They should have staked out Tep for ideas!

More airiness won't help Obama. Rasmussen's new daily tracking for today shows a jump of three points for McCain. McCain is now up by three, the largest margin he has ever shown on Rasmussen.

"Why in my day, we didn't have fancy-schmancy computers.  In my day, we used an abacus, and if we needed to send mail, we didn't have flapdoodle like Outlook.  We'd write on parchment with a feather, and to heck with sissy envelopes.  We'd fold it and seal it with molten red candle wax.  And if it burned you, alleluiah!  We'd run around the office with feathers and molten wax!  And we liked it!"

No, I think its part of a multi-pronged attack.  This, like the "community organizer" dog whistle used against Obama, is a dog whistle about what a geezer McCain iis.  It's hand to hand combat now, gloves off.  Its a must.

I have to say, the man looks a million years old these days.  It's not polite to say so, so they use this.

"Still" is really really weird. I just don't get the thinking behind it at all. Don't they realize that there are 83 million Americans in the non-line community? www.internetworldstats.com/.../us.htm And most of those are probably in downscale households they NEED to turn out?

They're insulting these people! Gratuitously!

(Unless, of course, it's intended for online distribution only, in which case it makes a certain amount of sense, but in that case, why the Stand By Your Ad bit at the end?)

These ads show that Obama wants to continue to try to have it both ways in this election.  He can either get as down and dirty as McCain (e.g. have a response ad to that sex education ad accusing McCain of supporting pedophiles), or he can keep focused on the issues and try to frame this election as a choice between a guy who cares about energy, the environment, healthcare, and pragmatic foreign policy or the guy who cares about lipstick and will do and say anything to get elected.  That's it.  It's either one or the other.  

Eos, you know that doesn't matter after those PA, OH polls yesterday. I see such daylight and so do you bastards.

No, no. Stuff like these won't do. Particularly after the Reps (though Palin) presented themselves as the representatives of working class Americans, as ridiculous as that may be.

Anyway, Obama's ads at this moment should sound like (metaphorically speaking, of course) "I'm still Jenny from the block. First I had a little now I have a lot. But everywhere I go I know what I came from".

Republicans got a narrative with Sarah Palin. A narrative in which people want to believe.

And the Demies got so mixed up that they forgot that they have their own narrative to tell. That they can present Obama and his wife as the personification of the American dream, their big entrance at the White House as the consumation of the American dream.  Suggest stories of endless struggle to get where they are today, not forgetting "where they came from". Struggling, simple, honest, plain folks that are "making it". Against all odds.

Mr. Strauss must be finally be kicked out of Washington. Even if it means to use Mr. Strauss tactics.

And Americans do love a narrative. They are probably the last people on earth that actually believes in narratives. That's why I love them.

More Judis handwringing.  These ads are fine, so long as they're a part of a larger mix.  Throw in a few more ads that focus on one subject--say, taxes, or healthcare--and we're off and running.  For example, two healthcare spots--on touting Obama's plan for 30 seconds, another attacking McCain's "plan"--would supplement these nicely.  Also, alternate the mockery ad (as in "still") with a creepy-sounding Democratic equivalent of the famous "wolves" spot.

Look, Apple is constantly rolling out those "Mac vs. PC" ads.  I expect that Obama can do the same.  These merely set the table.

Dear Senator Obama --

  Hi.  I am waiting patiently, though with increasing frustration, for you to start kicking some ass.  I am even, heaven forgive me, experiencing some concerns about supporting you, since I'm pretty sure by this point Hillary Clinton would have spread Sarah Palin thinly on toast and had a lovely morning meal.  I am still giving you money, and plan to start volunteering soon, and my vote for you is a lock.  Still, you're worrying me, and I don't like to be worried.

