Obama's New Approach: American Family Man
Sun May 04, 2008 at 03:22:00 PM PDT
As we all know, Clinton and McCain have been attacking Obama on his character (with the help of the MSM and Wright). If one compared Obama's policy positions vs McCain there would be NO CONTEST. Obama would win this contest hands down. McCain knows that and the GOP knows that so instead they will be going after Obama the person rather than his policies. (They do this at EVERY election that is why Dems lose even if our policies are better).
Hillary, on the other hand, is also going after Obama the person. Besides her bogus gas tax holiday, there isn't much difference between Hillary and Obama in terms of policy. We all know that Hillary's character is...well we all know what it is so she herself is trying to attack Obama's character to bring him down to her level.
How does Obama respond? His campaign will be focusing on his "American Family Man" persona.
http://www.politico.com/...
As Hillary has morphed herself into this female "Rocky" who will fight for you playing up her down home country roots (despite $100 million), Obama is now showing his "American Family Man" side.
According to the article, there will be less Arena Rock Star events that was what his campaign was all about for the past 15 months which focused more on how large the crowd was (was it 10,000, 20,000, 30,000 and beyond) with people fainting and Obama becoming "messiah-like" as well as how eloquent and inspiring the speech was. This was exciting and inspiring for people and attracted young and new voters. But the problem with this approach was it put Obama too much on a pedestal and the only direction when a candidate is on a pedestal is down.
With the advent of Bittergate and the emergence of Wright, according to the media, America was asking themselves "who is Barack Obama?" (I never asked that question..LOL). Hillary/McCain/GOP/the media is questioning his character. As a result, the Obama campaign has decided to have less of these Rock Star events, instead is focusing on more family events that show America more of what Obama is about which is a hard-working family man. He is going to picnics, family socials, going to smaller events, playing basketball, etc.
I personally think that this works for him. He has an attractive intelligent wife with 2 beautiful young daughters. Seeing the family together they look like the all American family. In this light I think that Obama has great appeal to the working class and the middle class. Even his framing on the issues have changed. I noticed this morning on Meet The Press that Obama was framing the issues as the Democratic approach to policy IS "American values" and he wants to "keep the American dream" alive which is improving the economy, getting out of Iraq, and improving healthcare so that Americans can continue to get ahead.
I also would suggest to the Obama campaign that they do a little bit of both (Rock star and American Family Man) when he campaigns. He did this in Indiana where he did the 15,000 people rally at Indiana University last week and now is having a "family picnic" today. At college campuses, Obama can do the Rock star rallies with music, inspirational speeches, etc. He can also do smaller family events to get his message out to working/middle class families.
I like seeing BOTH sides of Barack. The Obama family could bring Camelot back to Washington!
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