Former McCain and Schwarzenegger chief strategist Mike Murphy and former Reagan chief speechwriter Peggy Noonan say what they really think about the Palin Pick.
Hurricane Gustav disrupted the flow of the Republican national convention. Hurricane Sarah distracted from the substance of the convention, though she has emerged as the new star of the right.
We may never know everything that Team Obama would have done to counter-program the RNC, absent the twin hurricanes. There's the TV spot for battleground states proclaiming that John McCain still means "no change," even with the rookie Alaska governor, whose principal claim to fame before 2007 is her mayoralty of a town of 6700, on the ticket.
Barack Obama's TV ad saying that the new McCain/Palin ticket means "No change" from eight years of Bush and Cheney.
There are the state-specific ads touting Joe Biden as a true son of Pennsylvania, and Obama as the champion of Michigan.
Story continues below
advertisement
Joe Biden says he is a son of "Scranton," a pivot point in the fight for Pennsylvania.
There's the radio ad for battleground states making it clear that Obama and Biden are pro-choice, and McCain and Palin, like the hardline Republican platform, are against abortion in all circumstances.
Barack Obama, in this new ad for battleground Michigan, says he is the only candidate on the side of the average American.
Obama set up a war room in St. Paul to counter the Republican spin machine. Would it have tried to match the new Steve Schmidt-inspired operation blow-for-blow?
That has certainly not been the theory of the Obama campaign.
A number of commentators on the hard right have cited McCain's status as a former fighter pilot -- actually, he flew the A-4, not the F-4, so he was a fighter-bomber attack pilot and not a fighter pilot -- to account for the swift and combative nature of his campaign. They've cited the OODA loop, military jargon for Observation-Orientation-Decision-Action. That's a false view.
McCain's campaign was fairly slow until Schmidt, who ran the Bush/Cheney war room in 2004, took over. Schmidt, as Obama campaign manager David Plouffe, who called the McCain campaign "a war room masquerading as a presidential campaign," says, comes out of the war room mentality.
But with the OODA loop, which is actually known as the Boyd Cycle, he brings something much more. OODA standing for Observation-Orientation-Decision-Action.
I introduced Schmidt, in 2006, to the Boyd Cycle. To the consternation of Schmidt's juniors in the Arnold Schwarzenegger re-election campaign, as Schmidt absorbed the very lengthy paper by retired Air Force Colonel John Boyd entitled "Patterns of Conflict" and made its principles a matter of required understanding in the Schwarzenegger campaign.
What Boyd, whose thinking played a major role in informing 1980s military reformers Gary Hart and Newt Gingrich, did is give a whole new take on the theory of conflict. For electoral politics, it means that you observe what your opponent is doing, orient yourself to it, decide what is the best course of action to defeat it, and then take that action.
Victory, as Colonel Boyd pointed out, after first noticing the pattern in studying footage of Korean War aerial dogfights, generally goes to the party which first understands what the enemy is doing and responds most swiftly and decisively. This, as Boyd pointed out in his long paper, is true in aerial dog fights and in lengthy wars involving multiple dimensions of conflict, throughout history.
Schmidt adapted this approach first in dealing with Schwarzenegger's hapless Democratic 2006 gubernatorial opponent, Phil Angelides. More recently, he used the approach to deconstruct Obama's greatest strength and turn it into a weakness, in the form of the "celebrity" ads which countered Obama's triumphant tour of the Middle East and Western Europe.
Of course, the Boyd Cycle can be used against McCain, as well. As I have pointed out, without previously referring to the Boyd Cycle per se.
The Obama campaign has employed an entirely different theory of conflict. Unlike Team McCain, they don't try to win every angle and turn of the media cycle. And they seldom get inside what their opponents are doing.
They might have started doing that this week. But we may never know, as Hurricanes Gustav and Sarah made it impossible to do so while still looking good for the public.
Bill O'Reilly started working on booking Barack Obama in January, as you see in this video of his fractious encounter with Obama's advance staff and Secret Service detail.
One thing that Obama is doing against the grain, for a change, is appearing on the Fox News program "The O'Reilly Factor" on Thursday night, the same night that John McCain gives his acceptance speech at the Republican national convention.
Here we see Bill O'Reilly trying to book that program, last January in New Hampshire. And, as O'Reilly shouts away, running into serious difficulty with Obama's advance staff and the Secret Service.
Here is the script to Obama's radio ad, which you can listen to here, now running in most of the battleground states, addressing the threat posed by the McCain/Palin ticket to abortion rights.
OBAMA: I'm Barack Obama, candidate for president, and I approved this message.
VAL BARON: As a nurse practitioner with Planned Parenthood, I know abortion is one of most difficult decisions a woman will ever make. I'm Val Baron. Let me tell you - if Roe v Wade is overturned, the lives and health of women will be put at risk. That's why this election is so important. John McCain's out of touch with women today. McCain wants to take away our right to choose. That's what women need to understand. That's how high the stakes are.
