Have you ever seen a rope-a-dope in politics?

scrawled by Blaine | September 9, 2008 6:42 AM

Obama must step it up and find his voice against this misnomer. Palin is not a contender and the plight of her daughter is not a noble cause. The Dems need to play up their strong points and shine their light if they don't want to fight dirty with the Rep. This thing is do or die, and Hilary can help if she is the one to dish the dirt and say the very things that you have said about Palin coming from Hilary its not dirty it is the truth uncovering the lie.

scrawled by mdwaire | September 9, 2008 7:26 AM

We're still only two news days past the Repuclican Convention. Last week was essentially a "gimme" for McCain.

Didn't catch Obama on Olbermann, but his new ads seem pretty decent -- still tying McCain to Bush, doing his best to dispel the "maverick" myth.

I don't think the media are going to stop talking about Palin any time soon. I don't know what's on the TV news, but the papers seem to be focusing on the Bridge to Nowhere story and the fact that she won't do interviews for the next couple weeks. I don't know how much difference that's going to make to the average voter, but to independents who read the Wall Street Journal, the fact that even a conservative, Murdoch-owned outlet is lambasting her claims of small-government fiscal conservatism may give them pause. But again, that's not a demo that's likely to swing the election.

It bears noting that the national polls are misleading because we don't have a national election, we have 50 state elections plus DC. And, per Rasmussen looking at five key swing states ( http://tinyurl.com/55dsth ), McCain's only major lead is in Ohio.

A few months back I was wishing he'd hit back harder at Clinton, but it turned out he didn't need to. I think he knows what he's doing.

scrawled by Thad | September 9, 2008 2:44 PM

"But Barack is off-message for more than a week now. Is Obama trying to rope-a-dope McCain, or is he foundering?"

I had these concerns throughout the primary. I don't think he knows how to focus an attack and still come off as a leader, rather than part of the crowd of noisemakers. It's a tough thing. I don't know if there's enough time for him to learn it.

scrawled by Matt Adler | September 9, 2008 3:23 PM

I think it's him-- it's just his personality. He's not a guy who hollers in the street. He seems incredulous that McCain's tactics are working, that people are falling for it. Despite new reports--al over the place now--rebutting Palin's various claims, Palin is still soaring high with the soccer moms. The GOP own the agenda and are now forcing Obama to run against Sarah Palin. Obama just can't believe he's losing to this guy.

OTOH, Obama may be right: this Palin thing has a certain half-life. The main gamble, for Obama, is how long that half-life is. Sooner or later the press will tire of Palin and will either turn against her or ignore her.

Meanwhile, if the Obama campaign had a spine, they'd be running a faux McCain ad:

McCAIN: HE THINKS YOU'RE STUPID.

scrawled by priest | September 9, 2008 5:07 PM

Thad--completely agree. Obama's other strength is his stealth campaigning. I'm not sure he's all that concerned abut the national polls. Obama fights house-to-house, fighting a surgical battle across key districts to win swing states. It's a smart campaign, and THAT's the rope-a-dope: to lull the McCainites into a false sense of security with the Palin nonsense while doing the tough groundwork at the grass rots level that makes a difference where it counts--in the electoral college.

McCAIN: REMEMBER, *HE*'S THE NOMINEE, NOT HER.

McCAIN: HE'LL BE SENDING HER TO FUNERALS FOR FOUR YEARS,
PERHAPS ENDING WITH HIS OWN

scrawled by priest | September 9, 2008 5:13 PM

Some more ads that they might want to run can be found athttp://www.youtube.com/user/BillORights1776

(Not a robot tonight either. :) )

scrawled by David Van Domelen | September 9, 2008 9:45 PM

It also bears noting that the traditional polls are likely to miss new voters. AFAIK pollsters still don't call cell phones -- I'm 25 and I don't have a land line. (I DID happen to be at my family's house, where I keep my permanent address and my voter registration, to answer a poll right before Super Tuesday, but that was the only time any pollster's called me since I turned 18 in 2000, and my being there to answer was pure chance.)

Of course, it's possible that the youth vote, the black vote, or any of Obama's other demos will stay at their usual levels, or at least won't increase enough to make a difference. But I think the numbers at this pont suggest an increase over '04's record, and I really don't see the influx of new voters being here for McCain.

None of which, of course, should be taken as read. Obama needs to keep up his A game. Like you say, his strength is in grassroots organizing, and between his speech and Sarah Palin's, his base is fired up -- I think a lot of his strongest supporters were deflated by his FISA vote (I had a friend who went out-of-state to volunteer for him and decided to come home early -- not over FISA so much as the fact that she was running out of money, but his repeated "compromises" after securing the nomination certainly diminished her enthusiasm) but are getting excited about campaigning for him again.

scrawled by Thad | September 10, 2008 2:41 AM

DVD--hilarious.

Wish Obama was in the game. It's just not his game--he obviously believe stick to issues and win. Chase McCain on trivialities, and he loses. I'm not sure he's wrong.

And I believe the Palin thing will implode. I think she just gave the press something to write about. And write about. And write about. They will eventually write about something else.

But the soccer moms voting for her because she's a woman is just as annoying, for me, as blacks voting for Obama just because he's black. The difference being, blacks didn't rally to Obama until it became clear his candidacy was viable.

Whit women just flocked to Palin on spec. It's very frightening.

scrawled by priest | September 10, 2008 6:35 AM

MCCAIN: IT'S OKAY TO COMPARE HIS RUNNING MATE TO A DOG, BUT HE DRAWS THE LINE AT PIG.

scrawled by Matt Adler | September 10, 2008 7:10 AM

Polls show that the McCain ticket's support among white women didn't increase much...maybe three percentage points. Of course, they were already in his pocket.

White male support for the ticket did increase noticeably (6 points, IIRC)...the VPILF factor?

scrawled by Dave Van Domelen | September 10, 2008 7:21 AM

Sen. Obama and his crew definitely need to come hardcore, especially now that the election is less than two months away-- What ticks me off about the Democratic party is that, generally speaking, they're scared to death of coming off as "too radical" on any issue, with the idea being that they'd scare the middle/moderates/independents/soccer-mom-block clubs, etc., and they mock the radical left as being too fringe, but then inevitably the GOP candidates get to kick their behind anyway, and the Dems walk away like "um, well, we tried?"
if Sarah Palin's right and Hockey Moms are like pitbulls, Sen. Obama and the Dems need to let the dogs out, too..

scrawled by christopher currie | September 10, 2008 10:14 AM

Obama hit EXACTLY the right note today. Not belligerent-- belittling. The McCainites should feel like crap. But they won't. Nothing is sticking--despite virtually all the news nets now de-bunking many of Palin's claims. Her enthusiastic supporters don't seem to watch much news. They seem to be taking her entirely at face value, entirely on spec, unquestioning, not considering her positions on any issues or her past record.

She's a soccer mom. Like them. They're in.

This is what's so scary about all of this: I don't even think these women *like* John McCain or know much about him, either. But they're lined up to pull the lever.

scrawled by priest | September 10, 2008 11:37 AM

Priest --

I think you're right on people taking Palin on spec. But I also think there's plenty of time for that to change.

Biden's waiting for his opportunity to say, "Governor, you're no Hillary Clinton" in the VP debate.

scrawled by Thad | September 10, 2008 5:41 PM

Yeah, but why doesn't *Hillary* do that? Why's she pulling her punches?

scrawled by priest | September 10, 2008 8:52 PM