I wish I had time to sit down with the campaign to talk to them one on one and beat the message into them. Alas, I am but a simple voter and my voice will probably never reach them. This is what I would tell them. Though I could elaborate and suggest a hundred more ads to run and tactics to use this will suffice. I'm sure we've all blogged about these issues and talked about them but it has yet to sink in. Maybe if we scream it loud enough they'll get the message. Then again, we're Democrats...
To Barack's Campaign Team:
I respect that you want to run a "Positive" campaign but what did that get Kerry, Gore or Dukakis? They lost. I know you're hitting back but it's not working and a lot of Dems are starting to worry. I know the campaign knows this. Here's the problem: nuance only works on the informed/educated voter. Most of this country are low-information voters and logic and nuance doesn't work. Dumb it down and hit him hard. Hit McCain on his voting record for veterans funding. He chided Obama for talking about it once before saying he had top honors from all of the veterans organizations. Obama needs to play that clip and then show his record from vet groups showing that he gets 0%-20% approval ratings. That goes to show his lack of integrity and patriotism. Hit him on his accusation of ambition by playing sound bites from his book where he says it's his ambition to be president. And for the love of God fund the 527's so they can do what they're supposed to do!
Also, the framing Obama uses is ineffectual. When McCain challenged his patriotism at the VFW and Obama responded the next day he missed a great opportunity. He is sending Americans mixed messages by saying that McCain wants what's best for the country and talking about how patriotic he is. Obama is reinforcing McCain's integrity and basically telling the audience that they can believe McCain. He needs to avoid that all together. He should have used that opportunity to address the Vets on McCains record and to challenge him instead of talking about what a great patriotic American McCain is. It was one thing when it was during the primaries and he was up against a fellow Democrat, it's something entirely different when it's against the other party. Stop complimenting him!
McCain claimed he was going to run a positive campaign and didn't. Sure, the media beat him up for a day or two and then the story lost traction. You're forgetting that there is a difference between a negative campaign and a dishonest campain. As long as you hit hard and hit McCain where it hurts you're not going to lose any voters, heck, you'll probably pick up some voters since you're no longer reinforcing the stereotype that Democrats are whimps. If you can't be strong with McCain how can you be strong with Putin or other foreign leaders? You need to fight and you need to show Americans that you're willing to fight tooth and nail for them.
You can't change politics until you get the White House. Keep in mind that JFK won through stealing votes in Indiana. He didn't like it but his dad played as rough with the republicans as they did with him. The ends do justify the means when the lives of so many Americans are at stake and if McCain gets in there the financial cost may be too much for our Country to bare. I'm not recommending stealing votes by any means but if this is a close election at all the Republicans can and will steal it. Obama needs to step up his efforts and settle the uneasiness among voters and show us we're worth fighting for.