Tuesday, October 30, 2007

The Obama Campaign Takes a Stupid Pill


First it was supporting the Peru FTA.
Then it was the appalling handling of gay denying gospel singer.
Then when you thought he was going to turn up the heat on Hillary, you find out that he meant to attack her on social security.
This is beyond frustrating. Barack Obama is an amazing person with all the tools to be arguable a near perfect candidate. (In fact if I had written this one pre-grand slam week ago, I might have said he is the J.D. Drew of politicians.) The problems haven't just been that he has been disappointing his supporters or making some backwards policy moves on both trade and the war. In the past weeks, his campaign has been making some really bonehead political moves, and it's just been painful to watch.
So Senator Obama, here is some unsolicited advice from someone who has no absolutely experience or education on how to run a campaign. Instead of attacking Hillary Clinton on an issue where you don't differ like social security, why not constantly bring up subjects where she has been completely out of touch with democratic voters? A few examples:
  1. The fact that she opposes how the Iraq war was handled, and NOT the Iraq war itself.
  2. The fact that until 2006, not only was she a supporter/defender of the war, but she would regularly demonize other democrats who were criticizing it.
  3. The fact that she has been extremely vague about her plan to withdraw from Iraq, and going to great lengths to avoid discussing how long she would keep troops in the country.
  4. Her warmongering/lack of learning from mistakes with Iran, specifically voting yes on the Kyl-Lieberman Amendment.
  5. And just as a personal favor to me, next time you speak at a union hall, maybe mention the fact that her chief strategist is the CEO of a union-busting firm. Or you could you bring up that her chief strategist's firm represents Blackwater. But enough about Mark Penn, I promise, there will be more on him later.
This list could go on and on, but any of these will do. So please Barack, I'm begging you. I know you have been hesitant to go on the all-out attack, and you don't have to. Just point out some of these incredibly unpopular positions, and maybe, just maybe, I'll stop seeing these cars with both Hillary 08' and "End the War" bumper stickers.

2 comments:

  1. Nice graphic....to the point

    This is my biggest problem with the so called 'left-wing' of the candidates: Very little action, and the action being taken is such a slap in the face to their progressive supporters.

    I don't know what it is, maybe we have built up this image of an ideal candidate, maybe we have idealized this dream candidate that simply cannot exist in the current political climate..I don't know, but I find it more and more difficult to look at the field of democratic candidates and see someone who will actually bring real change. Now I've never been much of a pulse of the American public, but after seeing the debate I just wanted to punch the hell out of my wall. Edwards, for all his political campaign populism, simply came off as the young annoying kid in the room playing gotcha to impress his teacher...he is better than this and should have shown it...Obama, what happened to all the talk of stepping up your game on Hillary? Where is the questioning of the Iran proposal DIRECTLY in relation to the IRAQ WAR AUTHORIZATION? Dodd was the only one who actually seemed to bring it up, questioning the very validity of the war itself.....no wonder Colbert is polling higher than 1/3rd of the field...

    I know its early in the 'primary season' (my thoughts on that nonsense another day) but damn, lets make some real change..

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  2. Yeah man, also the media's role is pretty critical. I mean that last debate was some stepped up attacking... but was it THAT different than the others? No, its just that they decided that it was, so now the narrative has changed that Hillary screwed up and that she won't give a straight answer. Don't get me wrong, at this point I'm happy to see anything that sticks against Hillary, its just amazing how much power the media has in deciding when something becomes an issue or controversy, when many of them have been going on the whole campaign.

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