Obama at Unity Conference in Chicago, July 27, 2008
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Obama says he's becoming competitive in red states
With 100 days remaining in the race for the White House, Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama says he has succeeded in expanding the electoral map in his race against John McCain, principally in southern and southwestern states but also in Montana and North Dakota.
"It doesn't mean we're going to win all those states but at least we're making it a contest and giving voters something to choose from," he said in an interview aboard his campaign jet on the way back from an overseas trip.
"Virginia, North Carolina and Georgia are all states where we are competitive," he said, adding he is going "toe to toe" with his rival in New Mexico, Colorado and Nevada. continue
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When you can not make your case to the public, you attack your opponent's character
That is what is happening with John McCain.
I wrote yesterday in 'This Week With Barack Obama' that when you go negative, as in ads this early, you must be in the weeds. Well, the weeds McCain must be in.
There are several things going on here, first the Gallup Tracking Poll. First off, I am not a proponent of these daily tracking polls. My view is that these polls are only useful a week out before an election, especially over the weekend when many voters make that decision who they will vote for, but none the less the poll does not bode well for McCain. Obama has a 9 point advantage in this tracking poll. It appears to be a jump from his overseas tour. Next, there is a Research 2000 National Poll which has Obama in a double digit lead, over McCain.
It is unusual for a candidate to go negative 3 months before the election, especially before the party's convention. But going negative, the McCain Campaign had decided to do.
McCain has been giving sound bites with the assumption that 'Obama does not understand foreign policy', only after this worldwide tour it is duly noted that Obama understands this issue very well. We have seen McCain back peddle his position on Iraq and state that he agrees with al-Maliki's timetable for withdrawal in Iraq, when it is al-Maliki that mentioned and agreed with Obama's 16 month withdrawal timetable for Iraq.
So, when you have major Republican strategists state you are running a lousy campaign, what do you do? You go negative, all day, and all the time.
Negative campaigning has its rewards and demise. The rewards are that you make the public attuned to mostly character issues of your opponent. Meaning, you take away the real issues of what the campaign is about. This is what the GOP is attempting to do. When you have to run on the record of George W. Bush, you better create chaos. The downside is that this approach drives your negatives up and hardens many who may have perceived you one way to totally find you unappealing. Ask Hillary Clinton what happened to her negatives when she went on the attack. It did not help her in the end.
So, with a slumping campaign, you must go negative early. John McCain has made the decision to attack Obama's patriotism, hard. He is questioning is Obama a real, true American.
McCain’s new hit on his foe’s patriotism hints at two years of whispered, viral rumors and myths about Obama centered on his patriotism and American values, or, more to the point, his lack thereof. The emails —catalogued in snopes.com's lengthy Obama section and Obama's own “fight the smears" page —often have contradictory particulars, but the thrust is clear: Obama, various false emails claim, is not really a natural-born American citizen; is not really a Christian, and refuses to pledge allegiance to the American flag.
"[McCain] can't beat him with the old 'liberal' playbook, they can't beat him by deploying the old social-cultural wedge issues, and it seems more and more that they won't be able to beat him on readiness and experience," said Dan Gerstein, a Democratic consultant whose clients have included Senator Joe Lieberman.
"So all they really have left is the personal stuff, first and foremost what I would call fear of the other, which is mostly but not exclusively about race, and goes to visceral issues of trust."
I have written for a while now that this campaign will get ugly. The only recourse, for the GOP to win in November is to make this about race. Divide the country. This is the GOP's intention. Will it work? I don't know. It is Obama's task to drive up voter registration and bring new voters to the polls. This is why the GOP would have rather campaigned against Clinton versus Obama. If the GOP loses, they will be labeled for a very long time as a racist party. Whether that label will be true or not is up to the type of campaign they are willing to run and how desperate they want to win.
Lastly, the viral emails have been out there since last year. Though, I am glad the Obama Campaign finally decided to fight against it, they were slow in motion on this aspect, in my view. We will see if this is brought to the polls in November by the voters.
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Obama turns focus to economic policies
Fresh from an international tour in which he sought to burnish his foreign policy credentials, Barack Obama will this week shift gears and seek to convince voters he would be better equipped than John McCain, his Republican rival, to run the sputtering US economy.
The presumptive Democratic nominee plans to meet a panel of advisers today to examine his campaign's -economic policies. The gathering will include Warren Buffett, the billionaire -investor, Eric Schmidt, Google's chairman, Paul -Volcker, the former Federal Reserve chairman, and -both Lawrence Summers and Robert Rubin, the former Treasury secretaries.
Mr Obama told NBC yesterday that the team would discuss a second potential stimulus package, ways to shore up the housing market, and energy and infrastructure initiatives.
The shift in emphasis underscores that, although polls suggest Mr Obama's biggest challenge ahead of the November election is demonstrating he has the experience to be commander-in-chief, it is the sluggish US economy that is at the forefront of voters' concerns.
"I think what is driving people all across the country right now is worries and concerns about inability to pay the gas bill, inability to buy food because prices have gone up so high," he said yesterday.
Mr Obama's mini-economic summit threatens once again to divert the spotlight from Mr McCain this week. In an interview on ABC yesterday the Republican candidate echoed comments by President George W. Bush that Wall Street had "got drunk" and was to blame for the housing crisis. continue
and....
Rumor, seems like the Obamas are going on vacation and seems like it will be Hawaii....
Looks like Senator Stevens (R-AK) and Senator Collins (R-ME) won't be attending the Republican Convention. Both are in tough re-election races and Stevens is having huge issues with corruption charges.
Clinton donors are coming home to Obama.....
Missed Sunday's 'This Week With Barack Obama'? Read it here....
More Iraq bombings, will it ever end......
Obama went to doctor for sore basketball hip.....
Obama-McCain Matchup: Blowout Or Trench Warfare?.......
List of folks at Obama's Economic Meetup......
McCain & Offshore Drilling...the Payoff....
and Chuck Todd, MSNBC/NBC's First Read on Politics, below, all about the VP Pick....
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