The AP quotes Obama campaign manager David Plouffe in a campaign strategy memo:
“We will respond with speed and ferocity to John McCain’s attacks and we will take the fight to him, but we will do it on the big issues that matter to the American people.”
Apparently, among the “big issues that matter to the American people” are things like the size of the glasses John McCain wore in the 1980s and the fact that he doesn’t know how to use a computer or send an email. Because that’s the focus of Barack Obama’s new ad. Really.
Click the image to watch.
Even more counterintuitive thinking on the part of Team Barry was being aired today in various media outlets. Obama’s senior strategist David Axelrod had a couple comments that seemed more than a little off.
“Everyone was astonished that [Sarah Palin] drew 9,000 people to Lancaster the other night,” said Obama’s senior strategist, David Axelrod. “But we drew 10,000 people there last week.”
“They got a transient boost from the sort of imagery surrounding her selection,” Axelrod said. “But I think things will settle in. She will be a candidate and not just a symbol.”
Axelrod seems to forget two things. First, Obama is running for President, not Vice President. I think most strategists would usually be worried if the opposing presidential candidate’s running mate is drawing crowds similar in size to the ones the guy at the top of your ticket gets.
Secondly, Axelrod predicts that Palin will lose her luster as she loses her status as a symbol. But what is she a symbol of? Axelrod fails to see that the fervor surrounding her pick is excitement on behalf of the Republican base not because she is a symbol of something, but because she’s exactly the kind of candidate we’ve wanted all along. I could care less that she’s a woman, although it certainly makes for a great storyline. I’m excited about Palin because of her conservative beliefs and her accomplishments as a reformer. I don’t doubt for one second that things in Washington won’t change with Palin around to take on the status quo, as she has done over and over before. She reinforces McCain’s promise to cut spending and end earmarks. It’s easy to envision her in the role of combatting corruption, both because she is a regular American who is as tired of the system as we are and because she’s done it plenty before.
Not only is Palin not just a symbol, that’s exactly what Obama is. From his fake presidential seal to his “O” brand to his Greek temple to his empty rhetoric to his messiah imagery to his very own quote.
Obama was waxing lyrical about last week’s trip to Europe, when he concluded, according to the meeting attendee, “this is the moment, as Nancy [Pelosi] noted, that the world is waiting for.”
The 200,000 souls who thronged to his speech in Berlin came not just for him, he told the enthralled audience of congressional representatives. “I have become a symbol of the possibility of America returning to our best traditions,” he said, according to the source.
Axelrod sees a mirage when it comes to Palin fever dissipating before November, barring any huge mistakes on her part. What’s funny is that he is predicting for Sarah what has already happened for his own empty suit of a candidate. And the vacuum being left by Obama’s fall is quickly being filled by a capable team ready to truly drain the swamp.
UPDATE: AP has a couple of important points regarding Obama’s new ad, among them the fact that 20% of the American people, mostly senior citizens no doubt, aren’t computer savvy but do have a high voter turnout percentage. They surely won’t like being insulted.
