Obama's Strategy: Roping a Dope

[IndyOp]

Roping a Dope - Reader contribution at TPM Cafe

<snip>

A grass-roots fire is raging all across the land, that somehow, poor wittle Obama has let himself get beat up by Bad Old McCain. Hillary people are saying, See, we told you so!.... But, see, all this tongue-wagging really fails to take into account that this political boxer may actually have a strategy of his own. Call it, roping a dope.

All summer, during the early rounds of the fight, most Americans have not been paying that much attention while McCain has landed one body-blow after another. When they do look up, they see a fighter on the ropes, holding up his fists to protect his face, maybe getting in a jab or two in self-defense. He's weak! they cry. He's getting the crap beat out of him! But is he? Is he REALLY?

<snip>

Meanwhile.... hard-hitting Obama attack ads have been quietly playing in swing states all over the country, delivering sharp jabs to McCain. They don't smear McCain's character or make up baseless crap about him or pretend that Britney Spears matters worth a damn to anybody in this country except Britney Spears--but they deliver sharp counterpunches on McCain's weakest policy positions, and they're landing more than a few bruises in the states where the fight hangs in the balance.

<snip>

While McCain has been exhausting himself throwing wild punches that attack Obama's patriotism and his celebrity and whatever other body parts he can hit, Obama's organization has swiftly spread out over 50 states, setting up voter-registration drives, satellite campaign offices, signing up more than two million supporters online--and then asking them to do more than just donate. They're being asked to canvass and make phone calls and blog and text-message and circulate Obama e-mails and give their TIME and their ENERGY and their RESOURCES--not just their money.

By the time we get to the last couple of rounds of this fight, Obama is going to come full-on into his own. He will get his strength and stamina from US--all of us out here who are in the ring with him. We will be energized and, to coin a phrase, "fired up and ready to go."

And when that happens, most of the country WILL be watching. They'll see a tired old man throwing ineffectual, wild punches.

And they'll see a fighter in his prime, dancing away from the ropes, landing the knock-out blows.




Obama leads better than 3:1 in field offices

...and the map of Obama's offices does a much better job of matching the "tipping point" map...





Context on Battleground Spending

Obama is investing more massively than any campaign in the history of American politics on the ground game. McCain is essentially not investing in ground. His early summer numbers of 20,000 phone calls nationwide for a whole month would be those of a single, low-budget House campaign.



Organizing Update

To the uninitiated, that may sound impressive. Led by Steve Hildebrand, the Obama camp has been tight-lipped about its own numbers, as Martin's piece notes. But the reality is that on Monday alone in just Ohio, without revealing my sources, the Obama campaign made 109,029 persuasion phone calls. From general experience, contact rates are about 25%, meaning that for every phone call or door knocked, about 1 in 4 voters gives you information about their support or about their party or what issues are most important to them in helping them make up their mind. In turn, this information re-loops into the voter file and flows downstream until it's the final GOTV push.

Let’s do some quick math. Martin’s reporting suggests to us based on that ratio that nationwide, in one week, the McCain campaign talked to approximately 81,000 voters. The Obama campaign talked to about 27,000 in one state in one night. If we make a reasonable guess that Ohio has something like one-fifteenth of Obama organizers and volunteers, that’d be 405,000 voters contacted in one night nationwide. In 7 days, that’s 2,835,000 voters contacted, compared to the McCain 81,000, a thirty-five-fold edge.


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If we keep our eyes on the polls and the TV ads then we are no better than the corporate media pundits who keeping missing the stories that matter because they think they'll know the news by talking with official sources...

If we spend our time focusing on THEM - the celebrity politicians and pundits, then we remain passive...

I'd like to see more posts about citizen action on DU because action is the antidote for fear, because millions of people taking action is the key to our success in this election and beyond.

Have you heard of the Oregon Bus Project - one of the main "driving forces" to the Democratic takeover of Oregon, helping to turn the Senate Democratic in 2004, and the House in 2006?

Jefferson Smith, a twenty-something lawyer, had done the political math. He reported that although Republicans dominated the state house by a margin of 35-25 and the senate by 16-14, a significant number of the GOP lawmakers came from suburban and rural districts where they were winning elections by margins as slim as a few hundred votes.

"Let's get out of Portland!" Smith exclaimed in a Eureka! moment. What if hundreds of young volunteers were to go to these swing districts to help progressive candidates? Flip a couple of seats in the senate and six or so in the house, and the whole state agenda would change.

Oregon Bus Project - http://busproject.org/

Jim Hightower's new book - Swim Against the Current - Even a Dead Fish can Go with the Flow.




Edits: Appearance, grammar

[TooBigaTent]

1. I really hope that the effect of this summer's portion of the campaign is to give the GOPer

enough rope to hang himself. He certainly seems capable of doing that.

By the way, Ali's strategy in that fight was brilliant! Foreman was totally destroyed by THE GREATEST.

[IndyOp]

2. I think you are right - he came close to sealing his fate with the "draft" comment

yesterday. I hope he'll keep it up!

:hi:

[IndyOp]

3. K&R. Go, go, go! (n/t)

[jonestonesusa]

4. K & R

Good post - thanks for the research. It is a helpful perspective on the campaign as a whole. Earlier I read a quote from someone who knew Obama who essentially said, don't play Obama in poker unless you want to lose your shirt. He knows when to hold his cards close and when and how to play them. I hope that's right - I think that we all want to see a political realignment and shift in climate so bad that most Democrats are nervous. I really appreciate the longer view you are offering.

