« previous | TPM CAFÉ READER POSTS HOME | next »
Where is my apocalyptic, scorched-earth smear campaign?
What a difference two weeks can make. Now numerous polls have Obama up in North Carolina, the land of gas lines and the amazing imploding Wachovia... and he is improbably romping in Florida and Ohio, the two evillest of all swing states. Gunshy liberals find themselves unable to stop salivating over the prospect of a sweep from Colorado to Virginia to Iowa to Nevada. Yet we can't help but tell ourselves that this moment will be the one we look back on wistfully, years from now, as the day we foolishly thought our candidate will win.
Well, I've been saying it just about forever, but an apocalyptic, scorched-earth campaign is coming our way, courtesy of desperate conservatives. It has to. They have no credibility left to lose and the election is slipping away. We will be seeing a lot of "Goddamn America" in the coming weeks. What baffles me is that these unregulated outside groups have not yet gone up with many vicious ads yet -- the sort of stuff McCain will nobly disavow but obviously profit from.
At the moment, however, it is very dark for the Mac. Though he did well, the debate did not really change anything and may have reinforced Obama's lead. His campaign suspension gimmick went down like a lead balloon. The long, long years of conservative malfeasance and governmental malpractice have finally caught up with these people, and I whole-heartedly agree with Kos on this:
"Many people will warn against 'getting complacent.' I like to approach this potential problem differently -- we have a chance to rip out the GOP's jugular. We can throw them an anvil. We can kick them while they're down. No matter the metaphor, the underlying meaning remains -- we can destroy the Republicans. Now's not the time to slack, it's the time to pick things up. We've got them in a near rout. Let's destroy them."
Exactly. Our team is on track to pick up Senate seats in Colorado, New Mexico, New Hampshire and Alaska. Yet the economic meltdown seems to have put Republican incumbents in danger in the most improbable places - North Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi, and even Kentucky. We are literally on the verge of creating a Congressional majority that could pass Obama's agenda over Republican resistance. And that son of a bitch in Georgia, Saxby Chambliss, who shamefully demonized the three-limb amputee veteran Max Cleland as an unpatriotic coddler of terrorists -- he's also facing a strong challenge from Democrat Jim Martin.
They say payback is a bitch. Let's make sure it is.
Comments (19)
How? By engaging in craven, depraved Atwater/Rovian election behavior?
Kos doesn't get it. Either do all of those folks who through the month of August whined here that Obama wasn't punching back hard enough.
Look, and I've said it many times before, Obama, Axelrod et al know exactly what they're doing. The Obama campaign is sticking to it's campaign long strategy, while McCain et al are pursuing short term tactics aimed at capturing the news cycle. Obama's strategy is working, McCain's tactics are not.
Let the professionals run the campaign.
October 1, 2008 6:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
What do you suppose I meant by "throwing them an anvil"? Spreading rumors that McCain is secretly a Muslim?
I agree that Obama, Axelrod and Plouffe have their master plan nailed down and they know what they're doing. That's no reason for the rest of us not to exploit the GOP's vulnerability as ruthlessly (and honestly) as possible while the window of opportunity is momentarily open.
October 1, 2008 6:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
In case there's any confusion, the title was not meant to suggest that we ought to have our own scorched-earth smear campaign. Rather, I was just wondering why McCain's allies have not really unleashed their own yet.
October 1, 2008 6:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
I've been wondering that myself. I'm thinking they're still holding off before firing all guns. If they attack now, Obama will counter-punch and quickly rebound like he always does. They're trying to catch him in such a way that he won't have time to recover before Election Day.
The problem is the longer this keeps up, the more Obama solidifies his support. So the Republican attack groups are in a bit of a bind. Then, too, McCain just can't seem to benefit from any of the attacks. They always seem to end up driving down his numbers as well.
October 1, 2008 7:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
Obama should go up first with the "Wright" ads telling all that he disavows and disagrees with the statements of the disturbed Rev. Wright.
Of course it could be that "Citizen McCAIN" wrote a pretty scathing article about America after his return from POWdom.
October 1, 2008 6:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
Disturbed Rev. Wright?
Apparently you've bought into the McCain campaign line.
October 1, 2008 8:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
O has stoop up to the scorched earth, celebrity, empty suit rev wright attacks all year. He knows what is coming and he is well prepared to fight against it when the time comes.
