I was reading the recap of stories about the campaigns' stops in Southern Ohio and came across this gem buried deep in an article about Sarah Palin's visit to a high-dollar fundraiser Friday morning:
"It's great to have here here," Hartmann said. "What a great cheerleader for our ticket, because we've got a lot of work to do."
So there you have it. Greg Hartmann, a candidate for county commissioner, basically equated the VP nominee on his ticket to a member of a high-school pep rally squad.
Cheerleader.
Attack dog.
Those two labels don't seem to go very well together. One is energetic and positive, the other is angry and negative. Perhaps that's one more reason why the Republicans' campaign message seems to be getting lost these days.
In fact, it almost seems like John McCain has had to do most of the positive cheerleading recently, with some of that even to the benefit of Obama.
With ~10,000 showing up to see Palin, clearly the biggest "star" on either ticket, and ~15,000 attending Obama's rally the same day, both in SW Ohio, I'm becoming more optimistic that Ohio might just go blue this year. Our ground game is better organized, our candidate is more appealing, and we've registered record numbers of new voters (especially younger folks).
What is also refreshing is looking at the daily favorable/unfavorable ratings:
It seems pretty clear that Joe Biden, who is clearly playing the Anti-Palin in this race, is faring MUCH better with that strategy. Experience + moderation is winning out over unapologetic mediocrity + hatemongering. Just as it should.