and Clinton is prepared for vicious negative narratives.

Anyway, I don't want to get into a primary pie-fight. The point here is that journalists are probably more poll-driven and trapped by conventional wisdom than the candidates.

Matt Stoller :: Oh Come On

Tags: Barack Obama, President 2008, President 2008, Hillary Clinton, (All Tags)

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Oh Come On | 3 comments

Consistancy (0.00 / 0)

All Smith is saying is that as a manager, Obama has a political campaign style that is akin to his rhetoric. He likes to disagree without being disagreeable, and he expects his people to follow suit. Inevitably it begs the question, can we expect President Obama to govern in a similar vein?

I am blinded by my devotion, as they say, but the guy is pretty gosh darn consistent.

by: aiko @ Fri Dec 21, 2007 at 11:44:28 AM CST

Obama's Good Press (0.00 / 0)

Has Obama lucked into good press or is he significantly better than other candidates at managing the press (or are his opponents in the primaries just horrible campaigners who aren't good at going on offense)?

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by: Anthony de Jesus @ Fri Dec 21, 2007 at 12:09:31 PM CST