President McCain.

[npincus]

Unity, schmunity. Who gives a f*ck if we're unified and lose? F*ck the kum-bay-ya... pounding home the disaster that the last 2-term Republican administration has been, and DEFINING McCain, welding him to B*sh, meeting the shitstorm of flthy ads that the GOP has rained on us these past couple of weeks and RAISING them one, THAT'S what we need to be doing, NOW.

Why aren't we pounding McCain for going to the POW well one time too many? Why the hell are WE on defense? Why doesn't Obama have an ad up showing (7) foreclosed homes with (7) families that have no "kitchen table" and use it to define McCain as an out-of-touch elitist?

Repubs can't govern, but they know how to win. We had better f*cking get it together or it's President McCain.

And don't snark that I am being alarmist. We've been there, haven't we?

[liberal N proud]

1. The thread title alone scares the shit out of me

[npincus]

4. I can tell you

we are headed that way.

[potone]

7. Me, too.

"President" and "McCain" are two words that should never be together.

[anonymous171]

2. I don't know why we aren't going negative. We will lose if we don't.

[griffi94]

3. in theory and on paper we should have won

in 2004 as well, so i won't call you an alarmist. i fear it's going to be an uphill fight, and while we refight the primaries, the repubs beat us to the finish.

[npincus]

5. one more: why didn't Obama jump on McCain's rsponse about needing to bring back the Draft?

OMG, why the hell do we put these gifts in the trash, while the McCain campaign MANUFACTURES storylines and sells them to the MSM?

The folks here that don't recognize what's going on won't know what hit them on election day.

Where's our ad about McCain believing America may need another draft?

[demwing]

6. Agreed, and I Fear the Self-Congratulatory Feel Goods

I see in so many threads.

Yesterday was nice, but what did it do to help us win?

All too often we snark on the Republicans. And because we can't stand them, we fail to see where they are effective with their messages.

All too often, too, we fall in love with our leaders. And because of our emotional attachment, we fail to see where we are NOT effective with OUR messages.

It's not that we're too nice (we are, but that alone isn't the issue), it's that we simply fail to be critical of our own behavior, and thus never correct what we do wrong. That's the real reason, IMO, that we haven't been more successful at Presidential politics. We think we're higher than we are, and so we do nothing at all.

[griffi94]

10. the self congratulatory feels goods

and the ignore reality at all costs cheerleading.

mccain slammed our candidate...that works in our favor because as soon as the msm shows the true facts the average john q american will
see how terrible the repubs are.

average americans are never going to be shown squat. if you want the truth you have to run it down and most people don't care that much.

americans like nice simple tidy sound bytes. bush was too fuckin stupid to shine kerrys shoes, but in the end that didn't matter. people remembered the purple heart band aids

[LittleClarkie]

8. He already came out with an ad about the 11 houses

showing McCain as out of touch. Where you been?

[npincus]

11. Where've you been? I saw the (1) ad last week.... McCain's done 2 or 3 ads in the past 48 hrs

appealing to Hillary supporters. We should be POUNDING on this gaffe, beating him sensless with it, keeping it in the headlines, giving the MSM new ads to run ad nauseum.

Yes, good ad, excellent ad. So now, we're done with it?

[anonymous171]

12. He needs to get harsher and more personal.

People think McCain is honorable. Obama has to show them otherwise.

[npincus]

14. Bingo. I saw a Dem strategist this morning on MSNBC

(Tad something-or-other) REJECTING the notion of crticizing McCain's "I'm a POW whatever you say, just shut up" strategy... "Tad" said Dems "wouldn't go there", that McCain had served honorably, bla bla bla.

HUH??????


So Dems take McCain's exploitation of his POW status OFF THE TABLE??? WHile they pound the shit out of us? And rely on SWIFTBOAT tactics, books of horseshit by Jerome Corsi, published by Mary Matalin? We won't touch McCaoin, but the GOP savaged the war service of John Kerry in 2004?

WHAT THE F*CK IS WRONG WITH OUR PARTY?

[anonymous171]

15. While we can't attack McCain's service directly

(the MSM cruxified Clark for even talking about its irrelevance, what will they do to us dems if we directly attack it?) we can refuse to acknowledge it. When McCain responds with one of his "But I was a POW..." remarks, Obama's campaign should simply ignore that part of the response and attack him. And for fuck's sake stop calling him "honorable."

[geek tragedy]

9. Cue the "polls are rigged" denialists. n/t

[EarlG]

13. Just to play devil's advocate for a moment...

"We don't pay attention to national polls," he said, referring to himself and the rest of the Obama team charged with winning the 270 electoral votes -- accrued through 51 separate contests in the states and the District of Columbia -- to win the White House.

Instead, as Plouffe reviewed the status of the race, he said he and his colleagues concentrate on other matters. Such as, most importantly, the undecided voters in the 18 states they see as the campaign's key battlegrounds and -- in those locales and elsewhere -- efforts to spur turnout of Obama supporters.

"We stay laser-focused on these two factors each and every day," he said.

The obsession on turnout is a key reason he turns a blind eye to the national polls -- and remains pretty positive in his assessment of the race, handwringing among some Democrats notwithstanding.

Pollsters generally base their sampling group on past voting patterns. But the electorate in 2008, Plouffe said flatly, "is going to be changed in some fundamental ways from 2004."

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x6758081

I feel like I've been hearing people telling Obama what he should and shouldn't be doing ever since he got into the race. Nothing wrong with that - everyone's got an opinion. Just saying, his campaign seems to know what they're doing. For example, they were a total longshot in the primaries, but they came up with an innovative strategy to defeat Hillary Clinton.

They're doing what they think they need to do. If they think they need to go negative, they'll do it. I doubt they're ignoring the lessons of 2004.

Here's another good read for today:

If they want to win in November, Democrats have one task to accomplish this week: Snap out of it.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/25/AR2008082502336.html

[npincus]

16. respectfully, with a couple of name changes

Robinson could have published that column 4 years ago. My observation is that Obama's campaign was razor-sharp during the primaries, he was more proactive than reactive. Maybe because he was such a long-shot, his campaign was fearless. I don't know if they're being too careful, or what the reason, but for example, what's the explanation for waiting 2 weeks to respond to MccCain's "celebrtiy" ad? McCain is bombarding Obama and it's working. Echoes of 2004.

[EarlG]

17. Times have changed since 2004

The Republicans have the built-in weaknesses this time around (war, economy, direction of country, etc.) There's a lot of bluster going on but underlying the whole election is the nation's apparent desire for a big change, and Obama's message is tapped directly into that.

I base my confidence in his campaign on their performance in the Democratic primaries when they remained disciplined and on-message and against all the odds managed to come up with a strategy to defeat Hillary Clinton, I guess the question is whether they can do it again against McCain.

Whatever happens I expect I'll be biting my fingernails all the way to November, again.

[npincus]

18. you and me, both.

:)