Barack Obama succeeded in defeating Hillary Clinton for the nomination without doing more than counter-punching against the sleazy campaign designed to caricature him as elitist,all rhetoric,inexperienced, and associated with alleged extremists.
Basically, I wonder whether a counter-punching approach can work when the audience now contains many more low-information voters than are found among those who vote in primaries, especially Democratic ones. These are the people who tend to be swayed by swift-boating and while it may be hard to believe that many people are still largely ignorant about Obama
it would be foolish to assume otherwise. Negative ads have been proven to be highly effective in past general election campaigns and there is no reason to think that won't be true in 2008.
I think Obama needs to be more aggresive and keep putting McCain on the defense as a flip-flopper, out-of-touch, bumbling, Bush re-tread and dangerous. The ads have to be hard-hitting filled with clips of McCain gaffes and inconsistencies. Moreover, they need to be very specific about refuting both swift-boating and phony solutions because low-information voters will prefer a dumb plan (e.g., drilling)to help with gas prices, for example, than no plan at all or some vague focus on long-term strategies. Ads also have to go after McCain as Mr. Integrity---showing that clip where he admits to saying things he doesn't believe to get votes (e.g.,Confederate flag issue). Raise questions about him as a straight talker. The best defense is a good offense.