  So, here's is what I would like to call "the jugular."  I would like you to go for it.  I would like you to tell everyone with a microphone that comes within a five mile radius of your campaign that Sarah Palin wants to go to war with Russia.  Yes, I know that would be taking a quote out of context, and may be a little unfair.  We can all cry about how seedy politics is after we win.  But, see, maybe you didn't notice this, but the other side is dangerously close to winning (or they sure as hell look like it at this point, and I apparently don't have a brass pair like my good friend wandrey up there) and they're succeeding because they are willing to smear you like warm cream cheese.  And it's time you got a little tougher.  No?  Your next ad might feature a little girl picking a daisy or something, and then show a mushroom cloud and the words "War with Russia?  Is that what Sarah Palin really wants?" or something.  (I don't know where I got that ad idea.  Probably a dream or something.)  Hell, I don't care.  But just DO SOMETHING before I completely lose my shit.  Palin scares the crap out of me, I've lost all shred of respect for John McCain, and if I have to spend another four years watching a hypocrite and an ignoramus at the head of the country, I'm going to have myself committed.

Smooches,

Dan

And hit back hard "Senator McCain called me naive for advocating going into Pakistan in hot pursuit of Al Qaeda and the Taliban.  It would de-stablize an ally.  Seems, under George Bush, we've been doing just that.  So Senator McCain, the best that can be said is that you weren't kept in the loop.   Or you've been deliberately misleading.  So which is it?

Obama is in a cagefight.  Republicans have used this tactic for three consecutive elections.  They use the same tactic because it works.  Shore up the base for 40% of the vote and cagefight for the next 11%.

Republicans cagefight because it is effective and so far, Gore, Kerry, and now Obama have the wrong response.  The response goes something like: "Hey, you are cagefighting, let's go back to the auditorium and discuss the issues. Please, stop slamming my head into the fence, sir.  You know that is not right."  Well, isn't it?

This is very simple.  Obama needs to launch sharp intense attacks against McCain.  He has much more ammunition.  Say,

* McCain's economic plan will steal, $8 trillion dollars from the children of America and make America harder to defend.

* McCain's abortion policy will put women who have abortions for rape and incest in prison for life.  (Not correct?  Let McCain defend that.  What is the punishment?  They've banned all abortion in their platform.)

* McCain's foreign policy will risk embroiling American in numerous unnecessary wars.

* McCain's free trade policy will steal jobs from America's working and professional class.

* McCain's tax policy will result in higher taxes for the middle class. In fact, McCain is going to raise taxes on the middle class.  (Why, b/c Obama would cut them more and McCain's fiscal policy will make the dollar weaker, and increase the cost of goods.  Again let McCain defend it.)

If he cannot get up and say things in a forceful, intense manner he will lose the cagefight and demonstrate that perhaps, at least according the 11% of the population that matters, he is not ready to be president.

One thing is sure.  The republicans will stay in that cage until the election.

What about an ad entitled "Family Values?"

"John McCain wants us all to know about his time as a POW in Vietnam.  He speaks less often about the woman who waited for him at home through his six years of captivity, Carol, his first wife.  In a car accident in 1969 Carol suffered injuries that many say were more severe than anything John McCain received in prison, and when he came home in 1973, she remained partially crippled.  Carol had thought that with her husband and the father of her three children home they would all 'live happily ever after.'  But according to an old friend, McCain 'started carousing and running around with women.'  By his own admission McCain had 'girlfriends' during this time.  Then in 1980 McCain divorced Carol and married his current wife Cindy less than one month later.  John McCain says that people choose their own character.  But is his the sort of character you'd choose to lead you?"

Cage fight is right.  Obama either castrates McCain (I like an ad asking why McCain doesn't want children to know how to protect themselves from pedophiles) or goes down.

I fear that like Dukakis, Gore, Kerry, and McCain himself in 2000, Obama and his people are stunned and disbelieving in the face of the absurdity and extremity of Republican lies and smears.  Months ago, I wrote here that Obama had to do only two things to win:  (1) two truthy proposals for righting the economy (I would go for huge middle class tax cut and something protectionist -- and remember now kids it DOES NOT MATTER WHETHER HE EVER IMPLEMENTS THEM) and (2) be ready to counter-attack ruthlessly when the Swift-boating comes as, I said, it surely would.  The Swift-boating is here, now.  Obama and the Democrats are not ready (although at a small meet and greet in Paris a year and a half ago Dean assured me and others that we would be).

