Schumer: Obama Should "Hit Back Hard"

Politico:

One of the Democratic Party's leading electoral street fighters, New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, said that Barack Obama should respond to John McCain's personal attacks with an equally personal slap.

"I would not be afraid to attack back," said Schumer, who chairs the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee, in an interview with Politico.

"I thought the Britney Spears commercial was powerful," Schumer said, referring to McCain's television ad casting Obama as a vapid "celebrity."

Read the whole story: Politico

Comments

[barackobama4prez]

Didn't work for his candidate and won't work for JMac. When we want your opinion, we'll give it to you Shumer. You picked the wrong candidate to endorse. Why the hell would we listen to you. It's all these guys know how to fight. It's like they pride themselves on being ignorant.

[mostlybluedot]

McCain is defining BO just like he Swiftees did to Kerry. He had better fight back or look like he agrees and has nothing to say, just like Kerry. The Dems have a way of losing sure things. I think they are all wimps.

[Marlyn]

BLUE DOG Schumer should SHUT UP.

[riverhouse]

I'm waiting for the debates, presuming that is the venue at which our candidate will smack the old goper with his, shall we say, shortcomings.

[Graywolf48]

By the time of the debates, minds will have already been made up. Kerry won the debates fair and square, even with Bush getting help through a hidden ear piece. All during August, while Kerry vacationed and wind surfed, Rove and Bush defined the Kerry candidacy, eroded any gains he had made in the polls, framed the debate and kept Kerry on the defensive answering charges and repeated lies. The press, as now, is quick to print the lies and very slow in reporting the facts when the rebuttals come. Same as McCain is doing now. Same play book and in the end maybe the same results. In in southeast Ohio, all I see is McCain ads about Obama raising taxes, killing jobs, being nothing more than a "celebrity". The ad is pure "big lie" from beginning to end, but it runs constantly and is having an impact. At this rate, by the time Obama responds the negatives will be firmly planted and the damage done. I'm afraid, like Kerry, Obama will snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

[poliscibabe]

Here is the real plan - tell the truth and in the last 10 days to the election show how McCain wouldn't know the truth if it bit him in a very painful place. McCain has left a trail of bad decisions, statements, misteps and lies that can and will be exploited when it really counts - after Labor day. In the meantime the Democratic party could help Barack out by making sure that attempts to paint him as stupid, naive or "not ready to lead" are NEVER left without a quick response. When the VP is named obviously one of their jobs will be to punch back, thus leaving Barack with a better position to destroy McCain with the TRUTH.

[NotMcCain]

Schumer: "I would not be afraid to hit back."

Oh. Yeah?

Let's see what you've got, Senator. TALK is CHEAP!!!

I'd have more respect for Schumer if he was using precious media time attacking McCAIN, rather than showing off his great "advice".

Next time, how about saying this instead:

"I AM not afraid to hit back. For example...."

[jukesgrrl]

VERY good point. All Democrats should be doing this. Don't talk about Obama except to say he has your support. Just talk about how bad BushCo policies were and how McCain is just more of the same. Over and over and over. Republicans = Disaster.

[OliverTwist]

Sen. Schumer should be savy enough to know that Obama needs to lay back now and then to pressure the media to write more sentences that say "McCain active verb some noun which is other than Obama."

Schumer isn't helping by keeping Obama the subject.

[gypsy508]

What Obama needs is substance not negative campaigning. Everyone in the country knows what McCain's energy plan is, whether they agree or disagree. Few have a clue about Obama's. The Democrats have lost one election after another by playing the lesser of two evils card. It doesn't work. Obama can't be everything to everybody. He has to take stronger stands on issues.

[HerbTee]

Yeah, we all know McCain's energy plan...DRILL NOW, DRILL NOW, DRILL NOW!! He has no comprehensive long-term environmentally friendly energy plans or policies, no plans to start reducing our oil consumption to gradually wean ourselves from foreign oil, no plans for building new refineries to process the domestic oil we'll produce, etc. His idea is just drill for more oil that won't even make a dent in the market or reduce prices at the pump for many years. In other words, McCain's ideas are all election year pandering gimmicks for those too stupid to recognize them. It's funny that McCain's been in Washington for almost 30 years and even during times when the Repugnicans were in charge of the WH, the House and the Senate. Yet the Repugs couldn't come up with any energy plans either.

But keep blaming the Democrats for it all though, if that makes the Repugs feel more superior. In the meantime, the working class blue collar morons who're supporting McCain will continue to pay higher prices for just about everything like the rest of us so-called liberals. The Repugs don't care about any blue collar morons, except to depend on their stupidity, fears, jingoism, xenophobia, character assassinations and racism in order to win elections.

[Marlyn]

"we all know McCain's energy plan...DRILL NOW, DRILL NOW, DRILL NOW!! " ???

