I haven't had too many doubts about this campaign since its inception. For one thing, they did not seem to be hiring former Gore or Kerry staff. That was a good sign. Let's face it: the Gore campaign in 2000 and the Kerry campaign in 2004 were disasters. And you could argue that even if Gore and Kerry did not have Barack's charisma, they might have been easier to sell if their campaign staffs had had any sense.
But there were some arguable missteps in the past few days, with the Johnson thing, and I agree with Gail Collins's piece in the NYT, "What was he thinking?" Johnson may not be a hack, but he sure looked like one. Was Bob Schrum not available? I can think of a dozen better people for that job, starting with almost anyone who is not a Washington insider.
Today was also the debut of the fightthesmears site and I am relieved to see that.
An event that was originally planned to be at a private home here was moved to the foyer of the local opera house, a crowd of about 300 people.
I thought I would be spotting the usual suspects, but I only saw a few people I knew. Not too long ago, at any given Democratic event here, you would expect to know 85% of a huddled group. So that is a good sign.
The loudspeakers for the PA system were set up in such a way that no one at my table or a couple of those adjacent could understand what was being said. I thought about taking charge and moving the speakers around, but could not spot anyone who might help with that.
This is a rare screw-up by this campaign.
I later moved my chair to the back of the room. So I did not hear everything, but I was reassured by what I did hear.
I think we can expect that this campaign will not be like the hapless campaigns of Gore in 2000 and Kerry in 2004. In those campaigns, Karl
Rove's strategy for Bush, attacking the opponent on his perceived strengths, worked well. Gore was running as a boy scout faithful to his wife and family, so they made him out to be a fake and a serial liar. Kerry ran as a war hero, so they made him out to be a fake and a traitor.
Gore and Kerry never responded effectively. They did not even accuse Bush of being a draft-dodger or a failed businessman. Kerry and Edwards
failed to point to Bush's and Cheney's opposition to the 9-11 Commission.
And both Gore and Kerry suffered from a "masculinity deficit", a problem
that goes all the way back to Hubert Humphrey for Democrats.
The early attack on Barack is this "elitism" stuff. And the under-the
radar junk is being addressed in a new website, link below:
http://my.barackobama.com/...
Based on what Axelrod said, I think they are going to fight that charge effectively. And they are prepared to defend against attacks on Michelle, on Barack's stance on Israel, etc. (I wonder why it has not come out that "Barack" is actually a Hebrew or Semitic name; one of the lead characters in the novel and film EXODUS is named "Barack".)
Axelrod took some tough questions, such as whether Texas Democrats
would be left out of the campaign except to raise funds. Axelrod's response was that he thinks that there are clearly states where it makes no sense to spend time or money, but Texas is not one of those. (I don't know if anyone asked about our Senate campaign, where I think we may see
an upset in the making.) What could be a better issue than Cornyn's
and McCain's opposition to the GI bill proposed by Senator Webb? I hope we will see Obama here campaigning with Noriega.
In case you missed it, General Wesley Clark did a great job attacking McCain's supposed foreign policy and military expertise as reported below. This is one of the best posts I have ever seen on DK or Huffington, and Clark is probably my favorite pick for VP. He takes apart the conventional wisdom that somehow McCain's strong suit is foreign policy, just as Vincent Bugliosi takes apart the case that Bush has been a "strong leader" in resisting terrorism in Bugliosi's brilliant book THE PROSECUTION OF GEORGE W. BUSH FOR MURDER.
This is exactly what we need, as the "liberal media" continue to repeat
the conventional wisdom that McCain is some kind of foreign policy
wonk and that his experience as a POW qualifies him for the position
of Commander-in-Chief:
http://www.dailykos.com/...
I refer also to my diary from DK about this issue:
http://www.dailykos.com/...
The food at the Axelrod event was pretty bad--turkey and Swiss
on a bun, bland potato salad and a fruit bowl. I would have liked
something more, well, ELITE.
Finally, here's a blast from the past, a video from our District
Convention on March 29, where I had a lot of fun and made some
cool friends:
http://www.youtube.com/...