Obama has to fight like mad and viciously.  He will gain the respect of the American public and eviscerate McCain if he only has the will to do it.  No more of these too nice responses, no more intellectual responses.  The American public likes to see family members trying to tear each others heads off on the Donahue show.  That is the target audience, not TNR.

"These ads show that Obama wants to continue to try to have it both ways in this election. "

Well, here's the way McCain wants to have it: McCain strikes out with a series of lower and lower blows to Obama's character, and then whines when Obama says anything mean to him. The corollary to the claim that Obama's message of hope is empty words is that McCain's message is the opposite of hope, and those words are full.

I haven't seen the ads in question (and they'll never air in my state, we're out of play), so I can't say whether they are effective or not, but any truth-based attack on McCain is totally consistent with Obama's "politics of hope", and any distorted attack on McCain would be well-earned payback.

Jeff, what would you say about my proposed "Family Values" attack ad?  Nothing untrue about it, though some might call going after another candidate's ancient marital soap operas is out-of-bounds.

In this same vein, could it be used if it could be confirmed that McCain did in fact call Cindy a cunt?

luispc, I think you're right that "the Demies got so mixed up that they forgot that they have their own narrative to tell." Please remind Tep as much the next time he starts complaining about Obama's autobiographical tendencies.

I too want a fight, but the problem is, the GOP's culture war thing does two brilliant things: paints Dems as weak AND paints them as un-American elites who show contempt for average folks. Be high minded, sticking to the issues, and you're an airy-fairy pansy. Attack, and you're showing contempt for real Americans and their values. I invite you to consider, as exhibit A, Judith Warner's column about attending a Palin rally in Virginia, in which, after listening to Palin supporters make nasty sweeping generalizations about Democrats (bad parents who raise little narcissists, do not love America, etc.) and to Fred Thompson dust off that old "brie and chablis" idiocy for the thousandth time, Warner concludes that Dems should show less contempt and more empathy for Palin's ardent supporters.

Obama had this right in his 2004 keynote. He seemed to have untied the GOP's gourdian knot in his appeal to national unity. I want to hear him strike those notes again, even as he provides substance, on the stump and in the debates. He gets close to it in his "brother's keeper, sister's keeper" line.

drdannyu- its particularly awful to see someone as decent, fair minded as you so mad.  I know you know I am angry too.  

You are right that Hillary would have had this woman sliced up with fava beans and a fine merlot days ago. I miss that.

Here's John the family man at his tasteful best being interviewed by the Las Vegas Sun:

McCain: I appreciate his support. As you know, the lieutenant governor is our chairman.

Q: Why snub the governor?

McCain: I didn't mean to snub him. I've known the lieutenant governor for 15 years and we've been good friends....I didn't intend to snub him. There are other states where the governor is not the chairman.

Q: Maybe it's the governor's approval rating and you are running from him like you are from the president?

McCain: (Chuckling) And I stopped beating my wife just a couple of weeks ago . . .

Do we know where the ads will be placed? Maybe Team Obama knows the Colbert audience is not the same as people watching Murder She Wrote at 7P in syndication. I received a reel from A-B for Michelob and grabbed the phone to ask if they really wanted a classic rock station to run the production for an urban-dance format.  

That said, I know they're tailoring their message by state so what I see in IN isn't the same as other battleground commercials. That's good.

Too bad they haven't exploited the talent rich creative that exists in their base. They should have been running contests on campuses, the web and from the field. They'd have gotten ads that put a national agency to shame. Maybe they thought going an indie route would get them utoob weirdness. No, that isn't the best example of what an asymmetrical ad-war would look like. They're guerrilla on the ground but not in the air. Big mistake.  

Pity the people who are working with me these days, wandrey.  (Seriously.)  I have taken to warning them, unironically, that when they say things like "this election feels like the lesser of two evils" or "I don't know who to vote for...they're both equally bad" they have thirty seconds to get out of my blast radius.  