Actually McCain's energy plan is for more NUCLEAR POWER when we all know that nuclear is the MOST EXPENSIVE, takes the longest to build, and produces toxic waste that can NEVER be disposed of, and might even be used as a weapon.

McCain points to France as a nation that is going 99% nuclear. I'll bet as soon as people realize that WIND is the way to go, they will scrap the nuclear approach.

[Bendersky]

Same old trap: Repubs go sleazy and juvenile and issue attack after attack, and the dems let themselves be used as a punching bag because they're "not suppose to go negative." And this strategy worked so well for Gore and Kerry.

Obama (and his pitbulls) need to come out swinging and get their hands dirty. McCaine says or does something idiotic virtually every day and the press treats him with kid gloves (e.g. recent fundraising scandal). Obama blows his nose and is critiqued on style. Come on, O, where the hell have you gone?

[Marlyn]

Bendersky, you are on the low road. You won't see Obama there.

[neworleanslady68]

I am always so conflicted about this.

I was proud of John Kerry last time for trying to run a clean campaign.

Then he lost. His opponents' lies stuck.

This time, I am proud of Obama for trying to run a clean campaign. McCain's "kitchen sink" strategy makes him look so bad, but it seems to be working.

So sometimes I think maybe we have to get down and dirty like the Reps.

[darthdarcy]

Obama should be attacking hard on the offensive alright, but on the issues and he is not doing that..!

Why is Obama not taking full advantage of all of the issues Bush and MCain and the Republicans have given him to exploit..?

[Wingit]

McBush's campaign is walking into a huge political trap. Let him continue his walk. All of this negativity will backfire on him when the Obama campaign is ready to use it. As it now stands the McBush campaign can be destroyed with a series of three ads. Not negative ads, but ads pointing out McBush's negativity and lies. Let him continue to supply the ammo that will eventually take down his own campaign. Have patience.

[Zumthorbot]

McCain has a chatty cathy doll noise machine behind him.
Obama has himself, and Kerry. Every other dem surrogate is worthless so far.

Surrogate hard, Schumer!!! If not, then shut up! You are helping no one with your critique.

[joeinvt]

Here is something Obama could borrow from a fellow Democrat to critique McCain's tax cutting plans:

"I would repeal the tax cuts for upper-income people. I myself have gotten 4 tax cuts while young Americans have gone off to risk their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan, while we've had this massive natural disaster. We've run up this huge deficit. How are we covering this money? We are borrowing the money from China, Japan, Korea, Saudi Arabia to pay for the suffering of our people in the Gulf area, to pay for the Iraq War, and to cover my tax cuts — and we are expecting our children to pay the bill. We've made a decision to lower the living standards of our children and grandchildren and to soak other people around the world who don't have the money we do, by and large, to cover our self-indulgence."

Short, sweet, and to the point.

[LondonTownNY]

Personally, if it were me, I would be inclined to get all Brooklyn and whack McCain and the Neocon Henchmen running his campaign across the back of their heads with a 2x4 repeatedly until all the rocks which fill their empty heads spilled to the ground. McCain's campaign is defrauding America. Obama, however, is not me, nor is he Chuck Schumer. Obama is a transformational candidate, a unique persona with a strategic bent and a very talented team. Deep down I have confidence that this will not be 2000 or 2004. Obama's strategy appears to allow McCain to "blow his load" and to continue to flood the airwaves and the mainstream media outlets with cheap negative attacks in an attempt to place a label on Obama. In the end, I think it will become abundantly clear to all Americans, including the racists and those who's intellect places them on the left side of the bell curve, that McCain and the party of Bush/Cheney/Rove/McCain/Rumsfeld/Wolfowitz/Gonzales really has NOTHING to offer America other than fear.

[allonfla]

As soon as Barack goes personally negative - His numbers will drop because the new meme from mccain and the msm is that obama is not who he says he is and will do anything to win. they will work the fact/opinion that voters do not know Obama. Obama should not mention mccain's lifestyle, his fellow democrats should get in front and say these things while obama focuses on the positive.

[frappe]

If his attacks are based on actual fact and the political record, then he has nothing to fear. He will, in essence, be "educating" the public, and the republicans will "feel" it as an attack. He should not be shy about telling the truth about the republican frauds, liars, and incompetents who have been running our government for the past 8 to 12 years.

[highlyamused]

Oh I think the republicans will do more than "feel" it's an attack. They'll scream it from the rooftops and whip themselves up into a righteous indignation.

[naschkatze]

I'd like to see Obama use "real people" ads against McCain. If you could find any people who lost their pensions and life savings due to the Keating Five, for example. Or real veterans challenging the national veteran McCain on what he has really done for veterans, if anything.

[abby4ever]

***As soon as Barack goes personally negative - His numbers will drop...*** said H to Schumer, who then gave an interview encouraging O to go on the attack, to hit hard, etc.

[Marlyn]

Exactly right.

[ohiomark]

Careful Scmucky, every time you open your mouth, another bank collapses.