ANNCR: As president, John McCain will make abortion illegal. McCain says quote, "I do not support Roe v. Wade. It should be overturned." And listen to McCain's answer on Meet the Press:
RUSSERT: "A constitutional amendment to ban all abortions. You're for that?"
McCAIN: "Yes, sir."
VAL BARON: We can't let John McCain take away our right to choose. We can't let him take us back.
Want to reply to a comment? Hint: Click "Reply" at the bottom of the
comment; after being approved your comment will appear directly underneath the
comment you replied to
Okay, so isn't it time to shoot back? Make Mccain mad. He cant handle it. Show an add with a senior citizen desperately needing money, standing in front of a savings and loan with a "Closed" sign. Keating 5 scandal. The Holy Joes don't like Mccain. Find some way to peel them off. Too bad dumping your crippled first wife has no affect on Republicans. Must be a secret initiation rite.
I'm sure Palin is wrapped pretty tight too in the temper department. She seems used to getting her own way, medium sized fish in a small pond. What would rattle her cage? If they want to make this about culture, values and personality you have to prove that the person has no culture, lousy values and the personality of a hungry gator.
As United States naval ships were supplying Georgians with weapons under humanitarian aid coverage and with another ($1B) One Billion in military aid being sent to the former Soviet Republic of Georgia, by the American Military Industrial Complex, after the Soviet Russian envoy to (NATO), the North Atlantic Treaty Organization on August 27th, stated that U.S. assistance to Georgia would be a "declaration of war";
But, the (DIPN) Democratic Imperial Presidential Nominee to the (MIC) Military Industrial Complex remains silent as the (IVP) Imperial Vice President throws gas on the fire in the former Soviet Republic of Georgia.
Unnamed CIA intelligence operatives are saying that in response, the Israelis reportedly have stopped providing weapons to Georgia, and have sent representatives to Moscow to try to persuade Russia not to sell the missiles to Iran.
Failing that the Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf reports that a report by Dutch military intelligence has reported that the (IDF) Israeli Defense Force and Mossad had suspended an operation aimed at sabotaging Iran's weapons industry based on their expectation of a combined United States and Israeli attack in the coming weeks, between September 22nd and October 7th, the best date being during the Autumnal Equinox of September 22nd.
is it just me? have i missed something? is sarah palin..that simple minded unaccomplished "soccer mom" actually considered a legitimate candidate for the vice presidency of the united states. even with the bar having been set so low that spiro agnew.dan quayle and dick cheney held the job..it just does not seem plausible.i think its just a simple matter of the racist faction of the american electorate needing a "figurehead" to rally around.is she racist enough to satisfy the needs of that segment of the population that the GOP almost always needs to stoke up in order to get close enough to steal elections? maybe..but for the sake of this nation..lets hope not.much is being made about her being a "working mom". the problem is..thats all she is. a mother that works.sadly..any white woman able to stand up and brag about being a "soccer mom" as opposed to "basketball" or "football mom" meaning probably black mothers.. would have fulfilled the needs of john mccain and the racists. john mccain looked at obama and michelle two brilliant accomplished ..well qualified people.. when they stood up in front of 85,000 screaming supporters in a football stadium..realized that he was toast...panicked..and went straight to the "southern strategy" only this time he had to go to the far northern state of alaska to invoke that perrenial GOP "golden ticket".
John McCain and Sarah Palin are bragging about the fact that her 17 year old daughter is going to have the baby that she conceived out of wed-lock and they keep talking about it being their choice to do so. Why on earth do these people think they have the right to take away someone elses right to choose what would be best for their life. When Palin says that the media are being unfair, I just have to ask her why she thinks she can decide for all of us and then tell us that we do not have the right to talk about her choice. The religious right has taken control of the Republican Party and they are going to dictate to all of America what we can and cannot do according to their belief system. That is not America and it is not the Party of Lincoln!
Kinda hardfor the Republicans to reach across the aisle when they're spending all their time slandering the Demoncrats vs. addressing the actual issues. How about some substance instead of insults? Oh, I'm sorry, they don't have any, do they...
Lest we forget, the Democrats have only "controlled" Congress since Jan 2007. This "corrupt Washington" of which the McCain camp speaks is a product of Republican doing. Wasn't it the Republicans that, when in control of the Congress, had more earmarks and give-aways than any other Congress before them? So, in essence, they RNC is now claiming to come in and dismantle the corruption they created.
I think the DNC is being far less ambitious here than they should. Instead of calling for the White House, Obama should be also starting to focus on getting the Congress he needs to actually accomplish what he wants: citizens that are less interested in villifying their oponents than in working with them to do the People's work.
Yes, and he has to whether we like it or not, Fox does have a very large viewing audience and Fox has been telling lies on Obama for too long. He must go there and set the record straight as much as he can. I will be praying for God to be with him and I know he will be alright. I am choosing to believe it will be a positive thing in the end.
Posted September 3, 2008 | 08:29 PM (EST)