The THREE crucial elements of the Obama/McCain campaign

[underpants]

Let me preface this analysis with a few things

First-a lot of this is predicated on "Happiness Machines" an hour long BBC documentary on Freud's nephew Edward Barnay and the creation of public relations and its use in controlling the masses
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Kp24ZeHtv4
You will never watch TV or see the news in the same way again after watching this.

Second-Obama's campaign itself will be subject of reams of discussion over the next few years. Suffice to say that it was amazing in both its scope and its incredible attention to details, many that were supplements to already good ideas. Seeing it first hand it was basically street-level block-by-block Chicago politics applied to Howard Dean's 50 State Strategy-which all the "experts" thought was foolhardy.

The Three Event

The Primaries
The importance of the primaries were two fold
1.OBAMA OBAMA OBAMA even with all the money he raised he couldn't have bought the brand recognition that was developed for free by injecting his name into the mouths of every single person who passed by a TV in 2008.
2. Drama-people love that shit. All summer long (before that really) it was a daily "he said she said" soap opera that was even the lead on trashy "entertainment news" shows. In the next sentence there was some mention of what McCain did that day but it was almost in a polite way and it drew yawns. When it was finally barely settled Obama was the WINNER. He not only beat the pre-ordained product of what was supposed to be a formidable political machine but for the casual viewer he had WON. It was over. When asked "What about Obama vs. McCain?" the consensus was "Oh come on he won. Do we really have to go through this AGAIN?". Regardless of what the DC media said about itself it did everything in its power to get rid of the new guy who had no history with them and no entanglements. If "God DAMNED America" didn't put that guy down nothing was going to. And, we love us some WINNERS in this country especially these days.

The first weekend in September
I googled Palin when CNN broke the story that she was flying into Arizona (I think it was) and the first thing that popped up was that she was under investigation. They seemed to learn nothing from the 2006 elections in which corruption was the main issue in voters' minds. They should have steered as clear from any stink of trouble as they could but they invited it in. As much as she "Excited the base" McCain spent lots of capital securing people who should have been in his back pocket months ago. This was telling. The more we found out about her and the more she took off from the campaign strategy (she did) the quicker she sank like a stone. Their long held strategy is get their primaries over as quick as possible (before histories/quotes/voting records are put on public display) and move to selling their product on the national level, McCain was going back to convince his own.

The speech at Mile High is the only real critique I have of the Obama campaign. They did not use that footage nearly enough. The importance of that was that it was okay to like the guy. It took the edge off for our groupthink world (see Happiness Machines above). Ironically it was in Denver, Colorado home of Coors brewing. Coors light is the most useless non-beer beer sold but how do they sell it? Promotion and packaging-from the BOX to the BALL (remember that?) to TWINS to now they have a bottle that tells YOU when the beer is ready to drink. Hell you don't even have to think about it, which helps. We saw last decade the sheeple getting haircuts because of a TV show (Friends) for crying out loud. The Obama campaign should have used images of the masses, particularly shots from the top of the stadium, to show people it was COOL to like him. Well anyway it worked out well.

The other event that weekend was the selection of Biden. This was what may have turned it especially with the DC crowd. Biden is a "made guy". He has allegiances, he has killed for them (war vote), he can be trusted. The new guy had a sponsor, one of their own. Palin on the other hand was rogue-almost nothing to link her to the crowd inside the castle walls if you will. The DC crowd didn't come to McCain's rescue and the media simply couldn't ignore the thunderously bad mistakes of the campaign anymore. The DC crowd had convinced itself that this guy, Obama, was okay and in fact it was okay to like him.

The debates
The first 15 minutes of the first debate was the time for people to finally sit down and size this guy up. He was calm, collected, and thoughtful. This was refreshing in its not-bat-shit-crazy element (unlike you knoW Who). I didn't watch the silly season Dem debates when everyone gets 20 seconds to respond but I did tune in for the Obama/Hillary debates (DRAMA)....and I got it. Not in a matter of "celebrity" or "awe" but that he connected through the camera AND he looked like a guy who could, and had, talked trash on a basketball court. He was not only good at it he expected it (unlike our last Presidential candidate who had become far too accustomed to the deliberative polite manner of the Senate floor) as part of the game. This put the final touch on the "its okay to like him" message to the masses.

The last debate was McCain trying to keep his masses at bay. They lost control of their hierarchy and the crowds were just out of control. Palin fed this and we hear now that she brought up Ayers on the stump before the campaign had decided to go in that direction and before it had decided how they would do it. Their hierarchy goes something like this:

talk radio/Drudge-->Politico.com--> Main stream Media
repeat repeat repeat the point on talk radio and Fox News.
Main stream media will either pick it up as the story or feel compelled ("Working the refs") to at least mention it

Palin is talk radio, but with a face for TV. Unless you are familiar with that world it comes off as stark-raving mouth-foaming madness. It is NOT for the middle crowd who is WHO you have to go to get elected. The crowds came to events and wanted to hear the hit songs. When McCain didn't play them they almost turned on him, live on CNN. So in the third debate McCain had to mention Ayers and ACORN and "pro-abortion" (whatever the hell that means) but he was spending capital to sure up votes he should have had a long time ago. McCain never let the microphone get out of his hand (no more "town hall meetings") after the crazy haired lady said that "Obama is an Arab". That stuffs scares off the soccer moms and the casual observers who had been convinced that it was okay to like Obama, in fact it was even COOL!!...and ready to drink.

[Cha]

1. That was interesting to read! I like

reading the analysis now that it's OVER.

And, palin is Hater talk radio.