October 1, 2008 7:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
where is the scorched-earth campaign, you ask? counting its dwindling fixed public campaign fund. We saw a huge blast of ads at the end of August because McCain had a glut of donations to spend. Now he has $84 million for the remainder of the campaign and has to choose which of the EVERY battleground state he has to fight for with ad dollars.
He is also still trying to put out all the fires that were ignited by Sarah Palin's horrific press interviews and all of the lashback from his frankly lying ads, which is what he was doing in Iowa two days ago - attacking the editorial board of the DesMoines Register for pretty much calling him a liar. Papers all over the country are calling him a liar. And he has to make some choices about his advertising bucks. I think he will be hamstrung in how he is going to compete in all those battleground states and at the same time take the offensive once more against Obama. He will be entirely reliant on 527's for all of that.
October 2, 2008 12:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
Scorched earth campaigns cost money and people aren't giving to McCain and his crew. Just about the time they would start giving they got a real good look at Palin and got scared. They may not vote for Obama, they may even vote for McCain but they aren't going to give any money to him or associates. Shrubs nightmare (the bailout)has nearly driven a stake into the heart of the republicans. And the one two punch of McLame and Pathetic aka FlipperDipper and Dumberthandoornails, has made life very depressing on that side of the fence.
And now the even the press has turned against them. We think what is going for the republicans is funny and it makes us happy. What if it was happening to us? Would we be encouraged to throw money at it? Don't think so.
October 2, 2008 12:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
Don't you think a small handful of super-rich guys can just funnel their dough into something called the American Progress Project or the Horizon Futures Institute and smear Obama?
I totally agree that low morale must be hurting the other side, but I also never really expected McCain himself to do the dirty work.
October 2, 2008 1:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
I read somewhere and my brother told me that really rich guys tend to vote Democrate (Warren Buffet case in point). Super rich guys tend to be fairly intelligent and will vote to protect their money. Do think any one that has a bit of money is going to trust Palin with it? I have posted this several times on this site. The old school wealthy conservative Republicains have been RUN out of their party. And what ran them out was bringing in the evangelicals with the wedge issues of abortion and homosexuals. Those issues were fanned into flames by the Repubs just to bring in the far right wingnuts and that part worked. What they didn't plan on was it was the very wingnuts like Palin would drive out the old schoolers with thier money. That is why McCain is just hanging out there all alone and always has been. Shrub killed them, Palin (and McCain) are digging their graves. I heard on NPR with my own little ears over 8 months ago from the head of the repubican party that it will take the party about 10 years to get over Shrub (okay - he did call him Bush). And this was before Afganistan got worse and the little financial problem shubbie has now.
October 2, 2008 1:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
But in spite of my ranting about the repubs I like your post. Obama is the change we have been wanting for so, and in more ways than we can fathom. We just have to make sure we are ready for it.
October 2, 2008 1:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
Just a thought. An awful lot of the soul-rotted Rebublican thugs with too much money on their hands who've been funding the sewage for the last twelve years are suddenly looking at their shrinking portfolios and lost real estate value and trying to break up their cash into deposits of less than 100K. They're wondering whether they really do have too much money on their hands and, indeed, not even sure how much they're really worth today.
I imagine its going to be a tad harder to extract a few million from some of them right now than it was in 2004.
October 2, 2008 12:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
That Swiftboat asshole, Pickens, lost several hundred million already. Now, he has been sitting out this year and has 'seen the light' on alt energy. But I hope it is indicative of his fellow Texan GOP thugs.
October 2, 2008 1:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
By "seen the light" do you mean he's seen an opportunity to fleece the government ergo the taxpayer by having them subsidize and pay for infrastructure from which he'll collect all profits? Because if you do, I totally agree with you.
October 2, 2008 3:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hard to imagine that Obama and his people haven't though about this rather more than any of us.
October 2, 2008 1:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
Very true... I hope they've got a good strategy for how to deal with the infanticide accusation, which was been circulating below the radar for a while now...
If the success of the "race speech" is any indication, they do tend to plan ahead for this sort of things.
October 2, 2008 1:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
Maybe I'm being a Pollyanna here, but...baby killing? I know, the attacks are circulating and have been for a while, as you say. But BABY KILLING? Who believes such shit? And if they do, they weren't going to vote for O anyway.
October 2, 2008 4:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hey you know the squeaky wheels get the grease so get the Clintons and some of the other senators out there campaigning for these guys. I say any red state could turn into a battleground state in the next few weeks...let's just go after every vote we can... it will make victory that much sweeter to have as many americans joining together as possible.
October 2, 2008 4:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
Post a Comment