On the nightly talking head TV shows words like genius, brilliant, fantastic and so on are over-used and have become a kind of currency hosts use to pay tribute to their guests.
But the Obama campaign is really and truly brilliant in the old-fashioned sense of something rare, wondrous or unique.
Is it up there with the Kennedy campaign? I think so. Is it up there with Reagan, Clinton (round 1), or Truman? Just my opinion, but I think so.
In fact I think this one will go down for the ages.
Go below the fold for a take on the state of the campaign.
Let's connect three dots this morning that illustrate the idea above that this has been and will remain a campaign for the ages.
Item 1: Earlier this year the normally conservative Michelle D. Bernard, President of the Independent Women's Voice (IWV), made the insightful comment that candidate Obama is his own anti-Willie Horton ad.
In the past a Republican candidate like George Bush (I or II) would tie a typical Democrat like Clinton or Gore to a controversial black figure like Sister Souljah, Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton and create trouble for the Democractic coalition. If the democrat pushed Sister Souljah or Jesse Jackson aside, they risked alienating black supporters. If the democrat did nothing, they alienated Reagan democrats, Jewish voters and so on. In a particularly bad case of this, the first Bush tied the Democrat, Michael Dukakis, to an ex-offender named Willie Horton who got released under a Massachusetts parole program and then killed someone. Horton looked like a black criminal stereotype and Dukakis did a poor job of fighting off the association and lost the 1988 election.
So Bernard's insight is that Obama has a get out of jail free card when Republicans play a race card on him. His demeanor and presentation of self are so at odds with the 'scary black man' stereotype that the effort fails.
That was what the Rev. Wright war was about last spring. And the Obama campaign won that war - narrowly. So Round 1 went to Obama.
Item 2: At today's Talking Points Memo site, John Marshall makes this forecast.
Yes, it looks good for the Democrats. But you need to play close attention to the McCain campaign's final weeks' strategy under and just above the radar. McCain's final strategy relies on two pillars. The first is aggressively playing to voters' fears of electing a black president. Make no mistake: not just his campaign in a general sense, but McCain himself and his top handful of advisers, are banking on the residual racism in a changing America to get them over the finish line. The second is an aggressive use of innuendo to convince casual voters that Obama is in league with Islamic terrorists bent on killing Americans.
Marshall is forecasting a round 2 race card battle on steroids.
If he's right, and I suspect he is, the Colin Powell get out of jail free card will only work for a two or three day news cycle and then fade away.
What, then, can the Obama campaign do to repel McCain's ferocious final solution? And, for fun, how far in advance did the Obama campaign plan for it?
Item 3: Anybody remember the announcements the other week that the Obama campaign was buying air time on the major networks in prime time for October 29, the last week before the election?
If Obama really is own best anti-Willie Horton ad, what a perfect time and what a perfect way to fob out a furious McCain racial attack.
With luck it should be epic TV. A little of the Race speech from last spring; a little of the Dem Convention speech; a little of the 'poetry' we used to hear and from there who knows where it may go.
My guess is that the speech will include a tableau of pics from the campaign trail and the overseas trip last summer. Then towards the end, folks will walk on the in background including the Bidens, Michelle and the kids, the Clintons, John Lewis, Colin Powell, then that usual pastiche of regular Americans who are usually in the background of one of his speeches. I dunno, I'm getting goosebumps just thinking about it.
One final comment. If a campaign is like a chess game. Think about how long ago the Obama campaign thought about and then organized this last Anti-Willie Horton Ad....