Jesse Lee is the Online Rapid Response Manager for the DNC, this is a daily update on the day's happenings which will continue through the election.
...So said DNC Senior Comm Advisor Brad Woodhouse this morning with a Southern twang and an unnecessarily high decibel level after reading Obama Campaign Manager David Plouffe's memo on the state of the race:
Plouffe: "Today is the first day of the rest of the campaign, and today we are releasing two new ads that go directly at the fundamental issue in this race: John McCain is out of touch with the American people and unable to address the challenges facing the country in the 21st century and bring about real change, and that Barack Obama is the candidate who will bring about change that works for the middle class. We will respond with speed and ferocity to John McCain's attacks and we will take the fight to him, but we will do it on the big issues that matter to the American people. We will not allow John McCain and his band of Karl Rove disciples to make this big election about small things."
The proof is in the pudding. Today's hit is "out of touch," more coming tomorrow...
Also out this morning so far...
Durbin: McCain 'Completely Out of Touch'
Shailagh Murray, Washington Post - September 12, 2008
Obama to pressure McCain on openness
Mike Allen, Politico - September 12, 2008
Obama hits McCain on trade: Which country first?
Ben Smith, Politico - September 12, 2008
And as the Obama campaign burns through the cobwebs of deception and distraction thrown up by the McCain campaign over the past two weeks, the McCain campaign can't sustain the charade that they're anything but more of the same. After a fortnight of lying, having their lies exposed, then repeating the lies as if nothing happened, the McCain campaign finds that nobody can even take them seriously any more.
Howard Kurtz, WaPo: "The lipstick imbroglio is evidence that the Drudge/Fox/New York Post axis can drive just about any story into mainstream land. Does anyone seriously believe that Barack Obama was calling Sarah Palin a pig? What about the fact that McCain has used 'lipstick on a pig' before? What about the book by that title by former McCain aide Torie Clarke? Never mind: get the cable bookers to line up women on opposite sides of the lipstick divide and let them claw at each other!"
Charles Babington, AP: "The 'Straight Talk Express' has detoured into doublespeak. Republican presidential nominee John McCain, a self-proclaimed tell-it-like-it-is maverick, keeps saying his running mate, Sarah Palin, killed the federally funded Bridge to Nowhere when, in fact, she pulled her support only after the project became a political embarrassment. He accuses Democrat Barack Obama of calling Palin a pig, which did not happen. He says Obama would raise nearly everyone's taxes, when independent groups say 80 percent of families would get tax cuts instead."
Oh, and there's much, much, much more on that descent into absurdity, including on their new press release ad (airing in "key states"!).
And then there's "the interview." The reviews are most unfortunate:
AP: "John McCain running mate Sarah Palin sought Thursday to defend her qualifications but struggled with foreign policy, unable to describe President Bush's doctrine of pre-emptive strikes against threatening nations and acknowledging she's never met a foreign head of state."
ABC: "Palin Flip-Flops on Whether Global Warming Has Man-Made Causes; Falsely Claims She Never Suggested Otherwise"
WaPo: "GOP Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin tonight appeared to back Barack Obama's assertion that the United States could attack targets in Pakistan without the country's permission -- a position that her running mate Sen. John McCain has called 'naïve.'"
Do flip-flops count as "change"? Also, coming soon: the next ad from the McCain campaign promising change from President Bush, funded by money raised by... President Bush.