I am very unimpressed by the direction the Obama campaign plans to go this week. Even though their summerlong attempts to remind voters that John McCain represents four more years of George Bush have not worked, they plan to double down on that argument and state it even more forcefully. Voters either don't believe it or don't care. The Obama campaign also wants to incessantly remind voters of McCain's ties to lobbyists. For the low-information swing voters Obama is going for, this line of attack will be met with a collective "Zzzzzzz" of disinterest. And last Friday, Obama's campaign completely blew it with an ad ridiculing McCain as old and out of touch. Not exactly the way to win over the demographic Obama needs most...the 70-year-old retired steelworker from Steubenville, Ohio....
Paul Hackett's recent advice to Obama to press forward with vicious personal attacks based on rumors and hearsay is way over the top and would assuredly backfire, but Hackett's underlying point is a sound one. Obama and his surrogates need to attack McCain on his strengths if they plan to take him down. McCain's strengths are senior voters and his undeserved reputation for "integrity". McCain should be an easy target to gut-punch on both without resorting to the level of personal attacks Hackett advocates, particularly on matters related to Social Security and "temperament for office".
Let's take a sobering look at the internals of recent polling data. McCain enjoys a double-digit lead among senior voters. Keep in mind, Al Gore WON the senior vote in 2000 and still lost the Presidency. When you account for the fact that seniors are the demographic most likely to actually show up to vote, it becomes obvious that Obama has zero chance of withstanding a double-digit blowout among seniors yet still prevailing in the general election. That's why it's absolutely imperative for the Obama campaign to direct its attacks on McCain to older voters. The voters who will think it's unforgivable that John McCain doesn't know how to send an e-mail are already going for Obama by decisive margins, so forget about ads directed to them for the next seven weeks.
Let's start with McCain's biggest vulnerability with senior voters....Social Security. John McCain was on record in supporting Bush's wildly unpopular Social Security privatization plan in 2005, yet the topic has scarcely been touched by either candidates in 2008. It's insufficient for Obama to tell older voters that McCain represents four more years of Bush. He needs a specific example like Social Security to awake them from their slumber, and with the current collapse of the very financial markets that Bush and McCain wanted Social Security to be invested in, now is the absolutely perfect time to hit McCain between the eyes with this rather than talk about the number of lobbyists on McCain's campaign.
If senior voters are to be expected to overcome their unease with Obama, this election has to be real to them, not abstract, and Obama's attack lines are abstract. Campaign ads targeted to south and central Florida, western Pennsylvania, and southern Ohio chock full of quotes from McCain defending and promoting Bush's Social Security privatization plan could significantly move the needle and put McCain on defense. A fourth consecutive month of generically tying McCain to Bush will change nothing.
McCain's second biggest vulnerability, particularly among the consequential senior demographic, is temperament. I struggle to come up with a way to inform voters that McCain, in a typical rage-induced outburst, called his wife a "trollup cunt" in front of reporters, but if somebody can think of one, that could the equivalent of an atom splitting in terms of pulling senior women from McCain who can't accept the idea of a President that explosively disrespectful to his own wife.
While "trollup cunt" is the nuclear option for Obama, he has other aces in the hole that could be almost as damaging, particularly with the documented proof, complete with useful quotes, of McCain's psychotic temper and vicious streak from his own Senate colleagues. Would voters smitten with McCain's integrity be interested to hear that he physically intimiated a colleague in his 90s (Strom Thurmond) to try to bully Thurmond's submission on a key vote? I think so.
Better yet, Mississippi Senator Thad Cochran has been the gift that keeps on giving in terms of devastating indictments against McCain's temperament, complete with quotes that would be perfect for 30-second ads. Would McCain's foreign policy credentials take a hit when a Republican colleague is quoted expressing his shock and awe over McCain grabbing a Daniel Ortega lieutenant by the collar in a room full of armed and hostile Latin Americans in Nicaragua 20 years ago? Again, I think this would scare alot of people who currently think McCain is the "safe" choice.
These are just a couple examples off my head that seem like no-brainers. The only reason I can figure as to why Obama isn't already breaking out this heavy artillery is that he fears blowback consequences about the unearthing of his ties to Reverend Jeremiah Wright and Bill Ayers. That's certainly a concern, but you gotta figure those guys will make return appearances regardless, and I submit that even with Wright and Ayers wrapped around his neck, Obama still has fewer disqualifying drawbacks than does McCain.
Even though Obama's campaign has been generally well-run this far, I find myself astonished by its cluelessness as it spells out is post-Labor Day strategy. McCain's record and personal past provide such easy targets for attack lines likely to work with the voter groups Obama is struggling with, yet Obama seems to believe that simply stating their current litany of exhausted attacks more loudly will change the game. I seriously hope they start targeting their machine better in the final weeks of the campaign or it's gonna be another rough election night.