You are Valerie Jarret holed up in a conference room with Barack and staff discussing strategy for the week. What do you say?
Here's mine:
--Get Hillary on the campaign trail. Give her WHATEVER she wants (but not VP) and ask her to go on offense. The people that voted for her will listen to her criticism of Mccain and take it seriously.
---Use his new line ("Great at attacking, not great at governing") in every speech, interview, and etc. until it saturates so that when low-info voters see a negative ad from Mccain, they think of it.
--Announce your VP. PICK... BIDEN!!!!! Use the platform of the Olympics to launch him nationally with a bio ad. And warn him not to say anything crazy but tell him to go on offense!! Check Biden out in action and prepare to be amazed:
--Launch a series of ads featuring Barack speaking into the camera where you point out Mccain's policies. He is SO compelling in that format. These will not be "attack ads" because they won't be slimy. They WILL, however, educate folks on what Mccain really stands for. Make it just about the issues like this one:
Short clip of Mccain saying that we need a respectful campaign. Cut to Barack sitting in a room.
I'm Barack Obama. You may have noticed that my opponent John Mccain, has been launching various misleading negative attack ads on me. But the thing about John Mccain is that while he's great at distractions and negative attacks, he's not so great at governing. After all, if we're talking about Britney Spears then we're not talking about Mccain's health plan, which doesn't cover pre-existing health conditions and will exclude millions of American families. If we're talking about Paris Hilton, then we're not talking about the fact that John Mccain voted 95% of the time with George Bush. That he's offering a third-term of the Bush economic policies that have devastated the livelihood of American families.
I approve this message because, I'm running a positive, respectful campaign. I take this election seriously because I know you do as well.
You can do one on health care, one of social security and etc.
-- Pick a domestic theme, be it health care or the housing crisis or etc, and launch a new plan. Or relaunch an old one. Whatever. But then go on a publicity blitz for it. Hit the morning show circuit and the network shows and the local shows, with a consistent message promoting this new plan.
--Get a foreign policy big shot (preferably Hagel) to do an ad touting your judgment, showing footage of you opposing the war in 2004 and generally continuing the work of the trip abroad, building up CIC credentials. And reminding people about your war stance.
--Continue a heavy circuit of town hall meetings throughout swing states. Court local media aggressively.
In my sincere opinion, if he does these things...we CANNOT lose the election.
What are yours?? If you are Valerie Jarret and you have Barack's ear, what would you say?