Supid Negative Campaigns WORK. Ask Kerry now or we may be asking Obama Later!

The McCain campaign is going 100% stupid negative because STUPID NEGATIVE CAMPAIGNS WORK.

Because Obama is relatively new on the political scene, linking him with negative stereotypes can easily change dynamic of the campaign. The focus on "defining Obama" could be deceptively and devastatingly successful given the prejudices of the culture.

That is why Hillary Clinton went negative. And it worked. The only reason that Clinton is not the Nominee today is SHE STARTED TOO LATE.

The narrowness of the lead Obama that has now (3-6%) – relative to the generic Democratic party lead (12-15%) – is certainly due in part to the echoing themes of “just a speech” and “roll of a dice” from the Clinton campaign. Because of the "Bradley Effect" -- the tendency of a percent of those polled to hide an intention to vote purely on the basis of race -- it is not really clear that Obama is leading. What is clear is that the polls show that at least half the population is ready to accept the image of Obama as a SHALLOW, PUFFED-UP, GROUPIE-HUNGRY, PRESUMPTIOUS TALKER, undeserving of the sacred office of the Presidency.

The mildness of the Obama Ad responses show they don't understand the potential damage being done. Understanding grass-roots organizing and "social networking" in one thing, understanding raw gutter political propaganda is another. If the Obama campaign and the DNC does not develop a sophisticated and extremely powerful counter strategy to the McCain "stupid negative" NOW then they are going to end up looking rather frantic and desperate as they try to deal with a successful “hostile take-over” of the Obama image.

Even the stupid American voter may feel duped by these acts of stupidity.

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I hope the Obama campaign folks will realize this before it is too late!

I know Obama doesn't want to go negative but somebody is going to have too. It's working. I'm having flashbacks to the kerry campaign. I remember hearing things like "The voters will never believe Kerry wounded himself" "They're not that stupid". (swiftboats).. "We're playing chess and they're playing checkers"..

I'm saying the same thing I said last time. They are sending a subliminal message..Watch me beat up Obama, watch him take it, he can't stand up for himself, how's he going to protect you from terrorists.

They don't have to say one word. Just beat us up and the message sinks in.

They are doing it to all the Democrats. They are doing it with the oil debate. "Look at how weak they are"..They've even brought back the food symbolism. Obama eats "power bars" he's a girly man.

I hate to say it but if somebody doesn't DO something about this, we are probably going to lose.

Sometimes I think we are being sabotaged from within. DiFi and the voting machine screw up. What's up with that? She's been hearing about this for 5 fucking years and she still doesn't get it?

Our leadership SUCKS!

Kerry started with an image that said "elite, northeast liberal" to many people. When he chose not to grace the slime campaign with a response (the polite thing to do, after all, being a gentleman), it only furthered that image.

Obama has been responding - and often, with humor. Now, people who wish to see him as arrogant (after all, how does a black guy have the nerve to run for president! Or a young guy? Which is what those typing him as arrogant probably have in the back of their minds) will probably see that humor as more evidence of his superiority complex. But with them, I'm not sure there's a winning response.

I thought the humor I saw in response to the latest try (and a lame one it was) by McCain hit the right note, myself. It was just short of a laugh and an eyeroll for the desperate old codger who is so rattled by the Dem. nominee that he's resorted to this childish stuff.

He cannot come on with all guns blazing. Along with that Bradley effect, he has to be mindful at all times, because there are many people just waiting to pounce on him for being the angry black guy. Just waiting to shove him over with Jackson and Sharpton and the like, and therefore write him off. He's got to play this carefully, he really does.

Now, surrogates for him... it would be good to see some more Dems coming out publicly and calling McCain's slime for what it is. They can go in blazing, for sure.

The thugs are coordinating this. How much you want to bet. Making the Dems and Obama look like wimps at the same time. We need to go ON THE OFFENSIVE!

and Obama desperately needs a vicious angry mob to respond to the McCain tactics. I am afraid a lot of pols with the level of reputation to attack McCain effectively don't want to sully their own image by getting into this kind of gutter fight.

and will destroy them. They need to fight these attacks in an above board way, honestly presenting both Obama's positions and attacking gutter politics. you can be tough without being dirty. (What Kerry needed in 2004 was for leading media Democrats, like Begala and Carville to actually support him, rather than simply complaining.)

Look at the primaries, who was the better surrogate, Kerry for Obama or Bill Clinton for HRC? Which one was closer to the gutter? I think most people are sick of gutter politics. That comparison even ignores that Bill Clinton had the bigger name and much more media support than Kerry did.

and it was because Bill Clinton went so far into attack mode that so many got turned off by him and Hillary. I had always defended Bill and ate much crow with my rwing fundie family members during his WH trist, but after the ugliness I saw, I was so disappointed because he let me down--once again.

gutter tactics. The pattern set in the primaries was of cautious, calibrated responses.

The Clinton campaign just laughed and kept going.