Getting dragged out of bed at 1 AM to attend a c-section has not enhanced my mood.

But lets not lose it here - look closely.  Yesterday, Obama was up by FIVE POINTS IN PA, and 3 or so in OHIO.  Yes, this is post Palin, Quinnepac.  Not bad for a black guy in Pennsylvania!  (Thank you Rendell, Bad Ass of PA).

Honestly, this is great stuff.  No sitting on our laurels by any stretch, but enough to remain very optimistic about the underlying stuff.  

We don't see Biden and Obama - especially Biden - stumping it all over those two states doggedly - hitting small markets, small venues, local press.  Biden has been magnificent in these venues, don't kid yourself.  He's highly effective in the way it counts - with people who do not read TNR or the NYT.  

They got those numbers by hammering home SUBSTANCE and how it affects THEIR LIVES: do the Republicans have any plans for the middle class? For health care? For job? For food prices?  For housing prices falling?  For competeing with India and China in this economy and keeping jobs here?  Of course not.  WHy would they?

But they love to talk about pedophiles and pigs and stuff.  I have relatives in PA, one an elected Republican official.  They find McCain's campaign embarrassing.  I doubt they are alone.  

This is paying off.   We've already seen that - red states redder, so OK. Big deal. Maybe Obama has more faith than I do in the fed-upness of the middle class, but I'm still happy to see those ads dogging McCains age - go Obama go on that one.  I'm sure we'll see more.

Red states redder don't mean jack shit and they know it.

"McCain came to Washington as a senate liaison in the ‘70s before he was a congressman in '82"

WTF is a senate liason and WTF cares? Your point, while legitimate, is too wonky to matter to middle America; they were correct to not include it.

Good question, aeromonas. It meets the standard of being truth-based. I would not get into McCain's labeling of Cindy, because families should be off-limits (even if it shows an ugly side of his character). But running around on his first wife is his behavior, and potentially in bounds. Obama should absolutely consider it, especially if this campaign continues to descend to all-character-assassination all the time. I think Obama has parried most of the McCain attacks successfully, but some blows have hit and by not attacking back hard enough he stays in a defensive position.

Personally, I don't like it and I don't think I would do it, but I am not a politician and I would be visibly uncomfortable mouthing lies and smears, so I know I would lose if I had to campaign for an office. So maybe he should do the opposite of what I think.

drdannyu - I am proud of you.  It's not easy for someone who values civlity (as we all should) to let that go.  But you're fighting the good fight, for the decency and soul of this country, for the safety of our planet and our future.  And you have been magnificent.  A warrior!

This is no time to go wobbly and you aren't.  I've never been a march in the streets type, but I am ready.  I'm not going down without a fight.  

Oh God, imagine being the woman having the C-section.  Trussed up like a fish at 1:00 am isn't so fun either, been there, done it ;)

The above comments support why this isn't a job for a big agency alone. No, the handful of ideas here weren't perfect or in agreement. Not my point.  Anyone could see why it's better to look closer to the bottom for how any product is perceived and at least toss a slice of the budget to the masses and see what comes back. I'm not saying fire the bums in suites and suits, they had plenty of money to divvy up.

You would think an outfit that owes it's success to a bottom up explosion ( over a couple of million donors, for example) would have a less top heavy approach in delivering their message.

A couple of years ago a TV show was in trouble and a fan site came up with dozens of commercials that blew away the network's ads. The show on the ropes was renewed. Coincidental? I doubt it.

Plus, it's cheaper!

Wandreycer1 wrote "But lets not lose it here - look closely."

Yes, and I think they have internals which look even better.

I posted this yesterday. David Gregory & Steve Hildebrand (Obama Deputy Campaign Manager) Tuesday night:

GREGORY:  The “Wall Street Journal” reported today something about where the reach actually is, and that despite the campaign’s rhetoric about broadening that map, post-convention, Obama is actually spending a lot of time in some traditional states.  Ohio, Pennsylvania, just two of them where he is spending a great deal of time.

