So I was as nervous as the rest of the site (or much of it anyway) Friday about the Palin pick, and whether the Obama campaign would be able to respond appropriately.
So I am happy to see that Obama is doing what I think is clearly the best strategy – not attacking her inexperience, just privately rejoicing that "experience" is now off the table and it's a straight "change A vs. change B" election. From Politico:
"I think you guys can take a look at Gov. Palin's record, Joe Biden's record and make your judgment in terms of who you think has what it takes to be an outstanding vice president," Obama said after a rally in Dublin, Ohio. "I feel confident about my choice."
This was about as far as Obama would go, for a second day in a row, to cast a critical eye on Palin.
To put it another way, this is a change election – people first and foremost are wanting to see the country take a different direction.
But they still want some minimal sense that we're not taking a huge risk, getting too changey, hence McCain's (past) efforts to paint Obama as too risky.
And as we saw in the primaries, it's hard to win on experience in a change election. But it's all McCain had, so he went with it, because he certainly couldn't win on "change" grounds. But now that's exactly what he's trying to do.
And he can't possibly succeed, without a major mistake or laziness on Obama's/our part. He and his VP are Bush clones, representing no change (the title of Obama's new ad.) End of story. That's all that needs to be done now.
Attacking Palin for her inexperience is totally unnecessary. Any future attacks McCain might foolishly make on those grounds would refute themselves, and waste his resources while Obama makes the case that he represents the real change.
I don't know if anyone reading plays chess, but the whole thing strongly reminds me of a game where you convert an attack into an enduring positional advantage, which simply needs to be nursed (with no mistakes!) into what you know is an already won endgame. McCain has now allowed Obama a change vs. change election, and it should be reasonably straightforward to convince voters who's the real change.
(Disclaimer: I realize this whole genre – armchair critiques of the campaign's strategy – is kind of ridiculous, when they've proven how competent they are again and again. But I thought I might add a supportive voice to counterbalance some of the "Obama is screwing it up, he NEEDS to do XYZ" diaries I see.)
Update: I'll take this opportunity to remind you that today's the last day to donate to the campaign and have it count for the convention period. (Also, here's the link to my personal fundraising page, which I just made.)
Also, a friendly reminder to everyone (myself included) that reading and writing blogs is an extremely minor part of what will make us win – so call a few people on this Labor Day weekend.