[IndyOp]

7. Thanks for your very kind reply! I think that the Obama campaign demonstrated

during the primaries that they think long-term. I agree with you completely that most Democrats are nervous -- I think that virtually all Americans are nervous about the election and our shared future. If we all keep doing everything we can do to help Obama and more and better Democrats take seats in November then we could see some big positive changes pretty quickly.

:hi:

[Ichingcarpenter]

5. 10-1 in Colorado, Obama owns Denver

and when the rest of the offices come into full force watch a huge change in
Colorado's polls.

[FatDave]

6. Was there ever any doubt that this was his strategy?

I've just been sitting back watching McCain use all of his ammo way too early.

[KharmaTrain]

8. People Need To Step Away From The Teevee

To much Tweety and the other corporate media spinner will eat holes in your head. Boy they sure had Obama's win in Iowa pegged...NOT...or many of the other primaries. They see elections as some kidna popularity contest where the superficial trumps reality...the petty is more important than the substance. On those counts, Camp Gramps does very well...and we know that the corporate media still remain "his base".

The other night I got skewered by a concerned DU'er who appears to have bought the corporate media spin due to some outlier polls of a national beauty contest that doesn't exist. Elections are won state by state, county by country, precinct by precinct and house by house (assuming you only own one). It's called "retail politics"...the kinda grassroots operation that Senator Obama learned well on the streets of Chicago, the GOOP employed in '00 and '04 and has been the main focus of both Dr. Dean's 50 state strategy and Senator Obama's own outreach during the primaries. And who said there was a downside to the protracted primaries? It got our candidate into many states and with it, campaign offices and staffers and voters.

One last thing you need to incorproate are the large number of Democrats who showed up at to vote in the primaries vs. the GOOP...these people found their way to the polls once there's a strong chance they'll be back again in November...and that doesn't include the extra number of Democrats who have since declared...it's below the corporate media's radar, so they don't think it exists.

As your chart beautifully shows...Gramps plans to fight his war from "the air"...and any good military strategist will tell you this is a sure recipe for a loss.

Rope-A-Dope is a proper analogy. Gramps has spent the past month throwing the "kitchen sink" and in the process has created miles of rope that is about to get wrapped around his neck. Obama gave a tease when he said "is this all you got"...Ali couldn't have taunted any better. The onus is on Gramps to keep on throwing or collapse on his own hypocricies...and the more he throws now, the less it sticks. To use another sports metaphor...he "peaked too soon".

The bottom line is on election day, many will go to the polls and be thinking about their mortgage, jobs, health...a myriad of issues that Gramps and his repugnican toadies have screwed up and no 30 second commercial can gloss over.

So relax...read a book, watch Olbermann and Daily Show (and Bill Mahrer returns next Friday)...let the spinners talk themselves into pancakes.

Cheers...

[Phx_Dem]

9. Excellent IndyOp!

Here's another very similar post using the same Muhammad Ali "rope-a-dope" strategy. Looks like a few smart people figured out Obama's strategy.


"He's got to hit back," experts implore. "He's losing!" cry observers. Punishment is delivered over and over by a tough opponent, virtually unopposed by the brash and formerly confident competitor. Having survived bruising contests to get to the main event, concerns rise that he's lost his toughness, that an inability or unwillingness to attack will doom him against a hard-hitting opponent.

The scene, of course, is Zaire, 1974. George Foreman, a fearsome puncher and overwhelming favorite, had Muhammad Ali on the ropes from the beginning of their legendary "Rumble in the Jungle," and Ali put himself squarely in Foreman's sights, literally taunting Forman to hit him harder. It seemed a crazy strategy -- most boxers simply cannot survive the pounding of leaning back against the ropes and taking punch after punch. But Ali was working from a well-designed strategy, and he had the skill and the endurance to make sure the punches just barely missed their intended target. The glove instead of the eye; the temple instead of the jaw. Ali realized that if he could tire Foreman, get Foreman to punch and chase himself out of energy, he would have an opening. Viewers, perhaps especially the experts, were horrified that Ali refused to go on the attack in the initial rounds.

Through those early rounds, Ali did little to counter Foreman's onslaught, except for the intermittent jab or straight right to the face of an increasingly agitated Foreman. As the rounds dragged on, though, Foreman became visibly exhausted - and when Foreman threw everything he had at Ali early on and none of it worked, Ali made his move. Foreman, taxed by Ali's few but precisely landed early shots and drained from his movement and punches, was vulnerable to an increasingly aggressive Ali, who landed combinations in the later rounds. Eventually Ali went in for the knockout in the eighth, using a left hook to set up a straight right to Foreman's face, dropping him to the mat and ending the fight. Ali later dubbed this strategy the "rope-a-dope."

It would be different, of course, if McCain were landing his punches. If Obama were trailing in the polls, if the narratives had erased his lead, he could not afford to lean back against the ropes. But McCain is throwing everything he can think of and Obama isn't even behind in the polls. There has been, admittedly, a small but measurable shift in the national numbers, with McCain narrowing the deficit from five or six to two or three, roughly, but overwrought pundits are underplaying the strategic angle. It's understandable, as the story of the race is one of consistency and stability, neither of which increase TV ratings or newspaper circulation, so to make it interesting we have a constant Obama falter watch.

<SNIP>

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/aj-rossmiller/obama-bomaye_b_120384.html

[Phx_Dem]

10. Just heard Ali going to be in Denver

for Obama's speech on Thursday.

Rope-a-Dope :spank:

[IndyOp]

11. I heard that last night on Countdown - that is just AMAZING and WONDERFUL

to me - I do hope Ali's presence will catch the attention of a bunch of people who've given up on politics - get them back in the fight.

:hi:

[eshfemme]

12. Yes, it's all about the setup. The better it is, the better the payoff.