by Damozel | Obama has made it clear that he isn't going to be available for swift-boating, channeling Sean Connery in The Untouchables. "If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a
gun," Obama said at a fundraiser in Philadelphia Friday...' (The Hill's Blog)
Though no great fan of Obama's, I'm glad to hear it. The Democrats must wrest the presidency from the GOP. I still have crescent-shaped scars in my palms from my nails digging into my flesh during the swiftboating stage of the Kerry campaign. 'Goddammit! Don't just stand there like a department store dummy --- say something! TAKE THEM DOWN!' I remember screaming at the TV.
Joe Gandelman remembers:
Michael Dukakis let the Republicans portray him as a kind of robot, define him with the infamous Willy Horton ad and later run an ad that used footage of him in a tank looking like Snoopy. His campaign tried to ignore the negative campaigning and paid the price. John Kerry waited so long before he condescended to respond to the Swift Boat attacks that by the time he did his own boat sank.
But I'm not sure that a gun is really necessary. I really don't think McCain's the sharpest knife in the drawer.
So a man finally got a question into McCain and he had a very different sort of question.
The questioner noted that he had been educated at Princeton and Harvard and made more than $300,000 a year.
"How can I be proud of my country?" he asked.
Get it — he was mocking Michelle Obama and her statement earlier this year that her husband had for the first time in her life made her proud of her country.
So a man finally got a question into McCain and he had a very different sort of question.
The questioner noted that he had been educated at Princeton and Harvard and made more than $300,000 a year.
"How can I be proud of my country?" he asked.
Get it — he was mocking Michelle Obama and her statement earlier this year that her husband had for the first time in her life made her proud of her country.
Well, McCain either missed the joke or decided to ignore it and answer the question literally. (The Politico)
Martin is pretty sure it was the former (missing the joke). So am I.
But the RNC is wigging out --- 'probably because they heard a scary black man talking about guns,' Jeff Fecke speculates. 'Probably'?
They seem to think that so-called 'New Politics' means that Obama doesn't play hardball. They're shocked --- shocked! --- that Obama would mention guns, knives, or brawling.
Have they been asleep during the primaries? No, of course not --- it's just the usual faked-up shock and outrage that is always on tap when one side says something that can conceivably be twisted into sinister configurations.
'"Barack Obama's call for 'new politics' is officially over," said Tucker Bounds, a spokesman for Republican presidential candidate John McCain.' (The Swamp) It was officially over back in February, when Obama and the DNC first decided that Hillary's run ought to be over so he could be crowned presumptive nominee right away.
But that's water under the bridge now. Since I'm evidently stuck with him as the nominee, I'm really glad he's not going to roll over and be all gentlemanly in the face of RNC-generated smears and contumely in the manner of Dukakis, Gore, Kerry. If they start waving the rhetorical knives, I say Dems should respond with rhetorical fire bombs.
At Shakesville, commenter DW remarks:
Teh irony, it burns.
Isn't the NRA bitchin' about Obama and guns, anyway? Think they'd be happy or proud. Snort.
Steven Benen asks: ' I have to wonder: if a Democrat brings a gun to knife fight, wouldn’t that necessarily be a “new” kind of politics?' At Shakesville, Jeff Fecke responds: '[H]eck, it's a new kind of politics if Democrats bring a knife to a knife fight.'
Heh. Sure is.
In other news, Obama is working hard on overcoming the image that he's an ace speech-maker without the ability to connect one-on-one. (NYT) Apparently the penny's dropped.
Mr. Obama’s chief strategist, David Axelrod, said large rallies in the primaries had energized the candidate and his supporters, but were also on some level “isolating” lectures rather than conversations. In the general election, Mr. Obama wanted to interact more intimately with voters. But Mr. Axelrod also said he expected Mr. Obama would return to the large-audience format this summer and fall....
A participant in a round-table discussion about credit in Chicago, Rosa Figueroa, who was driven into bankruptcy by credit card debt after her divorce, said in an interview afterward: “I think he understands the need for change. A lot of families are going through what I went through.”
Ms. Figueroa said he had quickly put her at ease when they met before the event. “I was not afraid of him,” she said. “I was afraid of the media. He’s just very warm and comforting, an average Joe.”
Things did not go as flawlessly at a town-hall-style meeting on Saturday in Wayne, Pa. Picking an audience member for the final question of the day, Mr. Obama called out, “The young lady in the Coca-Cola T-shirt.”
“It says ‘recycling,’ ” she corrected him.
“Oh,” he replied, shrugging. “I’m getting old.”(NYT)
I just hope, for the sake of the Democratic party, he works on his campaign's image. He --- and they --- definitely need to start thinking about how they are going to secure the votes of a very large number of very angry Hillary supporters. As I've previously noted, some of his supporters seem unable to understand that their 'victory' over Hillary may end up costing him the election if they don't start building bridges pretty soon.
As far as I can tell --- and I have my sources --- they have a long, long way to go.
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