But, those cautious and calibrated responses did counter the charges and were clearly seen as fair to most of the media and any independent observer. The thin skinned Clinton campaign did NOT laugh, they were outraged. After Bill Clinton distorted both his own record and Obama's on Iraq, they were furious when Senator Kerry said that being a former President did not mean you could abuse the truth. Remember, that even at the first hint of trouble, the brittle Clinton campaign over reacted and threw everything in sight - hitting only themselves. (The first Philly debate where HRC blew one question, while doing well otherwise against the normal frontrunner attacks - she claimed it was the guys against the girl, he claimed swiftboating.)

McCain, more than the Clintons, has media support - they've loved him for decades. His campaign has been inept. Can you imagine anyone in the Gore, Kerry, HRC or Obama issuing a statement that the candidate does not speak for the campaign - after he misspoke? Obama's surrogates have been wearing down the presumption that McCain is a competent, experienced foreign policy guy, while Obama, himself, is building up the perception that he is competent here. This is working.

... I really don't think it matters how he responds.

I think this is where America will see just how much better an Obama Administration would be for the country.

Obama will wipe the floor with McLameness, for obvious reasons already mentioned in several posts today.

from that shit.
I think there is a waaaaaaaay different mood in the country right now. People feel used. They realize that the shits gonna hit the fan unless some things start changing fast, they don't want to hear negative shit, they want to hear answers.

the one thing working for McGrumps is supporting drilling because a lot of people don't understand the logistics and think it will actually help. If it becomes a big issue in the next few months, the media will cover it and put the facts out there and the half of the country that's falling for it will realize that it's a stupid idea, just like the gas tax holiday backfired on Clinton in Indiana.

besides, for some strange reason, the media is calling McGrumps out on the dishonesty of the negative adds, which is just as damaging to him.


I agree those that Obama needs a mean as shit VP and some surrogates in general to go out and be negative and then when people say "hey, that's a negative campaign" VP can just say, "hey, that's my opinion, not Barack's, deal with it."

be an aggressive person that attacks McLame on McLame's strong suit. Yeah, the Rove approach does work but not for Sen. Obama. McLame is going to get into the gutter & fight the most dirty campaign ever launched. Dems need to learn how to set the agenda & get in front of the fight, instead of denfense.

The VP candidate needs to make FAIR attacks, but that person is the one who has the best platform to both defend the President and attack the opponent. This is why a "2004 Edwards" pick would not be good - Kerry himself attacked Bush's policies far harder than Edwards did and Edwards did very little to defend Kerry. They need someone strong enough to attack and dignified enough to do it without looking tacky.

Not hard to do.

that will any of them get airtime unless they say McCain getting shot down doesn't quality him to be president?

They can yell & scream and point out the daily lies and flip-flops and scandals inside the McCain campaign, but if nobody is there to listen and report on it, will anybody know?

That's why it's up to us... word of mouth.

All that crazy anti-Obama spam? Well... let's just say if people started passing this kinda stuff around... well... maybe it'd get around.

:thumbsup:

And McAuliffe sat on his hands for the four years after 2000s theft and LET them do it.

Kerry should have won going away, but the negative framing made the election close and allowed them to steal it.

to switch by percentage of votes. The purges are also done in huge numbers. The steal was in whether Kerry was ahead by 10% or 5%. An UNTRACEABLE steal.

And in any free country, there is no way a 5% spread should result in a steal. It was a set up for four years, and McAuliffe's DNC leadership assured the RNC had all the room they needed to steal both 2002 and 2004.

Besides, do you know ANY time in our nation's history when the last Dem president spent a summer book tour supporting and DEFENDING the Republican president's decisions while avoiding any support for the Dem nominee?

Kerry had to win 2004 by HIMSELF as every wellknown Dem at the time who received media attention was siding with Bush.

Think Clintons and their friends wanted BCCI books opened up by an open government Dem president?

Obama can't, won't and shouldn't go negative. That is not the problem.

You are right that these attacks are powerful...and there are many worse to come (Obama's drug use)/ Jeremiah Wright/the anti-Obama books.

The question is how to deal with them?

Some Dems know how to handle this shit. It takes surrogates creating our own shitstorm about McSame/Bush III with sensational stories of adultery, love children, homosexuality, drug use, corruption, age, 9/11, patriotism, bin laden.

The solution is for a coordinated swiftboating of McSame/Bush III, to divert media. Media follows the sensational, that's all you have to know.

If the Dems don't create the sensational, Rove will, and they will own the narrative.

Dems need to get back to their label of Bush's third term which we've put a year into creating. But we also have to stop the media from slicing up Obama...and that's what they do when they cover these stories.

Dem strategists are blowing what should be the easiest campaign ever.

The writing is already on the wall. Obama will lose if this isn't stopped. And it's easy to stop, but are there Democratic organizations ready to do what it takes/???

truth-telling.

The nasty stuff fits the image of many Repugs

Just as ineffective stupid negative campaigns fail, as do ineffective smart positive campaigns. Effective smart positive campaigns can succeed.