Obama's campaign has ALWAYS played the game close to the vest, revealing little publicly about tactics and strategy except for the extraordinary ground game that has been orchestrated. His campaign has been all about stealth. Just look at the results in Iowa during the primaries. And it seems as if the campaigns negative attacks against McCain are being played out, but mainly at the local level. From the NYT
WASHINGTON — Senator Barack Obama has started a sustained and hard-hitting advertising campaign against Senator John McCain in states that will be vital this fall, painting Mr. McCain in a series of commercials as disconnected from the economic struggles of the middle class.
Mr. Obama has begun the drive with little fanfare, often eschewing the modern campaign technique of unveiling new spots for the news media before they run in an effort to win added (free) attention. Mr. Obama, whose candidacy has been built in part on a promise to transcend traditional politics, is running the negative commercials on local stations even as he runs generally positive spots nationally, during prime-time coverage of the Olympics.
So, just because he doesn't flamboyantly draw attention to his attack ads against McCain, does not mean they aren't happening. Rather than act like a circus barker, Obama quietly and effectively starts showing these attack ads in battleground states, literally blanketing the local airwaves attacking McCain on the economy and his support for the war in Iraq.
In Philadelphia; East Lansing, Mich.; Green Bay, Wis.; and at least five other major cities, Mr. Obama is heavily showing an advertisement contrasting a statement by Mr. McCain that "we have had a pretty good, prosperous time with low unemployment," with appearances by people making statements like, "The prices of gas are up; the prices of milk are up.".....
In Des Moines; Tampa, Fla.; Paducah, Ky., and at least 10 other cities, Mr. Obama is running a spot for a mock book, "Economics" by John McCain: "Support George Bush 95 percent of the time; keep spending $10 billion a month for the war in Iraq."
On Sunday alone, Mr. Obama’s campaign spent nearly $400,000 to run those two spots more than 600 times, accounting for roughly two thirds of the commercials he ran that day, according to the Campaign Media Analysis Group.
The campaign has released 6 TV spots and 2 radio spots in the past 2 weeks focusing on the economy. Just because the talking heads on CNN, and MSNBC aren't yammering about them doesn't mean they don't exist. This country has more than 300 Million people in it and less than 2 million watch the cable shows, at any given time. But you better believe they are watching their local news and local channels on a regular basis. Only time will tell if this strategy will work. I'm looking forward to seeing the polls out of some of these key battleground states in the next 2 weeks to see if they are having an impact. It's all about stealth, and if any campaign knows how to run a stealth campaign, it's Barack Obama.
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