HILDEBRAND:  He is in New Mexico, Colorado, Nevada, Indiana.  He is all over the place, Florida, as is Senator Biden.  So there is no shrinkage of the map.  If anything, it is John McCain who—his resources are stretched.  And he is having great difficulty, frankly, keeping up with us.  We shouldn’t be ahead in Indiana.  We shouldn’t be ahead in Georgia, in some of these states.

And he’s nowhere to be found.  No offices, no staff, no advertising.  

===

I think MI is more of a worry than they want-expected. A bad time for the mayor to fuck up and provide the GOP with race bait in a stressed state.

PS I was highly discouraged from showing up at McCain's speech on public service (imagine how vile) at Columbia yesterday. I wanted to protest.

Nippers,

In a political battle to the end, there is nothing wrong with "wanting it both ways."  Why are people surprised that McCain throws dirty punches and then whines if anything is said about him?  That's how you ear your cake and have it too which is the whole idea.

Obama can keep on talking about healing divisiveness and empathized left, right and sideways with McCain supporters while cutting McCain to ribbons with ads that expose him as a corrupt, a liar, and a hypocrite who has abandoned "honor" to run a dirty campaign.  If anyone asks Obama, he says with a straight face that there is nothing inconsistent about ending divisiveness and telling the truth and demanding that the other side stick to the truth.  "The only basis for healing the political divide in our nation is a fearless willingness to tell the truth and hear the truth."  Then he has it both ways.

I simply cannot understand why TNR bloggers continue to think that political campaigns are compelled to observe some unwritten standard of intellectual consistency.  The standard is first and foremost what works and second whether you can say whatever it is you are saying and look at yourself in the mirror the next day.  Those are the only standards for political rhetoric.   There are no others.

The problem with both these spots is that they lack a single focused idea.  And maybe a bigger sin in this era, they lack pace, editing sophistication and production values.

The irony of the 1982 "Still" spot is it looks like it was made in 1972.  

If you're going to use Obama as a talking head-- and we all acknowledge he's a brilliant speaker when on his game-- you've got to give him something brilliant to say.  A 30 second spot does not work well with a laundry list of ideas.

Judis characterized these spots as lame.  I concur.

ChanRobt  wrote, "The problem with both these spots is that they lack a single focused idea.  And maybe a bigger sin in this era, they lack pace, editing sophistication and production values."

I'm on shaky ground to question the broader strategy and goals of their campaign and concede they can defend the course with data I don't possess.

But you are correct on the fundamentals which can enhance a poor concept and doom the best idea. They reek of design by committee and thirty seconds is too little real estate to allow too many cooks to work.

Plus, there is a time to conclude what a product is (film, new service) and what it is not. Pick the 20% of your message that 80% of the people support, and go with that. Stop drowning worms and begin to haul the catch on deck.

Just because you can put lip...forget that one....

Even if they should diversify the style for a demo or region that doesn't mean they can afford to postpone the narrowing of focus in general and each ad must leave a viewer with a one sentence description of "Obama's point".Yet  I'm still hearing the complaint "Obama has a lot of great ideas but....".  

I can't see how a redundant recitation of "a lot" will break though the haze in undecided minds.  The change spot began well and I felt he ran out of time before he made the sale. I looked at the clock ticking and said, "Whoa, he can't do it in :30...".  I was right. It ended and he wasn't finished.

Perhaps I'm suspect promoters and marketers with impressive reputations. I knew none of the rules, got a late start and am proud of a record in marketing and promotion which relied on intuition out of necessity. However, there are laws (not petty standards) I couldn't reject and they know them as well as anyone with or without intimidating credentials.  

I was also long on confidence and a critic like me with nothing at stake didn't rattle me. Yeah, they think we're idiots...

Don't make us laugh? ...Here's what I cannot understand. As an opponent, John McCain is a gift. He has changed his positions drastically. He has made countless cringe-worthy statements. ($50 an hour to pick lettuce, anyone?) He has fibbed. He...