Steve Schmidt-If Barack Obama was the president of the United States, this would not have happened.

[Marcuse]

15. Lest we forget.

[link:https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/aug/31/uselections2008.barackobama|

More than two dozen Republican staffers were camped in Denver last week, spearheading the latest assaults on Barack Obama who was addressing the Democratic convention nearby. 'We came here to piss the Democrats off,' said one Republican aide with a grin.

They have largely succeeded. Each day new adverts have hammered a relentless drumbeat of negativity, painting Obama as too liberal, too inexperienced and practically a danger to America's future. Leading lights of the Republican universe have paraded in front of the cameras in a disciplined display of party message-making. A typical performance came from former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani. 'There are still a lot of serious questions about Barack Obama's preparedness to lead the country,' Giuliani said, before stepping aside to showcase the latest ad on a huge flat-screen TV.

The ad attacked Obama as being so ignorant of foreign affairs that he was virtually a security threat himself. It touched on scare issues such as Islamic terrorism and Iranian nukes. Then it represented Obama's positions on national security as naive and weak. 'These are contrast ads,' Giuliani said afterwards. 'And both sides do them.'

The current mastermind of the Republican attack machine is known as the Bullet. He is Steve Schmidt, a protégé of Bush's guru, Karl Rove. Nicknamed for his results as much as his bald head, he made his name as commander of the war room that wiped out Democrat John Kerry in 2004. Brought in to shake things up in July, Schmidt imposed discipline on a disorganised campaign. He dissuaded McCain from his off-the-cuff chats with reporters, and honed the focus solely on making Obama unelectable.

Schmidt works on the principles of repeating simple messages loudly and often. Ads attack Obama as a 'celebrity' or a faux-messiah. By doing so they hope to turn Obama's greatest strength - his ability to inspire - into a fatal flaw. That is backed up by another line: that Obama is simply not fit to be president. NotReady08 is the name of a website set up by the campaign. The language can be harsh.